Fula language

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Fulani, Peul
Fulfulde, Pulaar, Pular
Native to West Africa
Region The Sahel
Ethnicity Fulɓe
Native speakers
25 million  (2007)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-1 ff
ISO 639-2 ful
ISO 639-3 fulinclusive code
Individual codes:
fuc – Pulaar (Senegambia, Mauritania)
fuf – Pular (Guinea, Sierra Leone)
ffm – Maasina Fulfulde (Mali)
fue – Borgu Fulfulde (Benin, Togo)
fuh – Western Niger (Burkina, Niger)
fuq – Central–Eastern Niger (Niger)
fuv – Nigerian Fulfulde (Nigeria)
fub – Adamawa Fulfulde (Cameroon, Chad, Sudan)
fui – Bagirmi Fulfulde (CAR)
Glottolog fula1264[2]



Person Pullo
People Fulɓe
Language Fulfulde




Noun classes[edit]


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 Arnott’s 1970 description of the noun classes of the Gombe dialect of Fula. Thus, certain examples from Arnott also informed this table (Arnett 1975: 5), (McIntosh 1984:44).

Number Class Name Meaning Example
o Person Singular laam-ɗo ‘chief’
ɓe Person Plural laam-ɓe ‘chiefs’
ŋgel Diminutive Singular loo-ŋgel ‘little pot’
kal Diminutive Quantities cɔn-al ‘small quantity of flour’
ŋgum Diminutive Pejorative laam-ŋgum ‘worthless little chief’
kon Diminutive Plural ullu-ko ‘small cats/kittens’
ŋga Augmentative Singular ɗem-ŋga ‘big tongue’
ko Augmentative Plural ɗem-ko ‘big tongues’
ndi Various, including uncountables shom-ri ‘tiredness’
ndu Various ullu-ndu ‘cat’
ŋga Various, including some large animals nood-a ‘crocodile’
ŋgo Various nyor-go ‘cover mat’
ŋgu Various ɓow-ŋge ‘mosquito’
ŋgal Various ɗem-ŋgal ‘tongue’
ŋgol Various, often long things taddor-gol ‘girdle’
ka Various mannd-a ‘salt’
ki Various daŋ-ki ‘temporary shelter’
ko Various haak-o ‘soup’
kol 'Calf' nyal-ol ‘calf’
ɗam Liquids tu’y-am ‘nose-bleed’
ɗum Neutral maw-ɗum ‘big thing’
ɗe Non-human Plural daŋ-ɗe ‘shelters’
ɗi Non-human Plural njaayrii-ji ‘open spaces’



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[edit]


A simplified schema is as follows:

  • w ↔ b ↔ mb
  • r ↔ d ↔ nd
  • y ↔ j ↔ nj
  • w ↔ g ↔ ng
  • f ↔ p
  • s ↔ c
  • h ↔ k


Fula has inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns.






Writing systems[edit]

Main article: Fula orthographies

Latin alphabet[edit]

When written using the Latin script, Fula uses the following additional special "hooked" characters to distinguish meaningfully different sounds in the language: Ɓ/ɓ [ɓ], Ɗ/ɗ [ɗ ], Ŋ/ŋ [ŋ], Ñ/ñ [ ɲ], Ƴ/ƴ [ʔʲ]. The apostrophe (ʼ) is used as a glottal stop. In Nigeria ʼy substitutes ƴ, and in Senegal ñ is used instead of ɲ.[clarification needed]

Sample Fula alphabet[edit]

a, aa, b, mb, ɓ, c, d, nd, ɗ, e, ee, f, g, ng, h, i, ii, j, nj, k, l, m, n, ŋ, ny (or ñ or ɲ), o, oo, p, r, s, t, u, uu, w, y, ƴ


Arabic script[edit]


Adlam script[edit]

During the late 1980s an alphabetic script was devised by the brothers Ibrahima Barry and Abdoulaye Barry, in order to represent the Fulani language. After several years of development it started to be adopted among some Fulani communities, and is currently taught in Guinea, Nigeria, Liberia and other nearby countries. The name Adlam is an anagram of the first four letters of the alphabet (A, D, L, M), standing for Alkule Danndayɗe Lenyol am Mul`de ("the alphabet which protects My tribe from vanishing"). The Adlam script has been proposed for encoding in Unicode.[5]



  • Arnott, D. W. The Nominal and Verbal Systems of Fula. London: Oxford University Press, 1970. Print.
  • 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 Niger–Congo Languages, pp. 81–104.


  2. ^ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Fula". Glottolog 2.2. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. 
  5. ^ Everson, Michael (23 September 2014). "Proposal for encoding the Adlam script in the SMP of the UCS". 

External links[edit]