Fula language
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
| Fula (Fulfulde, Pulaar) | |
|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, Gambia, Chad, Sierra Leone, Benin, Guinea-Bissau, Sudan, Central African Republic, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo |
| Region: | West Africa |
| Total speakers: | 10-16 million |
| Ranking: | Not in top 100 |
| Genetic classification: | Niger-Congo
|
| Official status | |
| Official language of: | Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, Gambia |
| Regulated by: | - |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | ff |
| ISO 639-2 | ful |
| SIL | Various: FUB for Adamawa Fulfulde |
| See also: Language – List of languages | |
The Fula language is a language of West Africa, spoken by the Fula people from Senegal to Cameroon and Sudan. It belongs to the Atlantic branch of the Niger-Congo language family.
There are many names for the Fula people and their language. The Hausa call them the Fulani, while the Wolof use Peul and the Mandinka Fula. The Fula call themselves Fulbe (pural), Pullo (singular). Speakers of western dialects call their language Pulaar or Poular, while eastern dialects use Fulfulde.
| Contents |
Dialects
While there are numerous dialects of Fula, it is typically regarded as a single language. Wilson (1989) states that "travellers over wide distances never find communication impossible." Ethnologue, however, treats several of the varieties as separate languages:
- East Central
- Fulfulde, Western Niger (Niger)
- Fulfulde, Central-Eastern Niger (Niger)
- Fulfulde, Nigerian (Nigeria)
- Eastern
- Fulfulde, Adamawa (Cameroon)
- Fulfulde, Bagirmi (Chad)
- West Central
- Fulfulde, Benin-Togo (Benin)
- Fuuta Jalon (Guinea)
- Fulfulde, Maasina (Mali)
- Western
- Pulaar (Senegal)
Alphabet
When written using the Latin alphabet Fula uses the following special "hooked" characters: Ɓ/ɓ, Ɗ/ɗ, Ŋ/ŋ, Ɲ/ɲ, Ƴ/ƴ (i.e. B, D, Ng, N, Y). The apostrophe (’) is used as a glottal stop and in Nigerian ’y substitutes ƴ.
Reference
- Wilson, W. A. A. (1989). Atlantic. In John Bendor-Samuel (Ed.), The Niger-Congo Languages, pp. 81-104.
External Links
- Ethnologue entry for Fulani (http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=77)
- Fulfulde Language Family Report (SIL) (http://www.sil.org/silesr/2003/silesr2003-009.htm) - includes maps of the dialects
- FULA (Fulfulde, Pulaar, Fulani, Peul) Language Page (http://www.isp.msu.edu/AfrLang/Fula_root.htm) from MSU's Webbook of Afrian Language Resources (http://www.isp.msu.edu/AfrLang/hiermenu.html)
- Pular Language Ebooks (http://www.aiys.org/aodl/public/access/alma_ebooks/index.php), freely downloadable PDFs
