Central-Eastern Niger Fulfulde, also known as Lettugal Niiser Fulfulde ( Ajami: ) is a variety of the

Fula language Fula ( ),Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student's Handbook'', Edinburgh also known as Fulani ( ) or Fulah (, , ; Adlam script, Adlam: , , ; Ajami script, Ajami: , , ), is a Senegambian languages, Senegambian language spoken by arou ...

, a Niger–Congo language predominantly spoken in the Central and Eastern regions of

Niger Niger, officially the Republic of the Niger, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is a unitary state Geography of Niger#Political geography, bordered by Libya to the Libya–Niger border, north-east, Chad to the Chad–Niger border, east ...

, particularly among the

Fulani people The Fula, Fulani, or Fulɓe people are an ethnic group in Sahara, Sahel and West Africa, widely dispersed across the region. Inhabiting many countries, they live mainly in West Africa and northern parts of Central Africa, South Sudan, Darfur, ...

. The linguistic structure of this language exhibits distinct features, including a Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) word order. Prepositions and postpositions are utilized in the language to convey spatial relationships. Genitives, articles, adjectives, numerals, and relatives follow noun heads, contributing to the overall complexity of sentence structures. The language employs a question-word-final pattern, placing question words at the end of interrogative sentences. Additionally, there is a specific set of affixes, comprising one prefix and nine suffixes, which play a crucial role in marking number and subject in verbs. Word order nuances are significant, as it distinguishes subjects, objects, indirect objects, given and new information, as well as topics and comments within sentences. Furthermore, verb affixes are essential for indicating number and subject, with their usage being obligatory. Class marking with participles is also mandatory in Central-Eastern Niger Fulfulde.https://phoible.org/inventories/view/713/ The language exhibits both middle and passive voice constructions, allowing for a nuanced expression of actions and their agents. Causatives are incorporated to denote actions that are caused or induced by external factors. Phonologically, the language adheres to a combination of consonant-vowel (CV), consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC), consonant-vowel-vowel (CVV), and consonant-vowel-vowel-consonant (CVVC) structures. Importantly, Central-Eastern Niger Fulfulde is nontonal, meaning that pitch variations do not play a distinctive role in conveying meaning, in contrast to tonal languages where pitch differences can alter the meaning of a word. Central-Eastern Niger Fulfulde is spoken by the Wodaabe people and is culturally distinct from other varieties of Fula, with many loanwords from Hausa used. Most speakers also speak Hausa.

Orthography

Ajami alphabet

References

{{reflist Fula language