The
Fula or
Fulani language ( ; ) is a language of
West AfricaWest Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...
. It is spoken as a first language by the
The Fula or Fulani language ({{lang-ff|Fulfulde or Pulaar or Pular}} ; {{lang-fr|Peul}}) is a language of West AfricaWest Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...
. It is spoken as a first language by the
The Fula or Fulani language ({{lang-ff|Fulfulde or Pulaar or Pular}} ; {{lang-fr|Peul}}) is a language of West AfricaWest Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...
. It is spoken as a first language by the
{{unicodeFula people or Fulani or Fulbe are an ethnic group spread over many countries, predominantly in West Africa, but found also in Central Africa and Sudanese North Africa...
(Fula or Fulani people) and related groups (such as the Tukulor in the
Senegal RiverThe Sénégal River is a long river in West Africa that forms the border between Senegal and Mauritania.The Sénégal's headwaters are the Semefé and Bafing rivers which both originate in Guinea; they form a small part of the Guinean-Malian border before coming together at Bafoulabé in Mali...
Valley) from Senegambia and
GuineaGuinea , officially the Republic of Guinea , is a country in West Africa. Formerly known as French Guinea , it is today sometimes called Guinea-Conakry to distinguish it from its neighbour Guinea-Bissau. Guinea is divided into eight administrative regions and subdivided into thirty-three prefectures...
to
CameroonCameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon , is a country in west Central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west; Chad to the northeast; the Central African Republic to the east; and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Cameroon's coastline lies on the...
and
SudanSudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...
. It is also spoken as a second language by peoples in various areas of the region.
Nomenclature
{{infobox ethnonym|Pullo|Fulɓe|Fulfulde}}
There are several names applied to the language, just as there are to the
Fula peopleFula people or Fulani or Fulbe are an ethnic group spread over many countries, predominantly in West Africa, but found also in Central Africa and Sudanese North Africa...
. 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
MandingThe Manding languages are a fairly mutually intelligible group of dialects or languages in West Africa, belonging to the Mande languages. Their best-known members are Bambara, the most widely spoken language in Mali; Mandinka, the main language of Gambia; Maninka or Malinké, a major language of...
(esp. Mandinka, but also Malinke and Bamana) and
HausaHausa is the Chadic language with the largest number of speakers, spoken as a first language by about 25 million people, and as a second language by about 18 million more, an approximate total of 43 million people...
, respectively;
Peul in French, also occasionally found in literature in English, comes from
WolofWolof is a language spoken in Senegal, The Gambia, and Mauritania, and is the native language of the Wolof people. Like the neighbouring languages Serer and Fula, it belongs to the Atlantic branch of the Niger–Congo language family...
.
Morphology
Fula is based on verbo-nominal roots, from which verbal, noun and modifier words are derived. It also uses
infixAn infix is an affix inserted inside a word stem . It contrasts with adfix, a rare term for an affix attached to the end of a stem, such as a prefix or suffix.-Indonesian:...
es (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
There are about 25
noun classIn linguistics, the term noun class refers to a system of categorizing nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of characteristic features of its referent, such as sex, animacy, shape, but counting a given noun among nouns of such or another class is often clearly conventional...
es (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.
| Noun | Article | Nominative pronoun | Accusative/dative pronoun | Demonstrative adjective | Possessive adjective |
| debbo (woman) |
debbo ON (THE woman) |
O (SHE) |
MO (HER) |
OO debbo on (THAT woman) |
debbo makko (his/her woman) |
| gertogal (chicken) |
gertogal NGAL (THE chicken) |
NGAL (IT) |
NGAL (IT) |
NGAA gertogal ngal (THAT chicken) |
gertogal maggal (his/her chicken) |
Voice
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
reflexiveIn grammar, a reflexive verb is a verb whose semantic agent and patient are the same. For example, the English verb to perjure is reflexive, since one can only perjure oneself...
.
A common example are verbs from the root
loot-:
- lootude, to wash (something) [active voice]
- lootaade, to wash (one's self) [middle voice]
- looteede, to be washed [passive voice]
Consonant mutation
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
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
While there are numerous
dialectThe term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
s 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. However, Bible translators estimate that at least seven different translations are needed to make it comprehensible for all Fulfulde speakers, and
EthnologueEthnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International , a Christian linguistic service organization, which studies lesser-known languages, to provide the speakers with Bibles in their native language and support their efforts in language development.The Ethnologue...
treats several of the varieties as separate languages:
Fulfulde, Nigerian (Nigeria)
- 1,700,000 in Nigeria (2000)
- 750,000 speakers in Sudan scattered on the banks of the Blue Nile, Ghadrif, Madani, Obayyid, Port Sudan and Kassala.
Fulfulde, Adamawa, fub
- 700,000 speakers in Cameroon (1993)
- 128,000 in Chad (1993)
- 30,000 in Sudan (2000)
Adamawa Fulfulde is also used by non-native speakers as the regional lingua franca in
Far NorthThe Far North Region , also known as the Extreme North Region , is the northernmost constituent province of the Republic of Cameroon. It borders the North Region to the south, Chad to the east, and Nigeria to the west. The capital is Maroua.The province is one of Cameroon's most culturally diverse...
,
NorthThe North Region makes up 66,090 km² of the northern half of The Republic of Cameroon. Neighbouring territories include the Far North Region to the north, the Adamawa Region to the south, Nigeria to the west, Chad to the east, and Central African Republic to the southeast...
and
AdamawaThe Adamawa Region is a constituent region of the Republic of Cameroon. It borders the Centre and East regions to the south, the Northwest and West regions to the southwest, Nigeria to the west, the Central African Republic to the east, and the North Region to the north.This mountainous area...
provinces in Cameroon.
It is also used by Some Fulani in Sudan. However, it is not widely used as the rest of the other Fulfulde dialects; namely, Mallencore (dialect of Fulbe Mali). Notably, all sorts of Fulfulde dialects are spoken in Sudan.
Fulfulde, Bagirmi, fui
- 790,000 speakers in Chad
- 750,000 speakers in Central African Republic (1996).
- 50,000 speakers in Sudan
Fulfulde, Maasina, ffm
{{Main|Maasina Fulfulde}}
- 1300,000 speakers in Mali (1991)
- 70000 speakers in Ghana (1991)
- 2,000,000 speakers in Sudan
Fulfulde, Borgu, fue
- 900,000 speakers in Benin (2002)
- 800,000 speakers in Togo (1993)
- 18,000,000 speakers in Nigeria
Pular
{{Main|Pular language}}
Alternative name is sometimes given as Pula-Fuuta, derived from the Fuuta-Jalon region where it is spoken.
- 5,550,000 speakers in Guinea (1991)
- 50,000 speakers in Mali (1991)
- 136,000 speakers in Senegal (2002)
- 950,000 speakers in Sierra Leone (1991)
Pular is an official
regional languageA regional language is a language spoken in an area of a nation state, whether it be a small area, a federal state or province, or some wider area....
in Guinea, and many speakers are monolingual. The language has borrowed a lot from Arabic and French, but also from English, Portuguese, Maninka,
SusuSosoxui is the language of the Soso people of Guinea, West Africa. It is in the Mande language family.It is one of the national languages of Guinea and spoken mainly in the coastal region of the country. The language was also used by people in present-day Guinea as a trade language.e.g...
,
WolofWolof is a language spoken in Senegal, The Gambia, and Mauritania, and is the native language of the Wolof people. Like the neighbouring languages Serer and Fula, it belongs to the Atlantic branch of the Niger–Congo language family...
and others.
Latin alphabet
When written using the
Latin alphabetThe Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
, Fula uses the following additional special "hooked" characters to distinguish meaningfully different sounds in the language: {{Unicode|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 ({{Unicode|ʼ}}) is used as a glottal stop. In Nigeria {{Unicode|ʼy}} substitutes {{Unicode|ƴ}}, and in Senegal ñ is used instead of {{Unicode|ɲ}}.
Sample Fula alphabet
aA is the first letter and a vowel in the basic modern Latin alphabet. It is similar to the Ancient Greek letter Alpha, from which it derives.- Origins :...
, aa, bB is the second letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet. It is used to represent a variety of bilabial sounds , most commonly a voiced bilabial plosive.-History:...
, mb, ɓ, cĈ or ĉ is a consonant in Esperanto orthography, representing the sound .Esperanto orthography uses a diacritic for all four of its postalveolar consonants, as do the Latin-based Slavic alphabets...
, dD is the fourth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.- History :The Semitic letter Dâlet may have developed from the logogram for a fish or a door. There are various Egyptian hieroglyphs that might have inspired this. In Semitic, Ancient Greek, and Latin, the letter represented ; in the...
, nd, ɗ, eE is the fifth letter and a vowel in the basic modern Latin alphabet. It is the most commonly used letter in the Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Latin, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish languages.-History:...
, ee, fF is the sixth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:The origin of ⟨f⟩ is the Semitic letter vâv that represented a sound like or . Graphically, it originally probably depicted either a hook or a club...
, gG is the seventh letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:The letter 'G' was introduced in the Old Latin period as a variant of ⟨c⟩ to distinguish voiced, from voiceless, . The recorded originator of ⟨g⟩ is freedman Spurius Carvilius Ruga, the first Roman to open a fee-paying school,...
, ng, hH .) is the eighth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:The Semitic letter ⟨ח⟩ most likely represented the voiceless pharyngeal fricative . The form of the letter probably stood for a fence or posts....
, iI is the ninth letter and a vowel in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:In Semitic, the letter may have originated in a hieroglyph for an arm that represented a voiced pharyngeal fricative in Egyptian, but was reassigned to by Semites, because their word for "arm" began with that sound...
, ii, jĴ or ĵ is a letter in Esperanto orthography representing the sound .While Esperanto orthography uses a diacritic for its four postalveolar consonants, as do the Latin-based Slavic alphabets, the base letters are Romano-Germanic...
, nj, kK is the eleventh letter of the English and basic modern Latin alphabet.-History and usage:In English, the letter K usually represents the voiceless velar plosive; this sound is also transcribed by in the International Phonetic Alphabet and X-SAMPA....
, lŁ or ł, described in English as L with stroke, is a letter of the Polish, Kashubian, Sorbian, Łacinka , Łatynka , Wilamowicean, Navajo, Dene Suline, Inupiaq, Zuni, Hupa, and Dogrib alphabets, several proposed alphabets for the Venetian language, and the ISO 11940 romanization of the Thai alphabet...
, mM is the thirteenth letter of the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:The letter M is derived from the Phoenician Mem, via the Greek Mu . Semitic Mem probably originally pictured water...
, nN is the fourteenth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.- History of the forms :One of the most common hieroglyphs, snake, was used in Egyptian writing to stand for a sound like English ⟨J⟩, because the Egyptian word for "snake" was djet...
, ŋ, ny (or
ñÑ is a letter of the modern Latin alphabet, formed by an N with a diacritical tilde. It is used in the Spanish alphabet, Galician alphabet, Asturian alphabet, Basque alphabet, Aragonese old alphabet , Filipino alphabet, Chamorro alphabet and the Guarani alphabet, where it represents...
or
ɲ)
, oO is the fifteenth letter and a vowel in the basic modern Latin alphabet.The letter was derived from the Semitic `Ayin , which represented a consonant, probably , the sound represented by the Arabic letter ع called `Ayn. This Semitic letter in its original form seems to have been inspired by a...
, oo, pP is the sixteenth letter of the basic modern Latin alphabet.-Usage:In English and most other European languages, P is a voiceless bilabial plosive. Both initial and final Ps can be combined with many other discrete consonants in English words...
, rR is the eighteenth letter of the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:The original Semitic letter may have been inspired by an Egyptian hieroglyph for tp, "head". It was used for by Semites because in their language, the word for "head" was rêš . It developed into Greek Ρ and Latin R...
, sS is the nineteenth letter in the ISO basic Latin alphabet.-History: Semitic Šîn represented a voiceless postalveolar fricative . Greek did not have this sound, so the Greek sigma came to represent...
, tT is the 20th letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet. It is the most commonly used consonant and the second most common letter in the English language.- History :Taw was the last letter of the Western Semitic and Hebrew alphabets...
, uU is the twenty-first letter and a vowel in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:The letter U ultimately comes from the Semitic letter Waw by way of the letter Y. See the letter Y for details....
, uu, wW is the 23rd letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.In other Germanic languages, including German, its pronunciation is similar or identical to that of English V...
, yY is the twenty-fifth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet and represents either a vowel or a consonant in English.-Name:In Latin, Y was named Y Graeca "Greek Y". This was pronounced as I Graeca "Greek I", since Latin speakers had trouble pronouncing , which was not a native sound...
, ƴ
The letters
qQ is the seventeenth letter of the basic modern Latin alphabet.- History :The Semitic sound value of Qôp was , a sound common to Semitic languages, but not found in English or most Indo-European ones...
, xX is the twenty-fourth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-Uses:In mathematics, x is commonly used as the name for an independent variable or unknown value. The usage of x to represent an independent or unknown variable can be traced back to the Arabic word šay شيء = “thing,” used in Arabic...
, zZ is the twenty-sixth and final letter of the basic modern Latin alphabet.-Name and pronunciation:In most dialects of English, the letter's name is zed , reflecting its derivation from the Greek zeta but in American English, its name is zee , deriving from a late 17th century English dialectal...
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
Fula has also been written in the Arabic script or
AjamiThe term Ajami , or Ajamiyya , which comes from the Arabic root for "foreign" or "stranger," has been applied to Arabic alphabets used for writing African languages....
since before colonization. This continues to a certain degree and notably in some areas like
GuineaGuinea , officially the Republic of Guinea , is a country in West Africa. Formerly known as French Guinea , it is today sometimes called Guinea-Conakry to distinguish it from its neighbour Guinea-Bissau. Guinea is divided into eight administrative regions and subdivided into thirty-three prefectures...
.
Works
- 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.
External links
{{InterWiki|code=ff}}
{{External links|date=August 2010}}
{{Languages of Guinea-Bissau}}
{{African Union languages}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fula Language}}