Pular language

Not to be confused with Pulaar language.
Pular
Fuuta Jalon
Native to Guinea; minor: Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Mali
Region Fouta Djallon, Guinea
Ethnicity Fula people
Native speakers
(3 million cited 1991–2006)[1]
Fula alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3 fuf
Glottolog pula1262[2]

Pular is a Fula language spoken primarily by the Fula people of Fouta Djallon, Guinea. It is also spoken in parts of Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, and Senegal. There are a small number of speakers in Mali. Pular is spoken by 2.5 million Guineans, about 28% of the national population.[3] This makes Pular the most widely-spoken indigenous language in the country. Substantial numbers of Pular speakers have migrated to other countries in West Africa, notably Senegal.

Pular is not to be confused with Pulaar, another Fula language spoken natively in Guinea, Senegal, Mauritania, and western Mali (including the Futa Tooro region).

Pular is written in the Ajami script and the Latin script.

Linguistic features

Main article: Fula language

There are some particularities to this version of Fula, including:

Person / number Standard long-form pronoun

(as in Pulaar)

Corresponding form in Pular
1st / sing miɗo miɗo

hilan (non-standard alternate form)

2nd / sing aɗa hiɗa
3rd / sing omo himo
1st /pl (excl) miɗen, amin meɗen

himen (non-standard alternate form)

1st / pl (incl) eɗen hiɗen
2nd / pl oɗon hiɗon
3rd / pl eɓe hiɓe

Writing

Main article: Fula alphabets

Like other varieties of the Fula language, Pular was written before colonization in an Arabic-based orthography called "Ajami." Today, while Ajami remains prevalent in rural areas of Fouta Djallon, but Pular is mainly written in a Latin-based orthography, the so-called UNESCO orthography. Pular Latin orthography is basically the same as that used for Fula languages throughout West Africa.

Up until the mid-1980s, Pular in Guinea was written with the Guinean languages alphabet that differed from that used in other countries.

Grammar

Main article: Pular grammar

References

  1. Pular at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Pular". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
  3. ethnologue.org. "Ethnologue report for Guinea". Ethnologue: Languages of the World. Retrieved 25 April 2011.

External links


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