Adlam alphabet
| Adlam |
|
|---|---|
| Type |
Alphabet
|
| Languages | Fula |
| Creator | Ibrahima Barry and Abdoulaye Barry |
|
Time period
|
Invented 1980s |
| Direction | Right-to-left |
| ISO 15924 | Adlm, 166 |
|
Unicode alias
|
Adlam |
| U+1E900–U+1E95F | |
The Fula language (Fula: Fulfulde or Pulaar or Pular) is written primarily in the Latin script, but in some areas is still written in an older Arabic script called the Ajami script or with its own script called Adlam.
The Latin script was introduced to Fula-speaking regions of West and Central Africa by Europeans during, and in some cases immediately before, invasion. Various people — missionaries, colonial administrators, and scholarly researchers — devised various ways of writing . One issue similar to other efforts by Europeans to use their alphabet and home orthographic conventions was how to write African languages with unfamiliar sounds. In the case of Fula, these included how to represent sounds such as the implosive b and d, the ejective y, the velar n (the latter being present in European languages, but never in initial position), prenasalised consonants, and long vowels, all of which are can change meaning.
Major influences on the current forms used for writing Fula were decisions made by colonial administrators in Northern Nigeria and the Africa Alphabet. Post independence African governments decided to retain the Latin alphabet as the basis for transcribing their languages. Major UNESCO-sponsored conference on harmonizing African language orthographies in Bamako in 1966 and Niamey in 1978 confirmed this trend.
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.
Some general rules:
a, aa, b, mb, ɓ, c, d, nd, ɗ, e, ee, f, g, ng, h, i, ii, j, nj, k, l, m, n, ŋ, ñ, o, oo, p, r, s, t, u, uu, w, x, y, ƴ
...
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