ADLaM

The Fulani people of West Africa are the world’s largest nomadic group. Pulaar, their native tongue, existed without an alphabet for generations. They relied on spoken word to pass down traditions, codify their history, and conduct business. Without an alphabet, illiteracy took root and written records, poems, songs and stories had to be cobbled together using various foreign alphabets. Determined to preserve their people’s language, two brothers, Ibrahima and Abdoulaye Barry, created a handwritten alphabet for Pulaar— ADLaM.

We worked with the Barry brothers to rebuild ADLaM for the digital age and put it in the hands of the 40 million Fulani across the globe connecting through technology.

While alphabets usually take hundreds of years to evolve into their final form, we were able to speed the process, using real-time community feedback to revise ADLaM’s outdated letterforms.

This new version of the alphabet is now accessible on over one billion devices around the world, enhancing the Fulani’s access to educational, business and social tools—ensuring both the language and culture ADLaM represents live on for generations.

The combined efforts of the Barry brothers and Microsoft helped ADLaM gain popularity within the Fulani community spread across the globe — helping secure the future of the alphabet and their culture for future generations:

ADLaM is being made accessible on over 1 billion devices worldwide.

The Government of Mali is in the process of recognizing ADLaM as an official alphabet in their constitution.

Guinea’s Minister of Education is taking steps to ensure ADLaM is recognized as Pulaar’s official alphabet.

The alphabet will also be used to preserve the Bambara, Bozo and Dogon languages due to shared phonology and syntax with Pulaar.

The first two ADLaM-focused schools will open in 2024 in Guinea and for the first time, allow Fulani children to study a full curriculum in their native tongue.

The new alphabet is being used on social media to fight illiteracy.The project also sparked the co-creation of the first ADLaM dictionary, through the hashtag #ADLaMRe.