Hint: It's all the same language.
The New York Times recently featured an article on speakers of West African languages in the Bronx (a borough of New York City) that mentioned "Diula." From experience I realized that it probably is a less-often used spelling of the variety of Manding spoken mainly in Burkina Faso and northern Côte d'Ivoire, usually spelled Dioula (the French spelling), Jula (the usual spelling in the language itself as well as in English), or Dyula (also used in English and French). There are apparently other variant spellings such as Djula, Dyoula, Joula, and Juula (per various sources).
The number of spellings for this language therefore rivals the number for Temne, which I discussed in an earlier posting. However in the case of Jula/Dioula the existence of multiple spellings is partly related to French phonetics (French being used officially in almost all the areas where Jula is spoken, and the language of the first European descriptions of Julas and Jula language). In French, the hard "j" sound in Manding (or English) requires using a "d," and the "u" sound corresponds to the French "ou," not the French "u."
So now it looks like all the permutations between "Jula" and "Dioula" have been covered. The "dy" digraph appears to have been introduced in the 1960s and was indeed preferred over "j" for Manding in the famous 1966 expert meeting in Bamako on unification of African alphabets. By the time of the 1978 expert meeting in Niamey, however, that was changing: Côte d'Ivoire retained "dy" while Burkina Faso (then Upper Volta) was using "j." I'm not sure that "dy" is still used in Julakan (the Jula language) in Côte d'Ivoire. Nevertheless, it still figures in the repertoire of alternate spellings used for the language name in English and French.
Unfortunately the multiple spellings probably lead to confusion, such as appears to be the case in the NY Times, which has in the past used Dioula, Dyula, Jula, and Diula. Also the use of French spellings in English can lead to mispronunciations by Anglophones - "dee-oo-la" instead of "joo-la" (I've noticed this kind of thing on multiple occasions over the years).
In any event, one should be clear that there is no relation between Jula/Dioula and the dialect cluster known as Jola, Diola, or Joola (pronounced more or less like "joe-la"). That is spoken in the Casamance, Senegal and neighboring areas of Gambia and Guinea-Bissau.
The New York Times recently featured an article on speakers of West African languages in the Bronx (a borough of New York City) that mentioned "Diula." From experience I realized that it probably is a less-often used spelling of the variety of Manding spoken mainly in Burkina Faso and northern Côte d'Ivoire, usually spelled Dioula (the French spelling), Jula (the usual spelling in the language itself as well as in English), or Dyula (also used in English and French). There are apparently other variant spellings such as Djula, Dyoula, Joula, and Juula (per various sources).
The number of spellings for this language therefore rivals the number for Temne, which I discussed in an earlier posting. However in the case of Jula/Dioula the existence of multiple spellings is partly related to French phonetics (French being used officially in almost all the areas where Jula is spoken, and the language of the first European descriptions of Julas and Jula language). In French, the hard "j" sound in Manding (or English) requires using a "d," and the "u" sound corresponds to the French "ou," not the French "u."
So now it looks like all the permutations between "Jula" and "Dioula" have been covered. The "dy" digraph appears to have been introduced in the 1960s and was indeed preferred over "j" for Manding in the famous 1966 expert meeting in Bamako on unification of African alphabets. By the time of the 1978 expert meeting in Niamey, however, that was changing: Côte d'Ivoire retained "dy" while Burkina Faso (then Upper Volta) was using "j." I'm not sure that "dy" is still used in Julakan (the Jula language) in Côte d'Ivoire. Nevertheless, it still figures in the repertoire of alternate spellings used for the language name in English and French.
Unfortunately the multiple spellings probably lead to confusion, such as appears to be the case in the NY Times, which has in the past used Dioula, Dyula, Jula, and Diula. Also the use of French spellings in English can lead to mispronunciations by Anglophones - "dee-oo-la" instead of "joo-la" (I've noticed this kind of thing on multiple occasions over the years).
And then there's Diola, Jola, or Joola
In any event, one should be clear that there is no relation between Jula/Dioula and the dialect cluster known as Jola, Diola, or Joola (pronounced more or less like "joe-la"). That is spoken in the Casamance, Senegal and neighboring areas of Gambia and Guinea-Bissau.
