The N'ko alphabet made its first appearance in Bingerville, Côte d'Ivoire, on 14 April 1949? The invention of Souleymane Kanté of Kankan, Republic of Guinea, this alphabet constituted an attempt to provide a truly indigenous written form for Mande languages. Since its invention, a grassroots movement promoting literacy in the N'ko alphabet has spread across West Africa from the Gambia to Nigeria. A significant number of the speakers of Mande languages in Francophone as well as Anglophone West Africa have learned the N'ko alphabet, even though their governments use French or English as official languages and Muslim Mande-speaking religious leaders use Arabic in prayers and for study and teaching. The number of those who are literate in N'ko has increased without government intervention or support during the colonial and independence periods and without official support from the Islamic religious community. N'ko spread at the grassroots level because it met practical needs and enabled speakers of Mande languages to take pride in their cultural heritage. Informants from Kankan and its vicinity, one small part of the large region of N'ko's spread, said that their motivation to learn the alphabet was due to pride in their culture.
Here I examine the emergence of the N'ko alphabet as an indigenously created writing system currently used by speakers of Mande languages in the Republic of Guinea and in other countries across West Africa; the reasons behind the alphabet's creation and the process by which the alphabet evolved; seeks briefly to identify the process by which the alphabet was disseminated under the guidance of its creator in a grassroots movement fueled by individual initiative, I offer some indications as to the depth and breath of N'ko literacy within the Mande-speaking community. Finally, it discusses the motivation for learning the N'ko alphabet and the problems it poses for one local community.