Adamawa Fulfulde

Adamawa Fulfulde is a variety of the Fula language. It is spoken mainly in Cameroon but also by significant communities residing in Nigeria, Chad, and Sudan by Fulani pastoralists across the Sahel. It is also known as Eastern Fulfulde and by various other names including Boulbe, Dzemay, Fula, Fulfulde, Mbororo, Palata, Peul etc.

Adamawa Fulfulde was originally brought to Cameroon in the early parts of the 19th century during a religious war (Jihad) that was launched by Usman dan Fodio from Northern Nigeria. It was originally used as a trade language, however since the arrival of Christian missionaries in the latter half of the 19th century in 1885 to the area in what is now Northern Cameroon and Northern Nigeria, Adamawa Fulfulde became a language widely used in churches and is now used as a Language Of Wider Communication (LWC) in 3 regions of Cameroon.

It is a Atlantic language that belongs to the Niger-Congo language family. The speakers of the language are the Fulani people. The language itself is divided into a number of sub-dialects: Maroua, Garoua, Ngaondéré, Kambariire, Mbororoore, Bilkiri and Gombe.

In Sudan, the language is spoken mainly in Blue Nile, Gedaref, and Sennar states with some communities of speakers also found in North Kordofan and South Kordofan states. In South Sudan, it is spoken in Western Bahr el Ghazal state by Ambororo cattle herders. In Chad, it is spoken in Lac Léré Department in the Mayo-Kebbi Ouest Region. In Nigeria, it is spoken in Adamawa and Taraba states. While in Cameroon the language is widespread across the Far North and Northern regions of the country.

Adamawa Fulfulde has the Morphological imperative in which words are divided into second singular and second plural, and like many of the languages of the Fula dialect continuum and Niger-Congo language family, Adamawa Fulfulde has a system of noun classes and marks plurals by mutating the initial consonant of a word. The word order for Adamawa Fulfulde is SOV (Subject-Object-Verb).