Fur language

Phonology

Writing

Morphology

Media in Fur language

Plurals

Pronouns

Verbs

Adjectives

The Fur language or For; is a Nilo-Saharan language spoken by the Fur of Darfur in Western Sudan and Chad. It is part of a broader family of languages known as the Fur languages.

The consonantal phonemes are:

The vowels are: a e i o u. There is dispute whether the –ATR vowels are phonetic variants or separate phonemes.
There are two underlying tonemes, L and H ; phonetically, L, H, mid, HL, and LH are all found.
Metathesis is an extremely common and regular grammatical phenomenon in Fur: when a consonant pronoun prefix is prefixed to a verb that begins with a consonant, either the verb's first consonant is deleted or it changes places with the following vowel; e.g.:
There are also various assimilation rules.

Fur is written in the Latin alphabet with the addition of the letters a̱, ɨ, ŋ, and ʉ, and the digraph ny.
High tone is marked by the acute accent, falling tone is marked by circumflex, rising tone is marked by caron, and low tone is unmarked.

Noun, and optionally adjective, plurals can be formed with -a :
This suffix also gives the inanimate 3rd person plural of the verb:
Vowel-final adjectives can take a plural in -lá, as well as -ŋa:
A similar suffix is used for the plural of the verb in some tenses.
A few CVV nouns take the plural suffix H-ta;
At least two nouns take the suffix -i:
Nouns with the singular prefix d- take the plural k-; these are about 20% of all nouns. In some cases it is accompanied by L; e.g.:

In some cases, the singular also has a suffix -ŋ, not found in the plural:
Sometimes, a further plural suffix from those listed above is added:
Sometimes the suffix -ta, is added:
One noun, as well as the demonstratives and the interrogative "which", take a plural by simply prefixing k-L:
Several syntactic plurals with no singulars, mostly denoting liquids, have k-L-a; kewa "blood", koro "water", kona "name, song" koonà.
Nouns

The locative case can be expressed by the suffix -le or by reversing the noun's final tone, e.g.:
The genitive is expressed by the suffix -iŋ If the relationship is possessive, the possessor comes first; otherwise, it comes last; e.g.:

Independent subject:

Singular	Fur	Plural	Fur
I	ká	we	kɨ́
you	jɨ́	you	bɨ́
he, she, it	yé	they	yɨeŋ + yeeŋ

The object pronouns are identical, apart from being low tone and having -ŋó added to the plural forms.
Prefixed subject pronouns:

Singular	Fur	Plural	Fur
I	–	we	k-
you	j-	you	b-
he, she, it	–	they	y-
		they

Thus, for example, on the verb bʉo- "tire":

English	Fur	English	Fur
I'm tired	ká ʉmo	we tired	kɨ́ kʉmo
you tired	jɨ́ jʉmo	you tired	bɨ́ bʉmo
he/it/she tired	yé bʉo	they tired	yɨeŋ kʉme + yeeŋ bʉe

gi, described as the "participant object pronoun", represents first or second person objects in a dialogue, depending on context.
Possessives :

Singular	Fur	Plural	Fur
my	dúíŋ	our	dáíŋ
your	dɨ́ɨ́ŋ	your	dɨ́eŋ
his, hers, its	dééŋ	their	dɨ́eŋ

The Fur verbal system is quite complicated; verbs fall into a variety of conjugations. There are three tenses: present, perfect, and future. Subjunctive is also marked. Aspect is distinguished in the past tense.
Derivational suffixes include -iŋ (intransitive/reflexive; e.g.
and gemination of the middle consonant plus -à/ò (intensive; e.g.
Negation is done with the marker a-...-bà surrounding the verb; a-bai-bà "he does not drink".

Most adjectives have two syllables, and a geminate middle consonant: e.g. àppa "big", fùkka "red", lecka "sweet". Some have three syllables: dàkkure "solid".
Adverbs can be derived from adjectives by addition of the suffix -ndì or L-n, e.g.:
Abstract nouns can be derived from adjectives by adding -iŋ and lowering all tones, deleting any final vowel of the adjective, e.g.:

Labiovelar

Approximant

broadcasts daily news in the Fur language and in other languages local to Darfur.