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Glite Dictionary
🌍 A West African group 🧑‍🔬 A family name 🏰 A French town
Mende

Mende

2 9.1
A West African ethnic group and the language they speak
  • proper noun
translation icon : Mende
  • The Mende believe that if one can summon the spirit of one's ancestors, then they have never left.
  • Bullom and Mende
  • Mende, Sierra
  • Mende Sowei

Examples

  • The Mandinka and their neighbors in Guinea have stilt-dancing traditions, as do the Mende of Sierra Leone and Liberia.

    Academic text (1999)

  • I speak Mende and English, his language.

    Amistad (1997)

  • Of the proud Mende tribe.

    Blood Diamond (2006)

  • The Mende word for "slave" is closer to "worker".

    Amistad (1997)

  • The trail leads him to the aboriginal Mende people.

    Academic text (1998)

  • My DNA comes back from the Mende people, which is from Sierra Leone.

  • Do you know anything about Sierra Leone or the Mende people?

  • Sage's attention was particularly caught by the distinctive Mende styles of hairdressing of both men and women.

Surface Forms

Mende main

Etymology

Mende names a West African people and the language they speak. The name comes from what the group call themselves in their own speech, so Mende refers both to the people and to their language today.