The Fula or Fulani language (Fula: Fulfulde or Pulaar or Pular ; French: Peul) is a language of West Africa. Like the neighbouring languages Serer and Wolof, it belongs to the Senegambian branch of the Niger–Congo language family. It is spoken as a first language by the Fulɓe (Fula or Fulani people) and related groups (such as the Tukulor in the Senegal River Valley) from Senegambia and Guinea to Cameroon and Sudan. It is also spoken as a second language by peoples in various areas of the region.

Nomenclature [link]

There are several names applied to the language, just as there are to the Fula people. They call their language Pulaar or Pular in the western dialects and Fulfulde in the central and eastern dialects. Fula(h) and Fulani in English come originally from Manding (esp. Mandinka, but also Malinke and Bamana) and Hausa, respectively; Peul in French, also occasionally found in literature in English, comes from Wolof.

Morphology [link]

Fula is based on verbo-nominal roots, from which verbal, noun and modifier words are derived. It also uses infixes (a syllable inserted in the "middle" of a word, actually following the root and before the ending) to modify meaning. These infixes often serve the same purposes in Fula as prepositions do in English.

Noun classes [link]

There are about 25 noun classes (the number may vary slightly in different dialects). Each noun class has a singular and plural form, and each form has a corresponding article, nominative pronoun, accusative/dative pronoun, demonstrative adjective and adjective agreement pattern (some examples provided in table below). All this along with the mere profusion of noun classes are structural similarities to the Bantu languages, but between Fula and Bantu the details are quite different. The plural forms of nouns in Fula are often highly irregular.

Voice [link]

Verbs in Fula are usually classed in 3 "voices": active, middle, and passive. Not every root is used in all voices. Some middle voice verbs are reflexive.

A common example are verbs from the root loot-:

• lootude, to wash (something) [active voice]
• lootaade, to wash (oneself) [middle voice]
• looteede, to be washed [passive voice]

Consonant mutation [link]

Another feature of the language is initial consonant mutation between singular and plural forms of nouns and of verbs (except in Pular, there is no consonant mutation in verbs, only in nouns).

A simplified schema is as follows:

• w ↔ b ↔ mb
• r ↔ d ↔ nd
• y ↔ j ↔ nj
• w ↔ g ↔ ng
• f ↔ p
• s ↔ c
• h ↔ k

Pronouns [link]

Fula has inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns.

The pronoun that corresponds to a given noun is determined by the noun class. Because men and women belong to the same noun class, the English pronouns "he" and "she" are translated into Fula by the same pronoun. However, depending on the dialect, there are some 25 different noun classes, each with its own pronoun. Sometimes those pronouns have both a nominative case (i.e., used as verb subject) and an accusative or dative case (i.e., used as a verb object).

Varieties [link]

Pular is an official regional language in Guinea, and many speakers are monolingual. While there are numerous varieties of Fula, it is typically regarded as a single language. Wilson (1989) states that "travellers over wide distances never find communication impossible," and Ka (1991) concludes that despite its geographic span and dialect variation, Fulfulde is still fundamentally one language.^[1] However, Ethnologue has found that nine different translations are needed to make the Bible comprehensible for all Fula speakers, and it treats these varieties as separate languages. They are listed in the box at the beginning of this article.

Writing systems [link]

Latin alphabet [link]

When written using the Latin script, Fula uses the following additional special "hooked" characters to distinguish meaningfully different sounds in the language: Ɓ/ɓ, Ɗ/ɗ, Ŋ/ŋ, Ñ/ñ, Ƴ/ƴ (i.e., implosive B, implosive D, velar N [sounds like "ng" in "king'], palatal N, ejective Y). The apostrophe (ʼ) is used as a glottal stop. In Nigeria ʼy substitutes ƴ, and in Senegal ñ is used instead of ɲ.

Sample Fula alphabet [link]

a, aa, b, mb, ɓ, c, d, nd, ɗ, e, ee, f, g, ng, h, i, ii, j, nj, k, l, m, n, ŋ, ny (or ñ or ɲ), o, oo, p, r, s, t, u, uu, w, y, ƴ

The letters q, x, z are used in some cases for loan words. In the Pular of Guinea an additional letter, ɠ, is also part of the orthography.

Arabic script [link]

Fula has also been written in the Arabic script or Ajami since before colonization. This continues to a certain degree and notably in some areas like Guinea.

References [link]

Works [link]

• Arnott, David W. (1970). The nominal and verbal systems of Fula. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Wilson, W. A. A. (1989). Atlantic. In John Bendor-Samuel (Ed.), The Niger–Congo Languages, pp. 81–104.

Notes [link]

External links [link]

Fula language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (August 2010)

• https://www.webpulaaku.net/
• https://www.webfuuta.net/
• PanAfrLoc/Fula PanAfrican L10n page on Fula
• https://pulaar.org/
• https://www.timtimol.org/
• https://www.tabitalpulaaku-international.org/
• Fulfulde Language Family Report (SIL) - includes maps of the dialects
• Miɗo Waawi Pular! Learner's guide to Pular (Fuuta Jallon) by Herb Caudill and Ousmane Diallo
• https://www.yaakaare.com
• https://www.pulaagu.com
• https://www.jamtan.com
• https://www.peeral.com
• Ethnologue entry for Fula
• FULA (Fulfulde, Pulaar, Fulani, Peul) Language Page from MSU's Webbook of African Language Resources (from the 1980s)
• Oogirde Malal, a classic Pular poem
• USA Foreign Service Institute Fula basic course

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