Fulfulde

Fulfulde or Fulani, language spoken across a wide range of West African countries, from Senegal on the Atlantic seaboard to Sudan in the east. The speakers refer to the language as Fulfulde (except in Senegal where is it is known as Pulaar and in Guinea as Pular), and it is known as Fulani in English and Peul in French. There are at least 15 million speakers, who refer to themselves as Fulbe (in English, Fulani). The largest concentrations are in Nigeria (7.5 million), Cameroon (5 million), Guinea (2.9 million), Senegal (2.9 million), Mali (1 million), Burkina Faso (0.75 million), and Niger (0.5 million). As would be expected over such a vast area, there is significant dialect diversity and some argue that Fulfulde is a group of related languages rather than one single language. Fulfulde is an official language in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Senegal.

Fulbe people are traditionally nomadic herders of cattle, goats, and sheep. They are thought to have expanded westwards in an arc from Senegal starting in around ad 1000, interdigitating with, and often conquering, the settled agricultural peoples through whose lands they moved. The language belongs to the vast Niger-Congo family that includes familiar languages such as Zulu and Swahili. However, the small Atlantic branch to which Fulfulde belongs is the most divergent from the main stock. The most closely related language to Fulfulde is Wolof, spoken in The Gambia and Senegal. This relationship is congruent with historical records of a Senegambian origin for the Fulbe diaspora.

Fulfulde has many features typical of African languages. It has subject-verb-object word order and forms a question by the addition of a sentence-final particle. It also has a complex system of as many as 25 noun classes (roughly equivalent to genders in European languages). These are indicated by a suffix, and require agreement in other elements of the phrase. However, unusually for an African language, its phonology does not make use of tonal contrasts.

Fulfulde was first written down using Arabic script (see Arabic Language), reflecting the Fulbe's long Islamic heritage, which is also evident in some areas of vocabulary. More recently, Fulfulde has been written in Roman script (see Alphabet) with a number of special characters. The orthography was standardized across the different West African states in the 1960s. Many Fulbe also speak other languages, particularly Hausa, which has had an impact in terms of borrowed words. In some areas, Fulbe are losing their language in favour of Hausa.