Fula alphabets


The Fula language is written primarily in the Latin script, but in some areas and contexts is still written in an older Arabic script called the Ajami script or in the recently invented Adlam script.

History

Around the 10th century, Islam was introduced to the West African Sahel and became the religion of scholars and merchants in cities which traded extensively with North African traders. At the same time as Islam arrived came the Qur'an and the Arabic script, which was studied by West African scholars who learned to read, write and speak Arabic. Along with this, many students going through Koranic education would write down notes in their native languages, usually in the margins of books.
It is known that some Fulani scholars were among the students studying in cities like Timbuktu and Gao, hence it is possible that Fulfulde would have been written down starting in the 16th-17th century. As Islam arrived to the Fulani lands in the 17th and 18th centuries, the Fula jihads created multiple Islamic states in West Africa which converted the population and created a class of literate scholars who would debate, speak, write and read in Fulani. The states of the Imamate of Futa Jallon from 1725 and the Sokoto Caliphate from 1804 were both epicentres of West African scholarship, with poetry, science, history, philosophy, and religion debated in Fulfulde.
This established Ajami, a modified script that was able to write Fulfulde, as the original and more traditional form of writing Fulfulde across all Fula populations.
With the arrival of Christian missionaries and soon after the invasion of European powers, mostly the French and English, came the introduction of the Latin script to Fula-speaking regions of West and Central Africa. Various missionaries, colonial administrators, and scholarly researchers devised various ways of writing Fulfulde with Latin to ease the efforts of European colonisation. There were several sounds that were unfamiliar to European languages, like the implosive b and d, the ejective y, the velar n, prenasalised consonants, and long vowels.
Currently, Latin alphabets are the default for Fulfulde writing, with most nations in West Africa having standardised Latin alphabets that accommodate Fulfulde and/or other languages, for official use and instruction. Various Fula writers such as Amadou Bampate Ba and Alfa Ibrahim Sow wrote and published in Latin alphabets, and is used across a range of publications from national level literacy materials, periodicals and linguistic studies and textbooks.
Major influences on current forms of writing Fula came from decisions made by colonial administrators in Northern Nigeria and the Africa Alphabet. Major UNESCO-sponsored conferences on harmonising Latin-based African orthographies were held in Bamako in 1966 and Niamey in 1978, which included standards for writing Fula. Nevertheless, orthographies differ for the language and its variants in different regions, determined by country level.

Latin Alphabets

Standard Orthography

There are variations depending on the country's policies or the dialect of Fula used. There are some general rules that were established by UNESCO from earlier conventions:
  • Phonemic orthography, meaning that every letter represents one phoneme/sound without silent letters
  • * However prenasalised stops are written as two letters, like in ndiyam
  • * But nasalised vowels are not written but inferred from context
  • Double consonants represent geminate consonants, like in sappu and sap'u
  • Double vowels represent the vowel length, like in laa'''mɗo''

    Alphabet Comparison

Below is a table showing the few differences between the different orthographies of Fula alphabets.
IPA
Sounds		Pulaar
Fuuta Tooro		Pular
Fuuta Jallon		Fulfulde
Massina		Fulfulde
Adamawa		Fulfulde
Bagirimi		Notes
'—'''The glottalised stop is present in all variations but Pulaar Futa Jallon, where it is palatised and written out as Ƴ.
J j—Ƴ ƴJ j—Usually represented by J in the dialects the sound appears, except for Massina which doesn't have the phoneme and decided to use Ƴ in here instead.
—Ɠ ɠ———Character and phoneme only exists in Pulaar Fuuta Jallon
Mb mbNb nbMb mbMb mbMb mbPulaar Massina and Pulaar Bagirimi don't include the phoneme on their alphabet but instead write it as convention.
Ñ ñÑ ñƝ ɲNy nyN̰ n̰Ñ and N̰ are influenced from Spanish while the Nigerian Pan-African Alphabet directly uses Ny
X x——X x—Only a sound in Fuuta Toro and in Adamawa
Ƴ ƴ——Ƴ ƴƳ ƴƳ is a character that was agreed upon in the UNESCO conferences, however different dialects have placed it for
different phonemes, specifically
Pulaar Fuuta Jallon and Pulaar Massina
—Ƴ ƴ———Ƴ is a character that was agreed upon in the UNESCO conferences, however different dialects have placed it for
different phonemes, specifically
Pulaar Fuuta Jallon and Pulaar Massina

Pulaar Fuuta Tooro (''Senegal, The Gambia, Mauritania'')

is the Fula dialect spoken in Senegal, Gambia, and Southern Mauritania. Its Latin alphabet has been standardised by Senegalese government decrees, the latest of which issued in 2005.
It differs from other alphabets in that it includes dipthongs and prenasalisation in the official list, while other alphabets treat it as an orthographic rule instead of a letter.
A aAa aaB bMb mbƁ ɓC cD dNd ndƊ ɗE eEe eeF fG gNg ngH hI iIi iiJ jNj nj
‍~‍~‍~
K kL lM mN nÑ ñŊ ŋO oOo ooP pR rS sT tU uUu uuW wX xY yƳ ƴ’

Pular Fuuta Jalon (''Guinea'')

is the Fula dialect spoken in Guinea. Following independence, the government of Guinea adopted transcription rules for all the languages of Guinea based on the characters and diacritic combinations available on French typewriters from that period. The Guinean languages alphabet was used officially for Guinean indigenous languages until 1989.
A meeting for the reform of the alphabet was established in 1988, and it was decided to adopt an orthography similar to the African reference alphabet which was used elswhere in West Africa. In the case of Pular, this change brought the official orthography in harmony with those used in other countries.
A aB bƁ ɓC cD dƊ ɗE eF fG gƓ ɠH hIiJ jK kL lM m
N nNb nbNd ndNg ngNj njÑ ñŊ ŋO oP pR rS sT tU uW wY yƳ ƴ

The pre-1989 alphabet was based on the simple Latin alphabet with digraphs for the sounds particular to Pular as opposed to unique letters. This alphabet is still used by some Pular speakers.
A aB bBh bhD dDh dhDy dyE eF fG gGh ghH hIiJ jK kL lM mMb mb
N nNd ndNdy ndyNg ngNh nhNy nyO oP pR rS sT tTy tyU uW wY yYh yh-
-

Maasina Fulfulde (''Mali, Burkina Faso'')

The dominant Fula accent in Mali is referred to as Maasina Fulfulde. Its Latin alphabet was standardized in 1967, and it consists of 32 letters.
’A aB bƁ ɓC cD dƊ ɗE eF fG gH hI iJ jK kL lM m
Mb mbN nNd ndNg ngNj njƝ ɲŊ ŋO oP pR rS sT tU uW wY yƳ ƴ