Pular () is a Fula language spoken primarily by the

Fula people The Fula, Fulani, or Fulɓe people ( ff, Fulɓe, ; french: Peul, links=no; ha, Fulani or Hilani; pt, Fula, links=no; wo, Pël; bm, Fulaw) are one of the largest ethnic groups in the Sahel and West Africa, widely dispersed across the region. ...

Fouta Djallon Fouta Djallon ( ff, 𞤊𞤵𞥅𞤼𞤢 𞤔𞤢𞤤𞤮𞥅, Fuuta Jaloo; ar, فوتا جالون) is a highland region in the center of Guinea, roughly corresponding with Middle Guinea, in West Africa. Etymology The Fulani people call the re ...

, Guinea. It is also spoken in parts of

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 ...

, and

Senegal Senegal,; Wolof: ''Senegaal''; Pulaar: 𞤅𞤫𞤲𞤫𞤺𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭 (Senegaali); Arabic: السنغال ''As-Sinighal'') officially the Republic of Senegal,; Wolof: ''Réewum Senegaal''; Pulaar : 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣� ...

. There are a small number of speakers in

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. Ma ...

. Pular is spoken by 8.5 million Guineans, about 55% of the national population. This makes Pular the most widely spoken

indigenous language An indigenous language, or autochthonous language, is a language that is native to a region and spoken by indigenous peoples. This language is from a linguistically distinct community that originated in the area. Indigenous languages are not neces ...

in the country. Substantial numbers of Pular speakers have migrated to other countries in

West Africa West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mau ...

, notably

. Pular is not to be confused with Pulaar, another Fula language spoken natively in Guinea, Senegal, Mauritania, and western Mali (including the Futa Tooro region). Pular is written in three alphabets: Adlam script,

Ajami script Ajami ( ar, عجمي, ) or Ajamiyya ( ar, عجمية, ), which comes from the Arabic root for ''foreign'' or ''stranger'', is an Arabic-derived script used for writing African languages, particularly those of Mandé, Hausa and Swahili, although ...

and 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 Greece, Greek city of Cumae, in southe ...

Linguistic features

There are some particularities to this version of Fula, including: *Use of plural form for politeness (such as in German or French, unlike other varieties of Fula) *A number of separate verbal roots for politeness (these may exist only in Pular) *There is no 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 ...

from singular to plural verb forms as is the case in other varieties of Fula (there is in nominal forms, however) *In addition to the more standard long-form pronouns of Fula there are alternate forms in Pular (= hi(l) + pronoun). The table below summarizes these (question marks where the info is not complete):

Writing

Like other varieties of the Fula language, Pular was written before colonization in an Arabic-based orthography called Ajami. Today, Ajami remains prevalent in rural areas of Fouta Djallon, but Pular is mainly written in a Latin-based orthography, the so-called UNESCO orthography and the Adlam script, an indigenous alphabet created at the end of the 1980s by two brothers for the Fula language. Adlam have widely spread over the years in over 20 countries and is now about to overtake Latin and Ajami as the main written system of the

Fulani The Fula, Fulani, or Fulɓe people ( ff, Fulɓe, ; french: Peul, links=no; ha, Fulani or Hilani; pt, Fula, links=no; wo, Pël; bm, Fulaw) are one of the largest ethnic groups in the Sahel and West Africa, widely dispersed across the region. ...

people. Up until the mid-1980s, Pular in Guinea was written with the Guinean languages alphabet that differed from that used in other countries.

Grammar

References

External links

Miɗo Waawi Pular! Learner's guide to Pular (Fuuta Jallon)
by Herb Caudill and Ousmane Diallo Fula language Fula language {{senegambian-lang-stub