" Wakkilaare ko kaafa Alla ka mettataa "
(le courage est une arme qui ne s’émousse pas)#MemeML [1] #Fulfulde [2] #Pular [3] pic.twitter.com/AG7rt8IZG0 [4]— Misiide (@misiide) February 11, 2017 [5]
(Approximate translation: “Courage is a weapon that never gets dull”)
Tafsir Balde is taking part in the Mother Language Meme Challenge creating memes in his mother language of Fulfulde [6] (also known as Fula, Peul, Pulaar).
Currently pursuing his PhD degree in African Studies at the Al Karawin University [7] in Morocco, Tafsir has been an active promoter of his language. Together with a group of colleagues, he founded the Peeral Media Network [8] (PMN), which has been creating online content to provide information about and in the language on a variety of platforms.
In 2014, he was interviewed [9] by Abdoulaye Bah of Global Voices about International Mother Language Day, and now he is taking part in this most recent Challenge. In an interview with Rising Voices, he shares more information about the state of his language and bout his participation in this Challenge, where he has been sharing his memes on his personal Twitter account (@tafsirbald [10]) and on the group account (@misiide [11]). He also helped translate the Mother Language Meme Challenge website into Fulfulde [12].
Rising Voices: What is the current state of your language both offline and on the internet?
Tafsir Balde: Fulfulde is a transnational language par excellence; dispersed in more than 20 African countries, from Mauritania in the West to Sudan and beyond in the East, spoken by approximately 70 million people. Unfortunately this language has no institutional support whatsoever. And to date, none of the mainstream media such as RFI, BBC and VOA have yet to introduce Fulfulde in their programs.
The production of works has been tried with mixed success. Linguists have written about the language extensively, and few magazines have been published in Fulfulde. However, generally because of lack of institutional support, books and magazines have always had a very limited radius of diffusion, and the high cost of printing also means that magazines or books in this language are not easily accessible.
Concerning its state on the internet, it is still limited to the works of volunteers. There are few websites dedicated to the language, such as the websites of PMN: Misiide.net [13] and Peeral.com [14] (offline for technical reasons). Pulaar.org [15], and Pulaagu.com [16] are also websites which exclusively publish in Fulfulde.
The main purpose of this website is to promote Fulfulde in the field of information and communications technologies (ICTs). In this regard, PMN members contributed more than 60% of the Fulfulde translations on Facebook. Within a short time Facebook in Fulfulde was launched. That is why I created the meme “Facebook wowlii Pular” [17] with the translation “Facebook has spoken Fulfulde.”
RV: Why did you decide to participate in the Mother Language Meme Challenge?
TB: One of the objectives of PMN is to contribute to the availability and the presence of under-resourced language content on the internet, my participation in the Mother Language Meme Challenge was to make a humble contribution during this important celebration of linguistic diversity online. Through this, we are also increasing Fulfulde’s presence online.
RV: Who would you like to challenge to create a meme in this language?
TB: I would like to invite some of my colleagues from PMN to participate because there are people in this group who are dedicated to this type of challenges.
Find more memes from the Mother Language Meme Challenge in a variety of global languages by checking out the #MemeML hashtag on Instagram [18], Twitter [19], or Facebook [20]. There is also a Facebook group [21] for the Challenge with contributions from all across the world.