Bambara, also known as Bamana or Bamanankan, is a lingua franca and national language of Mali spoken by perhaps 14 million people, natively by 4.2 million Bambara people and about 10 million second-language users. It is estimated that about 80 percent of the population of Mali speak Bambara as a first or second language. It has a subject–object–verb clause structure and two lexical tones.

NKo (ߒߞߏ), also spelled N'Ko, is an alphabetic script devised by Solomana Kanté in 1949, as a modern writing system for the Manding languages of West Africa. The term NKo, which means I say in all Manding languages, is also used for the Manding literary standard written in the NKo script.