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. This list of languages is alphabetical by English name. ... West Africa is the region of western Africa generally considered to include these countries: Benin Burkina Faso Cameroon Côte dIvoire (Ivory Coast) Equatorial Guinea Gabon The Gambia Ghana Guinea Guinea-Bissau Liberia Mali Niger Nigeria Republic of the Congo (Congo-Brazzaville) Senegal Sierra Leone Togo Chad, Mauritania, and... Categories: Africa-related stubs | Burkina Faso | Cameroon | Ethnic groups of Africa | Fulani Empire | Mali | Nigeria ... The (West) Atlantic languages1 of West Africa are a subgroup of Niger-Congo language family. ... Map showing the distribution of Niger-Congo languages The Niger-Congo languages are probably the largest group of the world in terms of different languages. ...

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. The Hausa are a people of northern Nigeria and southeastern Niger. ... The Wolof are the largest ethnic group in Senegal with approximately 45% of the population. ... The Mandinka are a people of West Africa. ...

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: A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος) is a variety of a language used by people from a particular geographic area. ... The Ethnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics), a Christian linguistic service organization which studies lesser-known languages primarily to provide the speakers with native language biblical texts. ...

• 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