Talk:Fula language

Official status?

This article says that the language has official status in 9 countries. Yet the CIA World Factbook seems to disagree. If you look up the language section for each of these countries, they all show an official language (two for Cameroon), but in every case this is French (6 countries), English (3), or Arabic (1).

Perhaps in some countries the official language isn't widely spoken and the Factbook shows the word "official" only for the purpose of explaining why it's listed at all, without meaning to imply that other languages are not also official. But I find it hard to believe that they would have done this for all 9 countries, which makes me suspicious of this part of the Wikipedia article. I know practically nothing about African languages myself, though, let alone their official status. I just suggest that some checking would be desirable.

66.96.28.244 06:23, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

The CIA World Factbook for the US shows no official language, but rather just lists a section "Languages". While the CIA World Factbook for Senegal shows the same, just a heading entitled "Languages", of which "Pulaar" is indicated (which is given as per this article, as an alternate name of the Fula Language).

Why do I bring up the US situation. I'm certain you're already likely aware that the US does not have an official federal language, although some states do have an official language, or languages. New Mexico is such a state, where both English and Spanish are official languages of the state. Thus, all political and governmental material must be made accessible to speakers of both languages. So, "Official" status is reasonably difficult to pin down precisely. I imagine that determining the true official status of the Fula Language in these regions would require quite exhaustive fact checking, and may be unfeasible.

Fula is not an official language of any country; it's a national language of several, but that's not the same thing. - Mustafaa 22:12, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Mustafaa is right. I would add that the terms "official" and "national" are often used very imprecisely with regard to languages, even in some ostensibly authoritative literature. A12n 00:27, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Strategy for pages on Fula language?

I wrote something on another corner of the Wikipedia that refers to the Fula language page and potential for other pages relating to varieties of the language. See [1] --A12n 01:37, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Languages/Fula --A12n 01:21, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I have posted a question there about which term to use, Fula or Fulfulde. — mark ✎ 19:00, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Tonal?

Is it a tonal language? Badagnani 20:09, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

No, it is not a tonal language.--A12n (talk) 23:55, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Alphabets & orthographies

I made some modifications to the section on writing systems and created a new article on Fula orthographies to facilitate expanded treatment.--A12n (talk) 23:57, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Ejective y?

I was under the impression from p14 of the textbook here: http://ibamba.net/pular/default.htm that the "funky y" it describes, the Ƴ/ƴ, is also an implosive, a palatal implosive following on the pattern from the implosive Ɓ/ɓ, Ɗ/ɗ. I'm only a beginner without any audio samples, so I can't tell for sure, but I just wanted to check this out with anyone else who might be surer. Cheers. Candrodor (talk) 22:55, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

As far as I understand, Ƴ/ƴ is technically not an implosive like Ɓ/ɓ or Ɗ/ɗ, though I also have heard it described as an implosive. I've heard it compared to the Hausa Ƙ/ƙ (Velar ejective) as an "ejective" consonant - certainly from its pronunciation now that I'm more familiar with the latter, it seems more ejective than implosive. At least as I understand the terms. The article on Ƴ/ƴ describes it as a palatalized glottal stop.--A12n (talk) 17:51, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Description of features of the language

I've moved some information from "Classification" to a new section just below it called "Description." This is still very simple. My thought with this article is that it can describe the general features of the language, and link out to two different kinds of articles: (1) Articles on the variant forms (languages as described by Ethnologue, dialects by some others), which can focus on particularities in each variant rather than duplicating material; and (2) articles on specific features of the language such as noun classes and infixes, which may also have comparative tables by language/dialect/variant. --A12n (talk) 00:10, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Fula Wikipedia

Not directly about this article, but can someone look at http://ff.wikipedia.org/ and tell me if the current state of the article is actually in Fula? It looks like spam about Kenyan elections and probably should be reverted back a few months, but I don't have the language facility to be sure. Thanks! -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 18:12, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

As is stated in the article, there could be as many as seven! different versions on some articles, what is described here is something like Chinese in West Africa there are so many different spoken varieties in chinese also. 80.186.55.176 (talk) 19:59, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

To Kwamikagami please remove Serer from this article

It is evident that you have added Fula-Serer in both the Serer-Sine language article and Fula language article. That was after I've removed them both. Not only is Serer the progentitor of Fula, the Fula just like the Wolof tend to borrow wherever they settle. Fula may be similar to Serer just like Wolof may be similar to Serer with Serer as the "root" (see Serer people this issue has been addressed there) but Serer is not Fula and has nothing to do with Fula and vice-versa. Please remove "Fula" from the Serer-Sine infobox and remove "Serer" from the Fula language infobox. Further, to put Fula before Serer (i.e. Fula-Serer) in both infoboxes appears rather patronising and implies that the Serer language derives from Fula when in fact it is the other way round. I know perhaps that was not your original intention but that's what it implies. Please remove them both. Thank you. Tamsier (talk) 02:43, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Actually, Kwami is quite correct. Linguists are in complete agreement that Fula, Serer, and Wolof is a tight little group of close-related languages. --Taivo (talk) 13:48, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

"Not only is Serer the progentitor of Fula [it] has nothing to do with Fula". You're contradicting yourself.

Please provide a single reliable ref that Fula descends from Serer.

As for them being related, pick up any ref on African languages. Or the sources I provided. — kwami (talk) 21:04, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

The relatedness of the Fula language to the Serer language.

"Fula is related to Serer language" all attempts to mention this on this articled were permanently deleted. Whoever is making claims in the Serer language article about the relatedness of Serer and Fula should also mention that in the Fula language article. I see no justifiable reason why the relatedness of the two languages is mentioned by the same author in the Serer language article but totally left out and permanently deleted every time it is mentioned in the Fula language article. Tamsier (talk) 16:36, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Undue section template on infobox

This template has been added in the infobox. The reason being the infobox suggests some sort of superiority of one language over another. Attempts to resolve this issue has been permanently deleted. Tamsier (talk) 17:01, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

U have placed an inappropriate template. Please familiarize yourself with Wiki template codes. You completely messed up the page. And always use the talk page to explain the nature of the Undue section. (with SOURCES) It is not a case of your say-so. If the thing is a problem explain why here. No need to edit war with experienced editors. I have corrected the error and put back your NPOV notice. You will however have to STATE why that notice was placed on the article. What is wrong with this page, if you cannot do so then the tags will have to be removed. Do not put tags for sections in info box.--Halqh حَلَقَة הלכהሐላቃህ (talk) 18:03, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Noun classes & comment on standards

Couple of items on the form of the class indicators, and quick comment re future of standards for languages like Fula. First, removed the leading apostrophe from the "o" since that is never used in writing. By convention, initial glottals (even if pronounced as such) in Fula are never marked. Second, last I checked, it was general usage not to use the "eng" before "g" for the prenasalized form, such that one would write "ng-" rather than "ŋg." Variant spellings of geminate forms sometimes use the eng before the "ng" per jaŋngude rather than the more common janngude (to read, study). I'm beginning to think that there may be utility in a new regional conference on updating orthography standards for cross-border languages to facilitate use of language data (for development of apps etc. in the languages). Minor differences such as these crop up more or less organically for various reasons, but arguably do more harm for regional use of regional languages like Fula, than good.--A12n (talk) 05:21, 28 October 2013 (UTC)