Pulaar language

Pulaar
Native to	Senegal, Mauritania, the Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Mali
Ethnicity	Toucouleur, Fula
Native speakers	3.7 million (2006)[1]
Language family	Niger–Congo Atlantic–Congo Senegambian Fula–Serer Fula Pulaar
Language codes
ISO 639-3	fuc
Glottolog	pula1263[2]

Pulaar is a Fula language spoken primarily as a first language by the Fula and Toucouleur peoples in the Senegal River valley area traditionally known as Futa Tooro and further south and east. Pulaar speakers, known as Haalpulaar'en live in Senegal, Mauritania, the Gambia, and western Mali.

According to Ethnologue there are several dialect differences, but all are inherently intelligible.

Pulaar is not to be confused with Pular, another variety of Fula spoken in Guinea (including the Fouta Djallon region). The Pulaar and Pular varieties of Fula are to some extent mutually intelligible, but require a separate literature.

Pulaar is written in a Latin script, but historically was written in an Arabic script known as "Ajami script" (see Fula alphabets).

Linguistic features

The negative accomplished verb form ends in -aani. (This is slightly different from Maasina Fulfulde and Pular.)

References

1. Pulaar at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
2. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Pulaar". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.