Somoya Sila is a monthly magazine published in Guinea. What makes this publication unique is that it is written entirely in NKO - an alphabet that was invented in 1949 to allow the people of the Mande language group to express themselves in writing. More than twenty million people in West Africa speak one of the forty languages that belong to the Mande group.

Our magazine is mainly intended for the rural population, in particular farmers and animal breeders. The people who have not had the chance to go to school in French or Arabic, have chosen to learn the NKO alphabet, which they learn easily since it is the alphabet of the language they think in, says Oumar Somassi Kanté, the editor-in-chief of Somoya Sila magazine (circulation of 3,000).

The NKO alphabet (NKo means I say in all Mande languages) was invented by Souleymane Kanté, a Guinean intellectual. According to history books, Kanté created the language partly as a response to the prejudice that Africans have no culture since they have no indigenous system of writing and partly because there was no existing writing system that could fully express the tonalities of the Mande languages. Mande is one of the biggest indigenous language groups in Africa, spoken in countries such as Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast.

Forest protection and peace in Ivory Coast

The monthly Somoya Sila (The Voice of Civilisation) was launched in 1991 by the NKO association in Conakry, Guinea. The aim was to offer a place for information exchange using NKO. Through the newspaper, the rural population can learn about things that interest them since we often raise issues linked to farming and animal breeding, says Kanté and gives some examples of articles published in one of the latest issues of the magazine:

1. Waa la kanda Forest protection An article about the impact of environmental protection on the socio-economic development in Guinea 2. Setan Jamalou The poor countries An article about the socio-economic and political situation in poor countries (debt, unemployment, governance questions, human rights etc...) 3. La Kööli - Education An article about questions linked to the teaching of the NKO alphabet 4. Accra Sabanan - Accra III An article which about the third meeting in Accra on how to solve the crisis in Ivory Coast

Other areas of interest for the magazine are community involvement and the implication of the citizens in the development process in Guinea. We are currently gaining ground both within the country and abroad, says Kanté. The magazine is sold in France and the United States as well as in Egypt, where there is a large Guinean community.

For the time being, the magazine carries virtually no advertisements. Kanté says that this is due to the general lack of an advertising market in Guinea, but more importantly because potential advertisers underestimate the impact of the magazine. They actually prefer to buy ad-space in the French-language newspapers which have more readers and are better distributed. The magazine is, however, planning to implement a strategy to increase advertising.

Expensive to distribute abroad

The distribution of the Somoya Sila is carried out by the Ikra NKO association which is in charge of all the subscribers as well as the different distribution points throughout the country. In Guinea the magazine is distributed by bus to different antennas which besides selling and distributing the magazine also transmit local news back to the newsroom in Conakry. The distribution to other countries and continents is carried out via air mail, even if this is not an ideal solution. As a matter of fact, the fee for sending the magazine is higher than the actual cost of the magazine, and it is the subscriber who has to pay for it.

Readers living abroad can also participate in the writing of the newspaper by either proposing articles or through reacting on articles that have already been published. All of this is done in the NKO alphabet thanks to a special NKO computer software the association has made available.

* Special Contribution By Moustapha Keita, journalist and managing director of the Opinion newspaper in Guinea.