Fula language
Fula | |
---|---|
Fulani, Fulah, Peul | |
Fulfulde, Pulaar, Pular, đ€đ€”đ€€đ€ąđ€Ș | |
Native to | Western Africa |
Region | The Sahel |
Ethnicity | Fula people |
Native speakers | 24 million (2007)[1] |
NigerâCongo
| |
Latin Arabic Adlam | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-1 |
ff â Fulah |
ISO 639-2 |
ful â Fulah |
ISO 639-3 |
ful â inclusive code â FulahIndividual codes: fuc â Pulaar (Senegambia, Mauritania)fuf â Pular (Guinea, Sierra Leone)ffm â Maasina Fulfulde (Mali, Ghana)fue â Borgu Fulfulde (Benin, Togo)fuh â Western Niger (Burkina, Niger)fuq â CentralâEastern Niger (Niger)fuv â Nigerian Fulfulde (Nigeria)fub â Adamawa Fulfulde (Cameroon, Chad, Sudan)fui â Bagirmi Fulfulde (CAR) |
Glottolog |
fula1264 [2] |
Fula /ËfuËlÉ/[3], also known as Fulani /fÊËlÉËniË/[3] or Fulah[4][5][6] (Fula: Fulfulde, Pulaar, Pular; French: Peul), is a language spoken as a set of various dialects in a continuum that stretches across some 20 countries in West and Central Africa. Along with other related languages such as Serer and Wolof, it belongs to the Senegambian branch within the NigerâCongo languages, which does not have tones, unlike most other NigerâCongo languages. More broadly, it belongs to the Atlantic geographic grouping within NigerâCongo. It is spoken as a first language by the Fula people ("Fulani", Fula: FulÉe) from the Senegambia region and Guinea to Cameroon and Sudan and by related groups such as the Toucouleur people in the Senegal River Valley. It is also spoken as a second language by various peoples in the region, such as the Kirdi of northern Cameroon and northeastern Nigeria.
Nomenclature
Person | Pullo |
---|---|
People | FulÉe |
Language | Fulfulde |
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
Fula is based on verbo-nominal roots, from which verbal, noun and modifier words are derived. It uses suffixes (sometimes inaccurately called infixes, as they come between the root and the inflectional ending) to modify meaning. These suffixes often serve the same purposes in Fula that prepositions do in English.
Noun classes
The Fula or Fulfulde language is characterized by a robust noun class system, with 24 to 26 noun classes being common across the Fulfulde dialects (Arnett 1975: 5). Noun classes in Fula are abstract categories with some classes having semantic attributes that characterize a subset of that classâ members, and others being marked by a membership too diverse to warrant any semantic categorization of the classâ members (Paradis 1992: 25). For example, there are classes 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 (Arnett 1975: 74). 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 suffixâs initial consonant (McIntosh 1984:45-46).
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 McIntoshâs 1984 description of Kaceccereere Fulfulde, which the author describes as "essentially the same" as Arnottâs 1970 description of the noun classes of the Gombe dialect of Fula. Thus, certain examples from Arnott also informed this table (Arnott 1975: 5), (McIntosh 1984:44).
Number | Class Name | Meaning | Example |
---|---|---|---|
o | Person Singular | laam-Éo âchiefâ; also loan words | |
Ée | Person Plural | laam-Ée âchiefsâ | |
ngel | Diminutive Singular | loo-ngel âlittle potâ | |
kal | Diminutive Quantities | con-al âsmall quantity of flourâ | |
ngum/kum | Diminutive Pejorative | laam-ngum/laam-kum âworthless little chiefâ | |
kon/koy | Diminutive Plural | ullu-kon/ullu-koy âsmall cats/kittensâ | |
nde | Various, including globular objects, places, times | loo-nde âstorage potâ | |
ndi | Various, including uncountable nouns | com-ri âtirednessâ | |
ndu | Various | ullu-ndu âcatâ | |
nga | Various, including some large animals | nood-a âcrocodileâ | |
nge | mainly for 'Cow,' 'fire,' 'sun' 'hunger,' | nagg-e âcowâ | |
ngo | Various | juu-ngo âhandâ | |
ngu | Various | Éow-ngu âmosquitoâ | |
ngal | Various including Augmentative Singular | Éem-ngal âtongueâ | |
ngol | Various, often long things | Éog-gol âropeâ | |
ngii/ngil | Various including Augmentative Singular | Éog-gii/Éog-gii âbig ropeâ | |
ka | Various | laan-a âboatâ | |
ki | Various | lek-ki âtreeâ | |
ko | Various | haak-o âsoupâ | |
kol | 'Calf' 'foal' | ñal-ol âcalfâ, mol-ol âfoalâ | |
Éam | mainly for Liquids | lam-Éam âsaltâ, ndiy-am âwaterâ | |
Éum | Neutral | maw-Éum âbig thingâ | |
Ée | Non-human Plural | juu-Ée âhandsâ | |
Éi | Non-human Plural | na'i âcowsâ |
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 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
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 â b â mb
- r â d â nd
- y â j â nj
- w â g â ng
- f â p
- s â c
- h â 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.[7] 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 language in Senegal (Pulaar), an official lingua franca in Guinea, Senegambia, Maasina, North Eastern Nigeria and Northern Cameroon (Pular), where many speakers are bilingual, and a national language in many African countries, such as Mauritania, Mali, Gambia, Guinea (Conakry), Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Togo, Ghana, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon and Niger...
Writing systems
Latin alphabet
When written using the Latin script, Fula uses the following additional special "hooked" characters to distinguish meaningfully different sounds in the language: Æ/É [É], Æ/É [Éâ], Ć/Ć [Ć], Æ/ÉČ [âÉČ], Æł/ÆŽ [ÊÊČ]. The letters c, j, and r, respectively represent the sounds [c], [É], and [r]. Double vowel characters indicate that the vowels are elongated. An apostrophe (ÊŒ) is used as a glottal stop. It uses the five vowel system denoting vowel sounds and their lengths. In Nigeria ÊŒy substitutes ÆŽ, and in Senegal Ă/ñ is used instead of ÉČ.
Sample Fula alphabet
a, aa, b, mb, É, c, d, nd, É, e, ee, f, g, ng, h, i, ii, j, nj, k, l, m, n, Ć, ÉČ (ny or ñ), o, oo, p, r, s, t, u, uu, w, y, ÆŽ, '
The letters q, v, x, z are used in some cases for loan words. In the Pular of Guinea an additional letter, É [É ], is also part of the orthography, but it is also only used for loan words.
Fula Alphabet | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
A | B | Mb | Æ | C | D | Nd | Æ | E | F | G | Ng | H | I | J | Nj | K | L | M | N | Ć | Æ | O | P | R | S | T | U | W | Y | Æł | ' |
Lowercase | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
a | b | mb | É | c | d | nd | É | e | f | g | ng | h | i | j | nj | k | l | m | n | Ć | ÉČ | o | p | r | s | t | u | w | y | ÆŽ | ' |
Phonetic value | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
a | b | mb | É | c | d | nd | É | e | f | g | ĆÉĄ | h | i | É | nÉ | k | l | m | n | Ć | ÉČ | o | p | r | s | t | u | w | j | ÊÊČ | Ê |
The standard Fulfulde alphabet adopted during the UNESCO-sponsored expert meeting in Bamako in March 1966 is as follows:[8] a, b, mb, É, c, d, nd, É, e, f, g, ng, h, i, j, nj, k, l, m, n, Ć, ny (later ÉČ or ñ), o, p, r, s, t, u, w, y, ÆŽ, '.
Fula on the web
Below are some websites from different countries that use the Latin alphabet of Fula/Fulfulde:
- Nigeria: www
.mafindi .com - Mauritania: pulaar
.org - Mauritania: pulaagu
.com - Guinea: jowlol
.org - Guinea: tabaldefouta
.org - Guinea: misiide
.net - Guinea: webpulaaku
.net - Sierra Leone: peeral
.com
Arabic script
Fula has also been written in the Arabic script or Ajami since before colonization by many scholars and learned people including Usman dan fodio and the early emirs of the northern Nigeria emirates. This continues to a certain degree and notably in some areas like Guinea and Cameroon. (citation?)
Adlam script
Adlam pular đ€đ€Łđ€€đ€ąđ€„ đ€đ€”đ€€đ€ąđ€Ș | |
---|---|
Type |
Alphabet
|
Languages | Fula |
Time period | Invented 1980s |
Direction | Right-to-left |
ISO 15924 |
Adlm, 166 |
Unicode alias | Adlam |
U+1E900âU+1E95F |
There were unsuccessful efforts in the 50s and 60s to create a unique script to write Fulfulde. In the 1990s, two teenage brothers, Ibrahima and Abdoulaye Barry from the Nzérékoré Region of Guinea, created the adlam script, 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.[9][10]
See also
- Pular grammar (a presentation for one variety of Fula)
References
Works
- Arnott, D.W. 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.
- Wilson, W. A. A. (1989). Atlantic. In John Bendor-Samuel (Ed.), The NigerâCongo Languages, pp. 81â104.
- Grammar of the Fulde Language: With an Appendix of Some Original Traditions and Portions of Scripture Translated Into Fulde: Together with Eight Chapters of the Book of Genesis. Church Missionary House. 1876.
- Grammar of the Fulde Language: With an Appendix of Some Original Traditions and Portions of Scripture Translated Into Fulde: Together with Eight Chapters of the Book of Genesis. Church Missionary House. 1876.
Notes
- â Mikael Parkvall, "VĂ€rldens 100 största sprĂ„k 2007" (The World's 100 Largest Languages in 2007), in Nationalencyklopedin
- â Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Fula". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
- 1 2 Laurie Bauer, 2007, The Linguistics Studentâs Handbook, Edinburgh
- â "Fulah". Ethnologue (19 ed.). 2016.
- â "Documentation for ISO 639 identifier: ful". ISO 639-2 Registration Authority - Library of Congress. Retrieved 2017-07-04.
Name: Fulah
- â "Documentation for ISO 639 identifier: ful". ISO 639-3 Registration Authority - SIL International. Retrieved 2017-07-04.
Name: Fulah
- â "...malgrĂ© son extension gĂ©ographique et ses variations dialectales, le fulfulde reste une langue profondĂ©ment unie." Ka, Fary. 1991. "ProblĂ©matique de la standardisation linguistique: Le cas du pulaar/fulfulde." In N. Cyffer, ed., Language Standardization in Africa. Hamburg: Helmut Buske verlag. Pp. 35-38.
- â "B. Peul. Alphabet et Inventaire des sons rĂ©prĂ©sentĂ©s," page 8 du Rapport Final de la RĂ©union d'un groupe d'experts pour l'unification des alphabets des langues nationales, Bamako, 1966. (Presented on Bisharat.net)
- â The Alphabet That Will Save a People From Disappearing, Kaveh Waddell, Nov 16, 2016, The Atlantic
- â Hasson, Randall. "The ADLaM Story â How Alphabet Changes Culture". The Randall M. Hasson Blog. Retrieved 4 April 2018.
External links
Fulah edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
For a list of words relating to Fula language, see the Fula language category of words in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |