The Fur language (or For; Fur: bèle fòòr or fòòraŋ bèle; , Fûrâwî; sometimes called Konjara by linguists, after a former ruling clan) is a Nilo-Saharan language spoken by the Fur of Darfur in Western Sudan. It is part of a broader family of languages known as the Fur languages. Phonology The consonantal phonemes are: All sounds are spelt with their IPA symbols except for the following: j = , ñ = and y = . Arabic consonants are sometimes used in loanwords. The vowels are as in Latin: a e i o u. There is dispute as to whether the –ATR vowels are phonetic variants or separate phonemes. There are two underlying tonemes, L (low) and H (high); phonetically, L, H, mid, HL, and LH are all found. Metathesis is an extremely common and regular grammatical phenomenon in Fur: when a consonant pronoun prefix is prefixed to a verb that begins with a consonant, either the verb's first consonant is deleted or it changes places with the following vowel; e.g.: lem- "lick" → -elm-; ba- "drink" → -ab-; tuum- "build" → -utum-. There are also various assimilation rules. Morphology Plurals Noun, and optionally adjective, plurals can be formed with -a (-ŋa after vowels): aldí "story" → aldíŋá "stories", tóŋ "(a certain species of) antelope" → pira "antelopes"; piraŋa "old" → tooy'báiná "old (pl.)". This suffix also gives the inanimate 3rd person plural of the verb: liíŋ "he bathes" → liíŋá "they (inanimate) bathe", káliŋa "they (animate) bathe". Vowel-final adjectives can take a plural in -lá, as well as -ŋa: lúllá "cold" → lúllála or lúlláŋa "cold (pl.)". A similar suffix (metathesized and assimilated to become -ól/-úl/-ál) is used for the plural of the verb in some tenses. A few CVV nouns take the plural suffix H-ta; roo "river" → roota'wala gal rooŋa "rivers"; ra̱yi' wala gal ra̱y "field" → rǎ̱ytó'wala gal rǎ̱ytá "fields". At least two nouns take the suffix -i: kóór "spear" → kóórí "spears", dʉ́tʉ "mouse" → kʉ́ʉ́tɨ́ "mice". Nouns with the singular prefix d- (> n- before a nasal) take the plural k-; these are about 20% of all nouns. In some cases (mostly body parts) it is accompanied by L; e.g.: dɨ́ló "ear" → kɨ́ló "ears"; nʉ́ŋɨ́ "eye" → kʉ́ŋɨ́ "eyes"; dági "tooth" → kagi "teeth"; dormí "nose" → kormi "noses". In some cases the singular also has a suffix -ŋ, not found in the