Fula

Latin orthography notes

Updated 10 May, 2024

This page brings together basic information about the Latin script and its use for the Fula languages and dialects. It aims to provide a brief, descriptive summary of the modern, printed orthography and typographic features, and to advise how to write Fula using Unicode.

Fula is term for a family that includes numerous dialects and languages, however they are largely mutually comprehensible, and the orthography only varies slightly. The examples in this document may be drawn from any of the Fula local languages.

Referencing this document

Richard Ishida, Fula (Latin) Orthography Notes, 10-May-2024, https://r12a.github.io/scripts/latn/ff

Sample

Select part of this sample text to show a list of characters, with links to more details.
Change size:   24px

Innama aadeeji fof poti, ndimɗidi e jibinannde to bannge hakkeeji. Eɓe ngoodi miijo e hakkilantaagal ete eɓe poti huufo ndirde e nder ɓ iynguyummaagu.

Gooto kala ina waawi hokkunde hoore mum hakkeeji e ndima guuji kaalaaɗi e nanondiralngal tawa alaa paltagol nguru, mbaydi, leñol, ɗemngal, diine, iwdi leydi walla renndo, dañal, jibinande walla kala ngonka. E ko fawtii heen hay paltoor gooto woodataa e dow yowitaade e dawrugol, ñaawoore hakkunde leyɗeele fawaade e neɗɗo ummiiɗo leydi walla neɗɗo mo yowitaaki maa woni pawiɗo yamiroore laawɗinaande waawnde wonde fof.

Source: Unicode UDHR, articles 1 & 2

Usage & history

Origins of the Latin script, 7thC – today.

Phoenician

└ Greek

└ Old Italic

└ Latin

+ Glagolitic

+ Cyrillic

+ Armenian

+ Georgian

+ Coptic

+ Runes

Fula is normally written in the Latin script, but also the Adlam script is growing in use, and historically but still occasionally it is written using the Arabic ajami script. The Fula languages and dialects are spread across some 20 countries in the Sahel and Central Africa, extending from the coast of West Africa to Sudan, and encompassing around 40 million speakers.

Fula is referred to using several names, including Fulani, Fulah, and in the east, Fulfulde. Individual Fulah languages also have their own names, such as Pular, Pulaar, Maasina Fulfulde, Adamawa Fulfulde, etc.

Fula ˈfuːlə Fula language

Use of the Latin script began with the colonisation of Africa. Prior to the 1966 Bamako expert meeting organised by UNESCO, there was wide variation in the letters used to represent sounds in the various regions, and greater use of digraphs rather than phonetic symbols. The 1966 meeting established a basic set of spelling conventions, but some regions didn't adopt all the changes straight away. For example, the move from ny to ɲ or ñ commonly occurred later. There was another conference in Niamey in 1978. Nevertheless, orthographies for the language and its variants are determined at the country level, so while Fula writing uses basically the same character sets and rules across the region, there are some minor variations.wfl

Basic features

The Latin script is an alphabet. This means that it is largely phonetic in nature, where each letter represents a basic sound. See the table to the right for a brief overview of features for the modern Fula orthography using the Latin script.

A small number of spelling differences occur in some of the regions where Fula is written, but generally spelling remains consistent.

Fula text runs left-to-right in horizontal lines. Words are separated by spaces. The orthography is bicameral. The visual forms of letters don't usually interact.

❯ consonantSummary

Fula has 23 consonant letters, three of which can be written in two different ways. Loan words use 4 more consonant letters (though they are rare). All this duplicated in upper- and lowercase.

Some sounds, in particular a set of 4 pre-nasalised consonants, are written using digraphs (which are counted as letters of the alphabet).

Consonant gemination is indicated using doubled letters.

❯ basicV

This orthography is an alphabet where vowels are written using 5 vowel letters (10 counting both uppercase and lowercase). The 5 vowel letters do not reflect differences in vowel quality associated with short vs. long vowels.

Long vowels are indicated by doubling letters.

Numbers use ASCII digits.

Line-breaking and justification are primarily based on inter-word spaces.

Character index

Letters

Show

Consonants

ñ␣ŋ␣ƴ␣ɓ␣ɗ␣ɠ␣ɲ␣ʼ
Ñ␣Ŋ␣Ƴ␣Ɓ␣Ɗ␣Ɠ␣Ɲ
ʼy

ASCII

mb␣nb␣nd␣nj␣ng␣ny
a␣b␣c␣d␣e␣f␣g␣h␣i␣j␣k␣l␣m␣n␣o␣p␣r␣s␣t␣u␣w␣y
q␣v␣x␣z
A␣B␣C␣D␣E␣F␣G␣H␣I␣J␣K␣L␣M␣N␣O␣P␣R␣S␣T␣U␣W␣Y
Q␣V␣X␣Z

Punctuation

Show
‘␣’␣“␣”

ASCII

,␣;␣:␣.␣?␣!␣(␣)

Alphabets

The Fula alphabet varies slightly from country to country. A small number of sounds are written differently from one region to the next, and there are small differences sometimes in the order of the items in the alphabet. Wikipedia has a list of Alphabets by country, Here we show a superset of alphabetic items and tease them apart below the table.

a␣b␣mb␣ɓ␣c␣d␣nd␣ɗ␣e␣f␣g␣ɠ␣ng␣h␣i␣j␣nj␣k␣l␣m␣n␣ŋ␣ɲ␣ñ␣ny␣o␣p␣r␣s␣t␣u␣w␣y␣ƴ␣ʼy

ᵐb is written mb in all regions except Guinea, which uses nb.

ɠ is only used in Guinea.

ɲ is written ɲ in Guinea, Mali, and Burkina Faso, ñ in Senegal, Gambia, Mauritania, Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau, and Liberia, and ny in Niger, Cameroon, Chad, CAR, and Nigeria.

ʔʲ is written ʼy in Nigeria, but ƴ everywhere else.

Items to show in lists

Phonology

The following represents the general repertoire of the Fula languages and dialects.

Click on the sounds to reveal locations in this document where they are mentioned.

Phones in a lighter colour are non-native or allophones. Source Wikipedia.

Vowel sounds

Plain vowels

ɪ ʊ o ɛ ɔ ɔː a a

Whether the script is Adlam, Latin, or Arabic, the sources of information found for Fula don't provide a great deal of clarity around the precise phonetic pronunciation of the vowel sounds, and, unfortunately, there is no IPA-transcribed data in Wiktionary to help clarify actual pronunciation.

Most sources simply transcribe all vowel sounds as a i e o u, which are the phonemically distinct vowels. However, some sources make a distinction in their transcriptions between short vowels pronounced ɪ ʊ ɛ ɔ a, and long vowels pronounced iː uː eː oː aː.

Furthermore, the phonetic sounds of a vowel may be influenced by the following consonant.lhs

Examples in this page are drawn from various sources, and may or may not use broad phonemic or narrow(er) transcriptions.

Diphthongs

Fula/Fulfulde diphthongs are all vowels followed by a -j or a -w glide. They include the following.mhm

iw
uj
ey ew
oj ow
aj aw

uj doesn't occur in word-final position.mhm,28

Consonant sounds

labial alveolar post-alveolar palatal velar glottal
stop p b t d t͡ʃ d͡ʒ   k ɡ ʔ ʔʲ
pre-nasalised ᵐb ⁿd ᶮd͡ʒ   ᵑɡ  
implosive ɓ ɗ        
fricative f s z       h
nasal m n   ɲ ŋ
approximant w l   j  
trill/flap   r ɾ

Fula is reported to be one of only 3 languages that contrast prenasalized consonants and their corresponding clusters (eg. ᵐb versus mb).@Wikipedia: Prenasalized consonant,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenasalized_consonant

Observation: A few sources mention a letter that represents the sound ɠ, found in Guinea, and written in the Latin orthography with the same symbol (though previously written using q). No examples of this sound have been encountered in my research.

Tone

Languages in the Atlantic group of the Niger-Congo family, of which Fula is one, are unusual in that they are not tonal.

Structure

Fula has 2 regular syllable types: CV and CVC, where V can be a short or long vowel, and an initial C may be a glottal stop. Only a small number of sounds can occur as a coda, and closed syllables are much less common than open ones.

The distinction between long and short vowels is phonemically distinctive.

Consonant clusters only occur where a syllable follows a closed syllable. Gemination is, however, a distinctive feature.

A syllable can only contain a single vowel.lhs

Vowels

Vowel summary table

The following table summarises the main vowel to character assigments.

Lowercase on the left, uppercase to the right.

Plain
i␣ii␣ ␣u␣uu
I␣ ␣U
e␣ee␣ ␣o␣oo
E␣ ␣O
a␣aa
A

For additional details see vowel_mappings.

The following is the set of characters needed to write vowels, as described in this section, grouped by case.

i␣u␣e␣o␣a
I␣U␣E␣O␣A

Post-consonant vowels

Vowels following consonants are written using 5 vowel letters (10 counting both uppercase and lowercase), that do not reflect differences in vowel quality associated with short vs. long vowels. Long vowels are indicated by doubling letters.

Plain vowels

5 vowel letters are used, each with an upper and lower case form.

i␣u␣e␣o␣a
I␣U␣E␣O␣A

Vowel length

Long vowel sounds are written by doubling the relevant vowels, eg. buguuru

Long and short vowel sounds are phonemically distinctive, although minimal pairs are relatively uncommonfsi,8, eg. jango jaango

Standalone vowels

Standalone vowels are written using ordinary vowel letters and no special arrangements.

Vowel sounds to characters

This section maps Fula vowel sounds to common graphemes in the Latin orthography.

The right-hand column shows uppercase forms.

Click on a grapheme to find other mentions on this page (links appear at the bottom of the page). Click on the character name to see examples and for detailed descriptions of the character(s) shown.

 
 
Lowercase
Uppercase
i ɪ
 

i

ɗiɗi

I

 

ii

diidol

u ʊ
 

u

Fulfulde

U

 

uu

buuruuje

e ɛ
 

e

feccere

E

 

ee

keerol

o ɔ
 

o

kono

O

 

oo

koohooɓe

a
 

a

abada

A

 

aa

baaba

Consonants

Consonant summary table

The following table summarises the main consonant to character assigments.

The right column shows letters used in loan words and foreign pronunciations (especially Arabic), but not usually used for native Fula text.

Lowercase
p␣b␣ɓ␣t␣d␣ɗ␣k␣g␣ʼ␣ƴ␣ ␣c␣j
q
mb␣nb␣nd␣nj␣ng
 
f␣s␣h
v␣z␣sh␣x
m␣n␣ɲ␣ñ␣ŋ
 
w␣r␣l␣y
 
Show uppercase
Uppercase
P␣B␣Ɓ␣T␣D␣Ɗ␣K␣G␣ʼ␣Ƴ␣ ␣C␣J
Q
F␣S␣H
V␣Z␣SH␣X
M␣N␣Ɲ␣Ñ␣Ŋ
 
W␣R␣L␣Y
 

For additional details see consonant_mappings.

Basic consonant letters

Fula uses the following characters to represent the set of basic consonants shown in the table just above.

p␣b␣t␣d␣c␣j␣k␣g␣ʼ␣ƴ␣ɓ␣ɗ␣f␣s␣h␣m␣n␣ɲ␣ñ␣ŋ␣w␣r␣l␣y
P␣B␣T␣D␣C␣J␣K␣G␣Ƴ␣Ɓ␣Ɗ␣F␣S␣H␣M␣N␣Ɲ␣Ñ␣Ŋ␣W␣R␣L␣Y

In this page we write the apostrophe using ʼ, but it is more common to find ' U+0027 APOSTROPHE.

ƴ is written in Nigeria as ʼy or 'y U+0027 APOSTROPHE + U+0079 LATIN SMALL LETTER Y.

ɲ is used in Guinea, Mali, and Burkina Faso, ñ in Senegal, Gambia, Mauritania, Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau, and Liberia, and ny in Niger, Cameroon, Chad, CAR, and Nigeria.

Pre-nasalised stops

mb␣nb␣nd␣nj␣ng

Pre-nasalised sounds are written using digraphs, and frequently occur word-initially. The digraphs are considered to be letters in the alphabet, eg. mbeewa ngayuuri njoyo

nb is reportedly used in Guineawfa, whereas mb is used everywhere else.

Word-medially, the orthography doesn't clearly distinguish between syllable-final nasals and syllables beginning with a pre-nasal sound. For example, hindu could mean it (hi.ndu) or ancient (hin.du). (The Adlam script and Arabic script orthographies do allow this distinction to be clearly made.)

Observation: It seems that ᵑɡ can also be written ŋg, eg. ɗemŋgal koŋŋgol

Repertoire extension

The following are sometimes used for foriegn sounds in loan words or transcriptions, particularly from Arabic, and are rare.

q␣sh␣v␣x␣z

Alternative spellings

Prior to the 1966 Bamako expert meeting organised by UNESCO, there was wider variation in the letters used to represent sounds in the various regions, and greater use of digraphs rather than phonetic symbols. The 1966 meeting established a basic set of spelling conventions, but some regions didn't adopt all the changes straight away. For example, the move from ny to ɲ or ñ commonly occurred later.

The following table shows standard modern spelling variants and non-standard spellings which may date from prior to the UNESCO reforms, or may arise because people don't have access to non-ASCII characters on their keyboard, etc.

Standard modern spelling(s) Non-standard spelling(s)
ɓ bh
c ty
ɗ dh
j dy | di
ŋ nh
ɲ | ñ ny
u ou
w ou
ƴ | ʼy yh

Consonant length

Consonant gemination is common and is distinctive in Fula. Gemination is written by doubling the consonant, eg. tutogol tuttogol

Consonant sounds to characters

This section maps Fula consonant sounds to common graphemes in the Latin orthography. Sounds listed as 'infrequent' are allophones, or sounds used for foreign words, etc.

The right-hand column shows uppercase forms.

Click on a grapheme to find other mentions on this page (links appear at the bottom of the page). Click on the character name to see examples and for detailed descriptions of the character(s) shown.

 
 
Lowercase
Uppercase
p
 

p

peewal

P

b
 

b

baaba

B

ɓ
 

ɓ

ɓalal

Ɓ

t
 

t

tati

T

t͡ʃ
 

c

coggu

C

d
 

d

diidol

D

d͡ʒ
 

j

jango

J

ɗ
 

ɗ

ɗaɗol

Ɗ

k
 

k

kosam

K

ɡ
 

g

goonga

G

q
 

q

qalamu

Q

ʔ
 

ʼ

goʼo

ʔʲ
 

ƴ

ƴiiƴam

ʼy in Nigeria.

Ƴ

ʼY

ᵐb
 

mb

mbeewa

Mb

ⁿd
 

nd

ndowru

Nd

ᶮd͡ʒ
 

nj

njoyo

Nj

ᵑɡ
 

ng

ngayuuri

Ng

f
 

f

fayande

F

v
 

v

V

s
 

s

saare

S

z
 

z

zawju

Z

ʃ
 

sh

shahaada

SH

ɣ
 

x

X

h
 

h

hanki

H

m
 

m

maaro

M

n
 

n

nantinoore

N

ɲ
 

ɲ in Guinea, Mali, and Burkina Faso.

ɲaari

ñ in Senegal, Gambia, Mauritania, Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau, and Liberia.

ñaari

ny in Niger, Cameroon, Chad, CAR, and Nigeria.

nyaari

Ɲ

Ñ

Ny

ŋ
 

ŋ

ŋari

Ŋ

w
 

w

waawugol

W

r ɾ
 

r

reedu

R

l
 

l

cellal

L

j
 

y

yeeso

Y

Numbers, dates, currency, etc

ASCII digits are used.

Text direction

Fula text runs left to right in horizontal lines.

Glyph shaping & positioning

You can experiment with examples using the Fula character app.

Transforming characters

Fula is bicameral, and applications may need to enable transforms to allow the user to switch between cases.

Typographic units

Word boundaries

Words are separated by spaces.

Graphemes

tbd

Punctuation & inline features

Phrase & section boundaries

,␣;␣:␣.␣?␣!

Fula uses ASCII punctuation.

phrase

,

;

:

sentence

.

?

!

Bracketed text

(␣)

Fula commonly uses ASCII parentheses to insert parenthetical information into text.

  start end
standard

(

)

Quotations & citations

“␣”␣‘␣’

Fula texts may use quotation marks around quotations. Of course, due to keyboard design, quotations may also be surrounded by ASCII double and single quote marks.

  start end
initial

nested

Line & paragraph layout

Line breaking & hyphenation

Lines are generally broken between words.

Show (default) line-breaking properties for characters in the Fula orthography described here.

Baselines, line height, etc.

tbd

Fula uses the 'alphabetic' baseline.

Page & book layout

Online resources

  1. Wikipedia
  2. Dictionnaire Pular (webonary)

References