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Temne is a Mel language (southern branch of the West Atlantic branch of Niger Congo). (Webbook)
Ethnologue lists the classification as: Niger-Congo, Atlantic-Congo, Atlantic, Southern, Mel, Temne, Temne-Banta
Some alternate spellings (from Ethnologue and Wikipedia): Themne, Timne, Timene, Timmannee, Temen
It is spoken in the northern half of Sierra Leone. (Webbook)
According to Ethnologue:
Cranmer (1980) did a preliminary survey for the United Bible Societies, Magburka, Sierra Leone. Most available Temne materials are in either the Western or Bombali dialect. (Webbook)
Accoeding to Ethnologue:
Temne is one of the four official languages of Sierra Leone. It is also used as a lingua franca in predominantly Temne-speaking areas. Radio broadcasts are heard daily in Temne in Sierra Leone. (Webbook)
Notes from Ethnologue:
Nemer notes "a new orthography was developed as part of the 'Literacy Programme for the Indigenous Languages' in 1980 by the Ministry of Education in Sierra Leone. This orthography has been used in three primary school readers, a word list and a number of health pamphlets as of this date." (Webbook) [update]
It is a Latin-based orthography that includes some extended characters..
Alphabet as reported by Hartell (1993) and presented in Systèmes alphabétiques: http://sumale.vjf.cnrs.fr/phono/AfficheTableauOrtho2N.php?choixLangue=themne
A sample text is shown on the "Language Museum" site: http://www.language-museum.com/t/themne.htm (this is an excerpt from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights [see below, 7c]; it is not clear if the diacritic shown is standard)
A proposed orthography from a workshop in 1980 follows (UCC/UMC 1980) [NB- not clear on current status]:
Unicode fonts with extended Latin ranges would be necessary.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights: http://www.unhchr.ch/udhr/lang/tej.htm
Not aware of any localisation efforts.
Chanard, Christian (2006), Systèmes alphabétiques des langues africaines, LLACAN, CNRS, http://sumale.vjf.cnrs.fr/phono/
Dwyer, David (1997), Webbook of African Languages, http://www.isp.msu.edu/AfrLang/hiermenu.html (page on "Temne," http://www.isp.msu.edu/AfrLang/Temne_root.html )
Hartell, Rhonda L., ed. (1993), The Alphabets of Africa. Dakar: UNESCO and SIL. (The French edition, published the same year, is entitled Alphabets de Langues Africaines).
SIL International, Ethnologue: Languages of the World, "Themne," http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=tem
SIL International, "ISO 639 Code Tables," http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/codes.asp
UCC and UMC. 1980. "A Themne Orthography Workshop, Ministry of Education, Freetown, February 18-22, 1980 / sponsored by the U.C.C. Provincial Literature Bureau and the United Methodist Literacy Programme."
U.S. Library of Congress, "ISO 639.2: Codes for the Representation of Names of Languages: Alpha-3 codes arranged alphabetically by the English name of language," http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/English_list.php
Wikipedia, "Temne language," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temne_language
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