Pulaar language

Not to be confused with Pular language.
Pulaar
  • بولار (Arabic)
  • Pël ݒࣴلْ‎ (Wolof)
  • Peul (French)
Pulaar ݒُلَارْ‎ 𞤆𞤵𞤤𞤢𞥄𞤪
Pulaar Fuuta Tooro
ݒُلَارْ فُوتَ تࣷورࣷ‎‎
𞤆𞤵𞤤𞤢𞥄𞤪 𞤆𞤵𞥄𞤼𞤢 𞤚𞤮𞥄𞤪𞤮
Native toGuinea, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, The Gambia, Mali, Mauritania
EthnicityFula, Toucouleur
Native speakers
6.3 million (2014–2022)[1]
Arabic (Ajami)
Adlam script
Fula alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3fuc
Glottologpula1263

Pulaar (in Adlam: 𞤆𞤵𞤤𞤢𞥄𞤪, in Ajami: ݒُلَارْ‎) is a Fula language spoken primarily as a first[2] 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. The two main speakers of Pulaar are the Toucouleur people and the Fulɓe (also known as Fulani or Peul).[3] Pulaar is the second most spoken local language in Senegal, being a first language for around 22% of the population. This correlates with 23.7% of the country in which Pulaar is the population's ethnicity.[4] Pulaar is one of the national languages of Senegal alongside 13 others.[4] It was admitted as an official language of Senegal by Presidential decree in 1971.[4] There are around 28 known dialects of Pulaar, most of which are mutually intelligible with each other.[5] The Pulaar dialects, as well as other West African languages, are usually referenced under the umbrella term ‘Fula’. Pulaar as a language, however, is not usually referenced as ‘Fula’.[6]

According to Ethnologue there are several dialectal varieties, but all are mutually 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.

Pulaar is currently written in primarily in the Latin script. Historically, for centuries, Pulaar has a literary tradition based on the Arabic script, an orthographic tradition now known as "Ajami". More recently, Adlam script for Pulaar has been gaining ground as well (see Fula alphabets).

The word Pulaar translates to 'the language of the Fulɓe' as the stem /pul/ is the singular form of Fulɓe and the suffix /-aar/ means language. The language is believed to have formed in Fuuta Tooro when the ancestors of the Toucouleur people began speaking the language of the Fulɓe. It is then believed that the term Haalpulaar'en (which means 'speakers of the language of Pulaar') was created to apply to non-Fulɓe speakers of Fulɓe, of which the Toucouleur people are the largest demographic.[3]

Map of the Fula languages including Pulaar.
  1. ^ Pulaar at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024) Closed access icon
  2. ^ Pulaar.
  3. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference :8 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ a b c Diallo, Ibrahima (2006). Language Planning, Language-In-Education Policy, and Attitudes Towards Languages in Senegal (Griffith thesis). My University, My University, Marilyn McMeniman. Griffith University. doi:10.25904/1912/1429.
  5. ^ "Pulaar" (PDF). National African Language Resource Center – Indiana. 2020. Retrieved 13 October 2020.
  6. ^ Paster, Mary (2005), "Pulaar verbal extensions and phonologically driven affix order", Yearbook of Morphology 2005, Yearbook of Morphology, Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, pp. 155–199, doi:10.1007/1-4020-4066-0_6, ISBN 978-1-4020-4065-8, retrieved 2020-11-02