Fula

Fula has a geographical property no other African language matches: it is spoken in some twenty countries, in a band running from the Atlantic coast of Senegal all the way to Sudan.

And it is the national language of none of them.

The reason lies in the history of its speakers. The Fulɓe were traditionally nomadic pastoralists, moving seasonally with their herds across the Sahel. They are dispersed across many countries while rarely forming a majority in any — a minority everywhere, though numerous in aggregate.

This leads to something this guide must state plainly: nobody knows how many people speak Fula. Estimates range from roughly twenty-five to forty million depending on the source, for concrete reasons — nomadic populations are hard to census, the dialect boundaries are not clear, and twenty countries count in twenty different ways. Any figure presented with confidence should be treated with suspicion.

Linguistically, Fula has a rare feature worth studying: the initial consonant of a word changes according to noun class. Not a prefix added in front, but the first letter of the word turning into a different letter. Very few languages in the world do this.

And there is a script story worth knowing: in 1989 two teenage brothers in Guinea invented a writing system for their own language. It is called Adlam, and in 2016 it entered Unicode.

Fula has a grammatical feature very few languages in the world share: the initial consonant of a word changes according to noun class.

Not a prefix added in front, as in Zulu, but the first letter itself turning into a different letter — f becomes p, w becomes b, r becomes d, s becomes c. So one root can begin with four different consonants depending on context.

This makes dictionary use peculiarly difficult, since you must work backwards to what the word's real initial is. But it is also what gets Fula cited constantly in linguistics textbooks.

Fula grammar turns on one axis, and that axis is large.

The noun class system. There are more than twenty classes — more than Zulu — each with its own suffix. The class determines the form of accompanying adjectives, pronouns and demonstratives.

But what sets Fula apart from other noun-class languages is that the class also determines the initial consonant of the noun itself. Not merely an added suffix but the first letter turning into a different letter.

The pair Pullo and Fulɓe illustrates this: a Fulɓe person singular and plural, two different classes, with the initial shifting from p to f.

Verbs have three voices — active, middle and passive — a system English lacks. The middle voice expresses an action in which the subject both acts and is affected.

Word order is subject–verb–object, as in English.

There is no grammatical gender in the masculine-feminine sense — the class system has nothing to do with sex.

Reading Fula has two obstacles, both practical rather than linguistic.

One: there is not much text. Because Fula is nobody's national language, there is no large press or publishing industry in it. There is educational material, religious material and some local publishing, but far less than for Hausa or Yoruba.

Two: orthography differs between countries. With twenty countries come twenty language policies, so spelling conventions are not fully uniform. The same sound may be written differently in Senegal and in Cameroon.

The best reading sources are material produced by literacy programmes, which exists in many countries, and Fula Wikipedia.

There is one distinctive body worth knowing: religious texts in Ajami, with a long tradition, though they require the Arabic script.

And a growing new source: content in Adlam, produced largely by communities in Guinea and in the diaspora.

Listening to Fula has one advantage and one difficulty, both stemming from the dialect continuum.

The advantage: no tones, so the ear does not have to process an extra dimension of information.

The difficulty: you must choose a region and stay with it. Listening across several regions slows learning rather than speeding it, because the dialects differ substantially in both vocabulary and morphology.

The best listening source is regional radio. Many Sahel countries carry Fula programming, and radio is a genuine channel of communication to dispersed pastoral communities.

Some international broadcasters also carry Fula, with the advantage of using a variety relatively neutral between dialects.

One thing to prepare for: because the Fulɓe live across twenty countries, speakers commonly mix in the national language of wherever they live — French in Senegal and Mali, English in Nigeria, Arabic in Chad and Sudan. So it is one language but the loanword layer differs sharply by place.

Speaking Fula has an advantage worth knowing: Fulɓe speakers are usually surprised and very pleased when an outsider speaks their language, because they are a minority everywhere and rarely meet outsiders who have learnt it.

Three things to do early.

Learn the greeting set built around jam. Nearly every greeting and good wish turns on this word, and there is an extended sequence of enquiries — about health, family, and in pastoral areas the herd. Getting that sequence gives you the frame of every encounter.

Accept getting noun classes wrong. More than twenty classes means many errors for a long time. You will be understood.

Know about pulaaku. This code of conduct values self-restraint and reserve. Speaking loudly, being effusive, or displaying emotion freely all sit poorly with it.

A practical note: say which dialect you learnt. Fulɓe speakers are well aware of regional differences and will adjust their speech if they know where you studied.

Writing Fula in the Latin script requires a keyboard with the four letters ɓ, ɗ, ƴ, ŋ. As with Hausa, this is a real obstacle and much online text drops the hooks.

In your own notes, always write the hooks, because ɓ and b are two different sounds.

On spelling, know that conventions differ between countries. Senegal, Guinea, Mali and Nigeria each have their own standard and they differ in details. The practical approach is to adopt the standard of the region you are learning and follow it consistently.

On register, formal written Fula uses a good deal of Arabic-derived vocabulary, particularly in religious contexts.

If you want to try Adlam, fonts and keyboards now exist on the major operating systems and some applications support it. But it bears repeating that this is a cultural undertaking rather than a learning need.

A few things are worth knowing when using Fula.

Pulaaku is the central concept. This code of conduct values self-restraint, patience and reserve. Speaking loudly, displaying emotion freely or being effusive all sit poorly with it.

Greeting is an extended sequence. Enquiries after health, family, and in pastoral areas the herd. Going straight to business is regarded as abrupt.

The word jam frames the whole ritual. Peace appears in the greeting, the farewell and the good wish.

The Fulɓe are a minority everywhere. This shapes how they regard their language and explains how Adlam came about — a community with no state behind it made its own writing system.

The name of the language varies by region. Ask what people call their own language rather than naming it for them — Fulfulde, Pulaar and Pular are each correct in their place.