Kissi (also Kisi or Kisiei) is a Mel language of West Africa, There are two dialects, northern and southern, and both are tonal languages. The northern dialect (kisiduei) is spoken in Guinea and in Sierra Leone. The southern dialect (kpekeduei) is spoken in Liberia and Sierra Leone. The two dialects are notably different, but are closely related.
In Guinea, the main places Kissi is spoken are the cities of Kissidougou and Guéckédou and their préfectures.
can also approximate to the sounds .
Kissidougou dialects preserve a distinction between and phonemes that have been merged as allophones in dialects south of Guéckédou. For instance, means exactly the same as . Also, "thank you" is realized as around Kissidougou and south of Guéckédou. is considered an allophone of in Kissidougou.
can also have an allophone of when preceding front vowel sounds.
The voiced labial-velar stop occurs only in onomatopoeic phrases, and medial gb can be regarded as an allophone of its voiceless counterpart.
Kissi has four tones: two register and two contour. The two register tones are level and high, and the two contour tones are a rising mid tone and a falling high tone. Kissi also has an extra-high tone, but occurs only sparingly, functioning in only a few grammatical contexts.
As can already be seen from these examples, verbs are not conjugated like English verbs, but they are inflected by tone.
Definite and indefinite articles do not exist in Kissi, so means "the knife" as well as "a knife". If an object has to be defined (because there are more than one, for example), "this" is used:
example: - this knife
If that is not exact enough, an object is described using adjectives.
- Give me a/the knife.
- Give me the big knife.