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Fulfulde

Fulfulde is a language of West Africa. Like the neighbouring languages Serer and Wolof, it belongs to the Senegambian branch of the Niger–Congo language family. It is spoken as a first language by the Fulɓe (Fula or Fulani people) and related groups (such as the Tukulor in the Senegal River Valley) from Senegambia and Guinea to Cameroon and Sudan. It is also spoken as a second language by people in the region.

Verbs in Fula are usually classed in 3 "voices": active, middle, and passive. Not every root is used in all voices. Some middle voice verbs are reflexive.

A common example are verbs from the root loot-:

lootude, to wash (something) voice

lootaade, to wash (oneself) voice

looteede, to be washed voice

Another feature of the language is initial consonant mutation between singular and plural forms of nouns and of verbs (except in Pular, there is no consonant mutation in verbs, only in nouns).

A simplified schema is as follows:

w ↔ b ↔ mb

r ↔ d ↔ nd

y ↔ j ↔ nj

w ↔ g ↔ ng

f ↔ p

s ↔ c

h ↔ k.

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African Languages

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