A Word from the Founder

It was sometime in June 1998 that I started exploring the idea of launching a Fulani language website to teach my sons and friends about the Fulani culture. It was in November 2000, that my team members and I started conducting research. My origins and inclination towards African cultures, in general, and the Fulani culture, in particular, drew me towards sites that were cultural in their content. I saw a number of sites...Some dealt with African Cultures others not.
The early language experience of a young African is to speak at first a mother tongue, then learn outside the home the dominant local language, and finally, Arabic if he or she attends Islamic School, or a Western language such as French, English , Spanish or Portuguese, if he or she goes to western school. Young students do pretty well in manipulating all these languages. However, over time, the mother tongue often looses out to the benefit of the language of the dominant culture and that of the official foreign language. I take a traditional dedicated family first and then a committed individual to retain and use the mother tongue. Being a Fulani in Dakar, where the primary spoken language is predominantly the Wolof language, with French as official language, I have been able to maintain my interested in Fulani language since my childhood. In Dakar, I was involved in my Lycee (High School) days, in many Fulani language promotion projects.
With the advent of the information technology, and the tremendous advantages it offers, it became quite evident that the research and the studies about the Fulani be compiled into a website and be available worldwide. Leveraging all the intellectual energies of the Sagata Group Members located in Africa or in the Diaspora, we were able to gather a significant amount of data. Needless to say that nowadays information is a king and connectedness is the way to built a strong community. It is essential to informed and connected in order to benefit from globalization or to simply survive it.
Our main objectives are:
To provide practical, relevant and useful information about the Fulani people.
To promote and accelerate the education and training of the Fulani people
To serve as a central information center for the Fulani people
To strengthen the bonds of friendship between All African people and
To facilitate and promote the dialogue between Fulani and the other peoples

We invite all those who agree with our objectives to contribute to the Fulani by donating to this site maintenance or by contributing articles and ideas or in any other progressive way that they can.

Dr Hame’ M. Watt
Founder, The Jamtan Website

About the Jamtan Community

Typically, Fulanis are minorities in almost all countries they reside in and therefore subject to an easy assimilation in the dominant local culture. Most end up loosing there language and there culture.
Nevertheless, since the beginning of their Independence of their colonial powers, Fulani groups and individuals have been actively promoting the utilization of the Fulani language. During colonial time of African natives languages were considered secondary and even discouraged. However, researches and other languages specialties are convinced that the African languages can be studied on the basis of functional alphabet and put in practice in the diverse fields of knowledge. Everywhere in Fulani countries associations have formed to promote local languages.
At the time when other countries are making enormous social and technological progress, Africans are still grappling with the basic of survival, and barely making it. Denied of their history and their culture they are struggling to cope with external influences and in the process they are loosing their culture and loosing themselves. It is fundamental for social development and social comfort that Africans revisit their own traditions and culture. It is through this vehicle that development can occur and harmony can be regained. It goes without saying that Africans must know what is good in them and also must recall everything that is great and stimulating in their past.

In reality, all forms of traditional and popular culture including customs, languages, music, dance, rituals, festivities, traditional medicine and pharmacopoeia, food and the habitat, are part of the cultural heritage. Ultimately, the community life itself is based on strong values, moral codes, philosophy, and grand ways of thinking even if they are transmitted orally.
Thanks to the help of my research team and my site team of the Sagata Group, and many others, Jamtan .com has taken shape. Several individuals have directly or indirectly contributed to Jamtan. Through direct or indirectly involvements in research, interviews, comments, editing, reviews and suggestions, we have come up with a site which we believe is as comprehensive as possible.
It will remain an evolving process though, a work in progress. The Jamtan.Com Web Site explores the cultural heritage of Fulani people: their History, Traditions and several aspects of their social life. In doing so, the Jamtam.com Web Site will contribute to the promotion of better understanding of the Fulani people and their culture. Far from any tribal or ethnic aggrandizement, the Jamtan website seeks to increase mutual understanding between African people of different cultures and ethnic groups.
This Website is written for all Africans. Jamtan is dedicated to all African Cultures.

The Sagata Group

Hame M Watt
Mamadou Jallow
Abdoulaye Agne
Mohamed Mbodj
Ali Diallo
Gorgi Ndiaye
Diana Ndiaye
Fatimata Diallo
Alfa Camara Diallo
Lamine Faye
Issa Ndour
Kadia Almamy Kane
Ahmadou Moctar Kane
Arona Ndiaye
Cisse Kane
Halima Djimrao Kane
Ibrahim Toure
S Jules Wane
S Papi Wane
Sawdatou Wane- Haidara
H.A. Watt
M. Tijan Watt

M. Toure
Fary Ka
Mamoudou Kane
Amadou M Watt
Deffa Wane
Salla Kane
Bintou Wane
Amadou Moctar Wane