Fulani

About Fula (Fulani)

Fula is the language of the Fulani people, spoken by about 24 million people across West and Central Africa, from Senegal and Guinea to Nigeria and Cameroon. It goes by different names in different places: Pulaar in Senegal and Mauritania, Pular in Guinea and Fulfulde in Mali, Niger, Nigeria and Cameroon. The varieties differ, so a word used in Nigeria may not be the one used in Senegal, and the guides here do not always say which variety they give.

Fula is written in Latin letters, in Arabic script and, since the 1990s, in Adlam, an alphabet created for the language in Guinea. The Latin spelling uses a few extra letters, such as ɓ and ɗ, for sounds made by drawing air inward.

FamilyNiger-Congo, Atlantic
Speakersabout 24 million (2007)
Where spokenWest and Central Africa, from Senegal to Cameroon
ScriptLatin alphabet, Adlam, Arabic script
Codesff (ISO 639-1), ful (ISO 639-3)

Speaker number: Nationalencyklopedin (2007), via Wikidata. Retrieved 26 September 2026.

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