Pulaar (in Latin: , in Ajami: ) is a Senegambian language spoken primarily in Mauritania, Senegal and the Gambia. It is one of the national languages of Mauritania and Senegal and spoken by more than 6 million people worldwide.
The two main speakers of Pulaar are the Toucouleur people and the Fulɓe (also known as Fulani or Peul) in the Senegal River valley area traditionally known as Futa Tooro. There are around 28 known dialects of Fula, most of which are mutually intelligible with each other. The Fula 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’. 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. The table below shows the noun classes in Pulaar and what the class indicates the content of the noun to be:
{| class="wikitable"
|+Noun classes Other languages that use this system in West Africa include Pular, Wolof, Sereer-Sine and East Limba. These quinary-decimal counting languages can be found in the west African regions of Sierra Leone, Guinea and Gambia. The allomorphs -t, -ut and -it are used to show that a verb is completed with intensity. For example, yana (meaning ‘fall’) becomes yan-t-a (meaning ‘fall heavily’). Therefore, the Pulaar language has influences from Islam. This influence has led to Arabic words being integrated into the Pulaar language. The Fulɓe people are known for being a semi-nomadic pastoralist group who have a history of cattle-herding, justifying the bovine noun class.
However, historically, similar to other indigenous languages of the region, such as Wolof language, its first writing system was the adaption of the Arabic Script. The Arabic script is used today as well, albeit in a smaller scale, and only mostly limited to Islamic school teachers and students. The Arabic-based script of Pulaar was set by the government as well, between 1985 and 1990, although never adopted by a decree, as the effort by the Senegalese ministry of education was to be part of a multi-national standardization effort.
{|class="wikitable"
|+ Pulaar Latin alphabet
|-
| A a || Aa aa || B b || Mb mb || Ɓ ɓ || C c || D d || Nd nd || Ɗ ɗ || E e || Ee ee || F f || G g || Ng ng || H h || I i || Ii ii || J j || Nj nj
|-
| || || || || ||~ || || || || || || || || || || || ||~ || ~
|-
| K k || L l || M m || N n || Ñ ñ || Ŋ ŋ || O o || Oo oo || P p || R r || S s || T t || U u || Uu uu || W w || X x|| Y y || Ƴ ƴ || ’
|-
| || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || ||
|}
{|class="wikitable Unicode" dir="rtl"
|+ Pulaar Ajami alphabet
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Translation || Latin Script || Ajami (Arabic) Script
|-
| All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
| Innama aadeeji fof poti, ndimɗidi e jibinannde to bannge hakkeeji. Eɓe ngoodi miijo e hakkilantaagal ete eɓe poti huufo ndirde e nder ɓ iynguyummaagu.
| dir="rtl"| <span style="font-size:120%;line-height:1.65;"></span>
|}
Decline
As the Pulaar language is a declining language in West Africa, the surrounding Niger-Congo languages, such as Wolof, are increasing in speakers instead. A 1987–1988 study of bilingual North Senegalese communities found that the use of Pulaar was decreasing in the younger generation. Pulaar was being replaced by Wolof and French loan words. The Mouride population constitutes 3-5 million people in Senegal (the population of Senegal is around 16 million). Fiona McLaughlin argues that this economic and cultural hegemony that the Wolof have is at the expense of the Pulaar language. She states that people in Senegal will call themselves Wolof, despite not being ethnically Wolof, because it is the only language that they learned. One of the more notable examples of this is when the Mauritanian government officially passed a law in 1965 that made it mandatory to teach Arabic during primary and secondary education.
Efforts to revive language
Pulaar is the second most spoken native language in Mauritania, after Arabic. The Association pour la Renaissance du Pulaar- Republique Islamique de Mauritanie (ARP-RIM) was established to teach Pulaar literacy in Mauritania. The organization received increased government funding after the coup d'état of the then President of Mauritania, Moktar Ould Daddah in the late 1970s. The programs which the ARP-RIM participated in included campaigns to increase Pulaar literacy, this was done by creating more radio programs which taught the local languages of Mauritania. In response to the coup d'état, the Manifesto of the Oppressed Black Mauritanian was published in 1986 which criticized the perceived power and influence of the Arab "minority" in Mauritania. After the publishing of this manifesto, crackdowns by the Government against Pulaar speaker and teachers increased.
Pulaar is one of the national languages of Senegal alongside 13 others. in Pulaar.