Symbols
70Click a symbol to copy it and open its page.
Kpelle alphabet
One row per base letter, in Kpelle alphabetical order. The added letters stand to the right of the letter they follow in the alphabet: ɓ after b, ə and ɛ after e, ĝ and ɣ after g, ɲ and ŋ after n, ɔ after o. There is no c, q, r, s or x; kp and gb are written with two letters.
Punctuation
Kpelle uses the same punctuation as English in Liberia; texts from Guinea often follow French and use guillemets.
Currency
The Liberian dollar is written with the plain dollar sign, as L$ or LD$. The Guinean franc has no sign of its own and is written GNF or FG.
Where it's spoken
Liberia first, then Guinea; speaker estimates vary by source.
Rice and music
Rice farming and drumming are at the heart of Kpelle village life.
On the map
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The Kpelle alphabet from A to Z
Kpelle is a Mande language of West Africa, a close relative of Loma and Mende, and one of Liberia's most widely spoken indigenous languages. Liberian and Guinean Kpelle use different Latin orthographies. Both include r and s and use digraphs such as gb and kp; the Guinean standard uses Ɠ ɠ, while the Liberian standard uses Ɣ ɣ. CLDR's Kpelle character list does not fully match either regional standard, so it should not be presented as one complete alphabet.
Neither standard Latin orthography uses c, q or x as regular letters. Both include r and s, so those letters belong to Kpelle spelling itself, not only to English spellings of place names.
Two of the most typical Kpelle sounds need no special character at all. kp and gb are single consonants in which the lips and the back of the tongue close at the same moment, and they are written as pairs of ordinary letters. The name of the language starts with one: in its own spelling the people and the language are Kpɛlɛɛ, and the Gb of Gbarnga is the other.
What Ɓ ɓ, Ɛ ɛ, Ɔ ɔ, Ŋ ŋ, Ɣ ɣ and the other Kpelle letters do
Most of the added letters are borrowed from the International Phonetic Alphabet, where they stand for the same sounds, and each of them is a letter of its own, not a decorated version of another. Ɛ ɛ is an open e, close to the vowel of English bed, while plain e is higher, nearer French é. Ɔ ɔ is an open o, close to the vowel of British law, while plain o is the o of go. Ə ə, the schwa, is a central vowel.
Ɓ ɓ, b with a hook, is an implosive b, said while drawing air inwards instead of pushing it out. Ɣ ɣ is a voiced fricative made at the back of the mouth, a soft, throaty g that never fully closes. Ŋ ŋ, called eng, is the ng of English sing. Ɲ ɲ, n with a left hook, is the ny sound of Spanish ñ. Guinean Kpelle uses Ɠ ɠ (g with a hook); neither standard uses Ĝ ĝ.
Kpelle is a tonal language: the pitch of a syllable can tell two otherwise identical words apart. The 1989 Guinean orthography can mark tone with diacritics, so the basic alphabet's lack of tone marks should not be read as a ban on accented vowels. In Guinea, where texts follow French habits, you will see the name written Kpèlè with grave accents, and in French the people are also called Guerzé.
How to type Kpelle letters: ɛ, ɔ, ŋ, ɓ and the rest
The quickest way is to copy them from the grid on this page. In Microsoft Word for Windows, type the Unicode code and press AltX immediately after it to convert it: type 025B then AltX for ɛ, 0190 for Ɛ, 0254 for ɔ, 0186 for Ɔ, 014B for ŋ, 014A for Ŋ, 0253 for ɓ, 0181 for Ɓ, 0263 for ɣ, 0194 for Ɣ, 0272 for ɲ, 019D for Ɲ, 0259 for ə, 018F for Ə, 0260 for ɠ and 0193 for Ɠ. On a Mac, add the Unicode Hex Input keyboard in System Settings, hold Option and type the same four-digit code.
In HTML, ŋ and Ŋ have the named entities ŋ and Ŋ; numeric references can insert other letters, for example ɠ for ɠ and Ɠ for Ɠ. For regular writing, a keyboard layout for West African Latin letters, such as those that can be built with the free Keyman platform, can put these letters a key or two away on a computer or phone.
Watch out for look-alikes. ɛ is not the Greek epsilon ε, Ɣ ɣ is the Latin gamma and not Greek Γ γ, ɔ is not a reversed c, and the capital schwa Ə is a different letter from the reversed E Ǝ used in some other African alphabets. They look nearly the same on screen, but a search engine, a spell checker or a database treats them as different characters, so a name typed with the wrong one will not be found.
Where Kpelle is spoken
Kpelle is spoken mainly in Liberia and Guinea (some sources also list Côte d'Ivoire); CLDR's Kpelle locale page provides character data, not speaker estimates. In Liberia the Kpelle heartland is Bong County, around Gbarnga, and the neighbouring central counties; in Guinea it is the forest region of the south-east around Nzérékoré. English is the official language of Liberia; Guinea's Constitution makes French and the national languages official, so many Kpelle speakers read and write those as well, which is why both sets of quotation marks, “ ” and « », are in the grid.
The Liberian dollar is written with the ordinary dollar sign, as L or LD, and Guinea's franc is written GNF or FG, with no sign of its own. For the flag, the money and the emoji of each country see the Liberia and Guinea collections. Kpelle's neighbours have pages too: Bassa, with its own Bassa Vah alphabet; Vai, with the syllabary created in the 1830s; Mende, its close relative in Sierra Leone; Dan and Liberian English; Bambara; and Ewe, which uses ɛ, ɔ and ŋ and writes the palatal nasal as ny rather than ɲ.
Kpelle also has a script of its own, a syllabary devised in the 1930s by a Kpelle chief named Gbili. It is little used today; Kpelle is now usually written in regional forms of the Latin alphabet, which differ between Guinea and Liberia.
How to use them
5 situationsClick to copyKpelle Alphabet combos
10Worth knowing
- The very name Kpelle begins with kp, a consonant English does not have: the lips and the back of the tongue close together, so k and p are said at once.
- In the 1960s the psychologist Michael Cole and the mathematician John Gay studied how Kpelle rice farmers measure and count, and found the farmers judged quantities of rice better than the Americans they were compared with; their book was called The New Mathematics and an Old Culture.
- Kpelle had its own script before the Latin alphabet spread: a syllabary devised in the 1930s by a chief named Gbili.
- Ɣ ɣ looks like Greek gamma but is a separate Latin letter in Unicode, made for African alphabets such as Kpelle's and Ewe's.
Questions people ask
7What is the Kpelle alphabet?
There is no single Latin alphabet shared by Liberian and Guinean Kpelle. Both standards include r and s and digraphs such as gb and kp; Guinea uses Ɠ ɠ, while Liberia uses Ɣ ɣ. CLDR's locale character list does not fully match either regional standard.
How many letters are in the Kpelle alphabet?
The Guinean standard has 29 single-character forms and the Liberian standard 26; both also use digraphs, including kp and gb.
How do you type Kpelle letters like ɛ, ɔ and ŋ?
Copy them from this page, or in Word type 025B, 0254 or 014B and press AltX (0190, 0186 and 014A for the capitals Ɛ, Ɔ, Ŋ). On a Mac use the Unicode Hex Input keyboard and hold Option while typing the same code.
Where is the Kpelle language spoken?
In central Liberia, above all Bong County around Gbarnga, and in the forest region of south-eastern Guinea around Nzérékoré. CLDR's Kpelle locale page provides character data, not a speaker estimate.
Is there a Kpelle script?
Yes, a syllabary devised in the 1930s by a Kpelle chief named Gbili, but it is little used; Kpelle is normally written in regional Latin orthographies, which differ between Liberia and Guinea.
Is Kpelle a tonal language?
Yes. Tone distinctions can change word meanings. The 1989 Guinean orthography can mark tone with diacritics, so the basic alphabet's lack of tone marks does not mean accented vowels are forbidden.
Is the Kpelle ɣ the same as the Greek gamma γ?
No. They look alike, but Ɣ ɣ (U0194, U0263) is a Latin letter and Γ γ is Greek; use the Latin one in Kpelle words so they can be searched and spell-checked.
