Testing orthographies in the Nko and Roman scripts

There is, historically, a wide variation in the proposals concerning tonal orthography design in Mande languages using the Roman script. Few of these proposals are based on the results of empirical reading tests. Equally rare in these proposals is consideration given to the cultural insider’s perspective of their own phonology. The orthography of Solomaana Kantɛ, inventor of the Nko script, can provide much intuitive information on this perspective for Maninka and related languages. Therefore I have tested how Maninka readers interact with the orthographies of the Nko and Roman scripts. The paper concludes with a new proposal for indicating the definite and indefinite determiners on nouns in a practical orthography. This proposal is informed by a cultural insider’s perspective the phonology of his own language and it is strengthened by testing.