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Fula ,Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student’s Handbook'', Edinburgh also known as Fulani or Fulah (, , ; Adlam: , , ), is a
Senegambian The Senegambia (other names: Senegambia region or Senegambian zone,Barry, Boubacar, ''Senegambia and the Atlantic Slave Trade'', (Editors: David Anderson, Carolyn Brown; trans. Ayi Kwei Armah; contributors: David Anderson, American Council of Le ...
language spoken by around 30 million people as a set of various dialects in a continuum that stretches across some 18 countries in West and
Central Africa Central Africa is a subregion of the African continent comprising various countries according to different definitions. Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, ...
. Along with other related languages such as Serer and Wolof, it belongs to the Atlantic geographic group within Niger–Congo, and more specifically to the
Senegambian The Senegambia (other names: Senegambia region or Senegambian zone,Barry, Boubacar, ''Senegambia and the Atlantic Slave Trade'', (Editors: David Anderson, Carolyn Brown; trans. Ayi Kwei Armah; contributors: David Anderson, American Council of Le ...
branch. Unlike most Niger-Congo languages, Fula does not have tones. It is spoken as a
first language A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongu ...
by the Fula people ("Fulani", ff, Fulɓe, link=no) from the
Senegambia region The Senegambia (other names: Senegambia region or Senegambian zone,Barry, Boubacar, ''Senegambia and the Atlantic Slave Trade'', (Editors: David Anderson, Carolyn Brown; trans. Ayi Kwei Armah; contributors: David Anderson, American Council of Le ...
and
Guinea Guinea ( ),, fuf, 𞤘𞤭𞤲𞤫, italic=no, Gine, wo, Gine, nqo, ߖߌ߬ߣߍ߫, bm, Gine officially the Republic of Guinea (french: République de Guinée), is a coastal country in West Africa. It borders the Atlantic Ocean to the w ...
to Cameroon,
Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of G ...
, and
Sudan Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic ...
and by related groups such as the
Toucouleur people __NOTOC__ The Tukulor people ( ar, توكولور), also called Toucouleur or Haalpulaar, are a West African ethnic group native to Futa Tooro region of Senegal. There are smaller communities in Mali and Mauritania. The Toucouleur were Islamized i ...
in the
Senegal River ,french: Fleuve Sénégal) , name_etymology = , image = Senegal River Saint Louis.jpg , image_size = , image_caption = Fishermen on the bank of the Senegal River estuary at the outskirts of Saint-Louis, Senegal ...
Valley. It is also spoken as a
second language A person's second language, or L2, is a language that is not the native language (first language or L1) of the speaker, but is learned later. A second language may be a neighbouring language, another language of the speaker's home country, or a fo ...
by various peoples in the region, such as the
Kirdi The Kirdi () are the many cultures and ethnic groups who inhabit northwestern Cameroon and northeastern Nigeria. The term was applied to various peoples who had not converted to Islam at the time of colonization and was a pejorative, although ...
of northern Cameroon and northeastern
Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of G ...
.


Nomenclature

Several names are applied to the language, just as to the Fula people. They call their language '' Pulaar'' or ''Pular'' in the western dialects and ''
Fulfulde Fula ,Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student’s Handbook'', Edinburgh also known as Fulani or Fulah (, , ; Adlam: , , ), is a Senegambian language spoken by around 30 million people as a set of various dialects in a continuum that str ...
'' in the central and eastern dialects. ''Fula'', ''Fulah'' and ''Fulani'' in English come originally from Manding (esp. Mandinka, but also Malinke and Bamana) and
Hausa Hausa may refer to: * Hausa people, an ethnic group of West Africa * Hausa language, spoken in West Africa * Hausa Kingdoms, a historical collection of Hausa city-states * Hausa (horse) or Dongola horse, an African breed of riding horse See also ...
, respectively; ''Peul'' in French, also occasionally found in literature in English, comes from Wolof.


Morphology

Fula is based on verbonominal roots, from which verbal, noun, and modifier words are derived. It uses suffixes (sometimes inaccurately called
infix An infix is an affix inserted inside a word stem (an existing word or the core of a family of words). It contrasts with ''adfix,'' a rare term for an affix attached to the outside of a stem, such as a prefix or suffix. When marking text for int ...
es, as they come between the root and the inflectional ending) to modify meaning. These suffixes often serve the same purposes in Fula that
prepositions Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
do in English.


Noun classes

The Fula or Fulfulde language is characterized by a robust
noun class In linguistics, a noun class is a particular category of nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of the characteristic features of its referent, such as gender, animacy, shape, but such designations are often clearly conventional. Some a ...
system, with 24 to 26 noun classes being common across the Fulfulde dialects. Noun classes in Fula are abstract categories with some classes having semantic attributes that characterize a subset of that class’ members, and others being marked by a membership too diverse to warrant any semantic categorization of the class’ members. For example, classes are for stringy, long things, and another for big things, another for liquids, a noun class for strong, rigid objects, another for human or humanoid traits etc. Gender does not have any role in the Fula noun class system and the marking of gender is done with adjectives rather than class markers. Noun classes are marked by suffixes on nouns. These suffixes are the same as the class name, though they are frequently subject to phonological processes, most frequently the dropping of the suffix's initial consonant. The table below illustrates the class name, the semantic property associated with class membership, and an example of a noun with its class marker. Classes 1 and 2 can be described as personal classes, classes 3-6 as diminutive classes, classes 7-8 as augmentative classes, and classes 9-25 as neutral classes. It is formed on the basis of McIntosh's 1984 description of Kaceccereere Fulfulde, which the author describes as "essentially the same" as
David Arnott David Arnott (born 1963) is an American actor, screenwriter and musical composer living in Southern California. Among his credits, Arnott co-wrote ''Last Action Hero'', and starred in ''The Last Man'' with Jeri Ryan. David is a member of the leg ...
's 1970 description of the noun classes of the Gombe dialect of Fula. Thus, certain examples from Arnott also informed this table.


Voice

Verbs in Fula are usually classed in three 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 - : * , to wash (something) ctive voice* , to wash (oneself) iddle voice* , to be washed assive voice


Consonant mutation

Another feature of the language is initial
consonant mutation Consonant mutation is change in a consonant in a word according to its morphological or syntactic environment. Mutation occurs in languages around the world. A prototypical example of consonant mutation is the initial consonant mutation of all ...
between singular and plural forms of nouns and of verbs (except in Pular, no consonant mutation exists in verbs, only in nouns). A simplified schema is: * w ↔ b ↔ mb * r ↔ d ↔ nd * y ↔ j ↔ nj * w ↔ g ↔ ng * f ↔ p * s ↔ c * h ↔ k


Pronouns

Fula has inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns. The inclusive pronouns include both the speaker and those being spoken to, while the exclusive pronouns exclude the listeners. 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) as well as a possessive form. Relative pronouns generally take the same form as the nominative.


Varieties

While there are numerous varieties of Fula, it is typically regarded as a single language. Wilson (1989) states that "travelers 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. However, '' Ethnologue'' has found that nine different translations are needed to make the Bible comprehensible for most Fula speakers, and it treats these varieties as separate languages. They are listed in the box at the beginning of this article.


Status

Fulfulde is an official
lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...
in
Guinea Guinea ( ),, fuf, 𞤘𞤭𞤲𞤫, italic=no, Gine, wo, Gine, nqo, ߖߌ߬ߣߍ߫, bm, Gine officially the Republic of Guinea (french: République de Guinée), is a coastal country in West Africa. It borders the Atlantic Ocean to the w ...
,
Senegal Senegal,; Wolof: ''Senegaal''; Pulaar: 𞤅𞤫𞤲𞤫𞤺𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭 (Senegaali); Arabic: السنغال ''As-Sinighal'') officially the Republic of Senegal,; Wolof: ''Réewum Senegaal''; Pulaar : 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣� ...
,
Gambia The Gambia,, ff, Gammbi, ar, غامبيا officially the Republic of The Gambia, is a country in West Africa. It is the smallest country within mainland AfricaHoare, Ben. (2002) ''The Kingfisher A-Z Encyclopedia'', Kingfisher Publicatio ...
, northeastern
Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of G ...
, Cameroon,
Mali Mali (; ), officially the Republic of Mali,, , ff, 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞥆𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 𞤃𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭, Renndaandi Maali, italics=no, ar, جمهورية مالي, Jumhūriyyāt Mālī is a landlocked country in West Africa. Mali ...
,
Burkina Faso Burkina Faso (, ; , ff, 𞤄𞤵𞤪𞤳𞤭𞤲𞤢 𞤊𞤢𞤧𞤮, italic=no) is a landlocked country in West Africa with an area of , bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to th ...
, Northern
Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in Ghana–Ivory Coast border, the west, Burkina ...
, Southern
Niger ) , official_languages = , languages_type = National languagesBenin Benin ( , ; french: Bénin , ff, Benen), officially the Republic of Benin (french: République du Bénin), and formerly Dahomey, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east, Burkina Faso to the north ...
(in
Borgou Borgou is one of the twelve departments of Benin. Borgou borders the country of Nigeria and the departments of Alibori, Atakora, Collines and Donga. The capital of Borgou is Parakou. The department of Borgou was bifurcated in 1999, with its ...
Region, where many speakers are bilingual), and a local language in many African countries, such as
Mauritania Mauritania (; ar, موريتانيا, ', french: Mauritanie; Berber: ''Agawej'' or ''Cengit''; Pulaar: ''Moritani''; Wolof: ''Gànnaar''; Soninke:), officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania ( ar, الجمهورية الإسلامي� ...
,
Guinea-Bissau Guinea-Bissau ( ; pt, Guiné-Bissau; ff, italic=no, 𞤘𞤭𞤲𞤫 𞤄𞤭𞤧𞤢𞥄𞤱𞤮, Gine-Bisaawo, script=Adlm; Mandinka: ''Gine-Bisawo''), officially the Republic of Guinea-Bissau ( pt, República da Guiné-Bissau, links=no ) ...
,
Sierra Leone Sierra Leone,)]. officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered by Liberia to the southeast and Guinea surrounds the northern half of the nation. Covering a total area of , Sierra ...
,
Togo Togo (), officially the Togolese Republic (french: République togolaise), is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. It extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, where its ...
,
CAR A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarded as ...
, Chad,
Sudan Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic ...
,
Somalia Somalia, , Osmanya script: 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘𐒕𐒖; ar, الصومال, aṣ-Ṣūmāl officially the Federal Republic of SomaliaThe ''Federal Republic of Somalia'' is the country's name per Article 1 of thProvisional Constituti ...
and
Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the no ...
, numbering more than 95 millions speakers in total.


Phonology


Consonants

The two sounds and , may be realized as affricate sounds and .


Vowels

Short // vowel sounds can also be realized as []. Long vowel sounds can occur as //.


Writing systems


Adlam script

There were unsuccessful efforts in the 1950s and 1960s to create a unique script to write Fulfulde. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, two teenage brothers, Ibrahima and Abdoulaye Barry from the
Nzérékoré Region The Nzérékoré Region ( nqo, ߒߛߙߍߜߍ߬ߘߍ߫ ߕߌ߲߬ߞߎߘߎ߲) is a region in the southern part of Guinea. Its capital and largest city is Nzérékoré. It is one of the eight regions of Guinea. It is bordered by the countries of Sier ...
of Guinea, created the
Adlam script The Adlam script is a script used to write Fulani. The name ''Adlam'' is an acronym derived from the first four letters of the alphabet (A, D, L, M), standing for ''Alkule Dandayɗe Leñol Mulugol'' (), which means "the alphabet that protects th ...
, which accurately represents all the sounds of Fulani. The script is written from right to left and includes 28 letters with 5 vowels and 23 consonants.
The Alphabet That Will Save a People From Disappearing
', Kaveh Waddell, Nov 16, 2016,
The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...


Arabic script

Fula has also been written in the
Arabic script The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used writing system in the world by number of countries using it or a script directly derived from it, and the ...
or
Ajami
' since before colonization by many scholars and learned people including
Usman dan Fodio Usman Ɗan Fodio ( ar, عثمان بن فودي, translit=ʿUthmān ibn Fodio; 15 December 1754 – 20 April 1817) was a Fulani scholar, Sunni Islamic religious teacher, revolutionary, and philosopher who founded the Sokoto Caliphate and ruled ...
and the early emirs of the
northern Nigeria Northern Nigeria was an autonomous division within Nigeria, distinctly different from the southern part of the country, with independent customs, foreign relations and security structures. In 1962 it acquired the territory of the British Nort ...
emirates. This continues to a certain degree and notably in some areas like
Guinea Guinea ( ),, fuf, 𞤘𞤭𞤲𞤫, italic=no, Gine, wo, Gine, nqo, ߖߌ߬ߣߍ߫, bm, Gine officially the Republic of Guinea (french: République de Guinée), is a coastal country in West Africa. It borders the Atlantic Ocean to the w ...
and Cameroon. Fula also has
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walte ...
loanwords A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because the ...
.


Latin alphabet

When written using the
Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern Ita ...
, Fula uses the following additional special "hooked" characters to distinguish meaningfully different sounds in the language: Ɓ/ɓ , Ɗ/ɗ , Ŋ/ŋ , Ɲ/ɲ , Ƴ/ƴ . The letters c, j, and r, respectively represent the sounds [], [], and []. Double vowel characters indicate that the vowels are elongated. An apostrophe (ʼ) is used as a glottal stop. It uses the five vowel system denoting vowel sounds and their lengths. In Nigeria ʼy substitutes ƴ, and in Senegal Ñ/ñ is used instead of ɲ.


Sample Fula alphabet

a, aa, b, mb (or nb), ɓ, c, d, nd, ɗ, e, ee, f, g, ng, h, i, ii, j, nj, k, l, m, n, ŋ, ɲ (ny or ñ), o, oo, p, r, s, t, u, uu, w, y, ƴ or y, The letters q, v, x, z are used in some cases for loan words. Long vowels are written doubled: The standard Fulfulde alphabet adopted during the UNESCO-sponsored expert meeting in Bamako in March 1966 is as follows:"B. Peul. Alphabet et Inventaire des sons réprésentés,
page 8
du

', Bamako, 1966. (Presented on Bisharat.net)
a, b, mb, ɓ, c, d, nd, ɗ, e, f, g, ng, h, i, j, nj, k, l, m, n, ŋ, ny (''later'' ɲ ''or'' ñ), o, p, r, s, t, u, w, y, ƴ, .


See also

*
Pular grammar Pular grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the Pular language, one of the Fula languages of the Niger-Congo language family spoken in West Africa. It is complicated and varies from region to region. This may explain why it is virtua ...
(a presentation for one variety of Fula) * David Whitehorn Arnott


References


Works

* Arnott, D. W.br>The Nominal and Verbal Systems of Fula.
London: Oxford University Press, 1970. Print. * Arnott, D. W. 'Fula'. In ''International Encyclopedia of Linguistics,'' vol''.'' 2. W. Frawley (ed). Oxford University Press, 2003. * McIntosh, Mary. Fulfude Syntax and Verbal Morphology. London: St Edmundsbury Press Lt, 1984. Print. * Paradis, Carole. Lexical Phonology and Morphology: The Nominal Classes in Fula. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc, 1992. Print. * Shehu, Ahmadu. Stress Placement Rules in Fulfulde: A Review. Bayero University, Kano, 2014. * Wilson, W. A. A. (1945). Atlantic. In
John Bendor-Samuel John Theodore Bendor-Samuel (9 June 1929 – 6 January 2011) was an evangelical Christian missionary and linguist who furthered Bible translation work into African languages, as well as making significant contributions to the study of African lin ...
(Ed.), ''The Niger–Congo Languages'', pp. 81–104. *


Notes


External links


Fulfulde Ajami script how to

fulfulde app on googleplay


– includes maps of the dialects

webPulaaku * ttp://globalrecordings.net/langcode/fub Listen to a sample of Adamawa Fulfulde from Global Recordings Network
Adlam alphabet
;Fula on the web Below are some websites from different countries that use the Latin alphabet of Fula/Fulfulde: * Nigeria: * Nigeria: * Mauritania: * Mauritania: * Guinea: * Guinea: * Guinea: * Guinea: * Sierra Leone: * Fuuta Tooro: {{Authority control Fula–Tenda languages Languages of the Gambia Languages of Benin Languages of Burkina Faso Languages of Cameroon Languages of Guinea Languages of Guinea-Bissau Languages of Mali Languages of Mauritania Languages of Niger Languages of Nigeria Languages of Senegal Languages of Sierra Leone