Pular language

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Pular Pular
Spoken in:	Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Sierra Leone, Mali
Region:	Fouta Jalon (in Guinea), Africa
Total speakers:	10–16 million
Language family:	Niger-Congo Atlantic-Congo Atlantic Northern Senegambian Fula-Wolof Fula Pular
Writing system:	Fula alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	`ff`
ISO 639-2:	`ful`
ISO 639-3:	`fuf` – [[Pular]]
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Pular is a Fula language spoken primarily by Fula people in the Fouta Jalon, in the West African state of Guinea and also into Guinea Bissau and Sierra Leone, with a small number of speakers in Mali. It is spoken by 3 million Guineans and is the most widely spoken indigenous language in the country. It can be written in Roman and Arabic script.

[edit] Linguistic features

Main article: Fula language

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

Use of plural form for politeness (such as in German or French, unlike other varieties of Fula)
A number of a number of separate verbal roots for politeness (these may exist only in Pular)
There is no initial consonant mutation from singular to plural verb forms as is the case in other varieties of Fula (there is in nominal forms, however)
In addition to the more standard long-form pronouns of Fula there are alternate forms in Pular (= hi(l) + pronoun). The table below summarizes these (question marks where the info is not complete):

Person / number	Standard long-form pronoun	Alternate form in Pular
1st / sing	miɗo	hilan
2nd / sing	aɗa	hiɗa
3rd / sing	omo	himo
1st /pl (excl)	miɗen	(?) hiɗen
1st / pl (incl)	enen	(?)
2nd / pl	oɗon	(?)
3rd / pl	eɓe	hiɓe

[edit] Writing

Main article: Fula orthographies

Like other varieties of the Fula language, Pular was written before colonization in an Arabic-based orthography called "Ajami." Although this is still used particularly in rural areas of Fuuta Jalon, Pular is mainly written in a Latin-based orthography that is basically the same as that used for Fula throughout the region.

Up until the mid-1980s, Pular in Guinea was written with an orthography set by the Guinean government that differed from that used in other countries.