A Vision Born from a Need

The story begins in Nzérékoré, Guinea, with brothers Ibrahima and Abdoulaye Barry. As teenagers, they were acutely aware of the linguistic challenge facing their people. Their father, who was literate in Arabic, would often ask them to help him write letters in their native Fula language. The process was frustrating. Using the Latin alphabet, inherited from French colonial rule, meant dealing with cumbersome letter combinations (like ‘ny’ for ɲ) and sounds that had no direct equivalent. Using Ajami, the adapted Arabic script, presented its own problems, particularly with representing Fula’s rich set of vowels.

As the story goes, a moment of inspiration struck Ibrahima. He realized that if other peoples had their own scripts, why couldn’t the Fula? He woke his younger brother, Abdoulaye, in the middle of the night with a revolutionary idea: “What if we created our own alphabet?”

What followed was a period of intense, secret creativity. Closing their eyes, they drew shapes in the air, trying to find forms that felt intuitive and unique. They assigned these shapes to the sounds of their language, starting with the first four letters—A, D, L, M—which gave the script its name: Adlam, an acronym for Alkule Dandayɗe Leñol Mulugol (“the alphabet that protects the peoples from vanishing”).

The Design Principles of a Modern Script

What makes Adlam so effective is its thoughtful, intelligent design. The Barry brothers weren’t just creating random squiggles; they were engineering a writing system perfectly tailored to the Fula language. Linguistically, it’s a masterpiece of elegant simplicity.

Key Features of Adlam:

• A True Alphabet: Adlam has 28 letters, comprising 23 consonants and 5 vowels. Unlike adapted Arabic scripts where vowels are often diacritics, Adlam gives vowels their own full letters, making it much easier to learn and read.
• Phonetic Consistency: Each letter corresponds to a single, specific sound. This one-to-one mapping eliminates the ambiguity and complex spelling rules that plague languages like English or French. What you see is what you say.
• Right-to-Left Direction: The script is written from right to left, a familiar direction for the many Fula who are already literate in Arabic. This was a deliberate choice to ease the learning curve.
• Unique Letterforms: The letters are visually distinct from both Latin and Arabic. This prevents confusion and helps establish a unique visual identity for the Fula language. The elegant, flowing curves of the letters are both beautiful and functional.
• Diacritics for Nuance: While the base alphabet covers most sounds, Adlam includes a clever system of diacritics (dots and marks placed above or below a letter) to represent sounds borrowed from other languages (like Arabic) or to create additional consonant forms, making the script versatile and comprehensive.

The result is a script that is not only beautiful but also incredibly easy to learn. People who have never been able to read or write in any language can often achieve basic literacy in Adlam in just a few weeks.

From a Handwritten Notebook to Global Digital Support

For its first decade, Adlam spread slowly but surely. The Barry brothers and their early followers taught the script by hand, writing out lessons, pamphlets, and books. They transcribed traditional Fula stories and poems, preserving them for the first time in a native script. The movement grew organically, spreading through communities in Guinea, Nigeria, Liberia, and beyond, passed from person to person.

The real challenge came with the digital age. An alphabet that doesn’t exist on a computer or a phone is at risk of becoming a historical curiosity. To survive and thrive, Adlam needed to go digital.

This is where the story takes a remarkable turn. The Barry brothers, with the help of a dedicated community, began reaching out to linguists and software developers. They connected with Randall Kirsch and Michael Everson, experts at the Unicode Consortium—the non-profit organization that maintains the international standard for encoding text. Proposing a new script to Unicode is a rigorous, years-long process that requires proving a script’s viability, usage, and historical importance.

After immense effort, their hard work paid off. In June 2016, Adlam was included in Unicode 9.0. This was the single most important moment in Adlam’s modern history. Its inclusion meant that Adlam was now a legitimate, recognized script that could be rendered on computers and mobile devices worldwide.

Tech giants took notice. Microsoft and Google quickly moved to support Adlam. Today, the script is included in the Windows and Android operating systems. Users can now download Adlam keyboards, install Adlam fonts, and type messages to friends and family across the globe in their own beautiful script.

A Cultural Renaissance and Literacy Revolution

The impact of Adlam’s digitization cannot be overstated. It has ignited a cultural renaissance and a full-blown literacy movement among the Fula people.

The script has become a powerful symbol of cultural identity and pride. In a region where colonial and other languages have long dominated formal education and public life, Adlam stands as a declaration that the Fula language is worthy of its own system. Children are now learning to read and write in Adlam in community-run schools. Books, newspapers, and educational materials are being published. Street signs in Fula communities are beginning to appear in Adlam.

Most importantly, it is empowering a generation. For a people with a strong oral tradition, Adlam provides a new tool to record their knowledge, share their stories, and participate in the modern world on their own terms. From sending a text message to a loved one to writing a novel, the alphabet has opened up a universe of possibilities.

The story of Adlam is a powerful testament to the idea that language is a living, breathing thing. It is a reminder that with vision, dedication, and community, even two teenagers working in secret can change the world for millions. They didn’t just invent an alphabet; they gave a voice to their people, ensuring that the rich heritage of the Fula will not vanish, but will be written down and celebrated for generations to come.