Hausa language

Hausa is the Chadic language with the largest number of speakers, spoken as a first language by about 24 million people, and as a second language by about 15 million more.

Classification

Hausa belongs to the West Chadic languages subgroup of the Chadic languages group, which in turn is part of the Afro-Asiatic language family.

Geographic distribution

Native speakers of Hausa are mostly to be found in the African country of Niger and in the north of Nigeria, but the language is widely used as a lingua franca (similar to Swahili in East Africa) in a much larger swathe of West Africa, particularly amongst Muslims.

Official status

Hausa is an official language in the north of Nigeria, and a "national language" in Niger.

Dialects

Eastern Hausa dialects include Kano, Katagum and Hadejiya. Western Hausa dialects include Sokoto, Gobir, Adar, Kebbi and Zamfara. Katsina is transitional between Eastern and Western dialects. Northern Hausa dialects include Arewa and Arawa. Zaria is the major Southern dialect.

The Kano dialect is the 'standard' variety.

Derived languages

Barikanchi is a pidgin formerly used in the military.

Phonology

Consonants

Hausa has between 23 and 25 consonant phonemes depending on the speaker.

**Consonant phonemes**
	Bilabial		Alveolar		Post- alveolar (Palato- alveolar)		Retroflex		Palatal		Velar		Glottal		Palata- lized velar		Labia- lized velar
Plosive
Nasal
Fricative
Affricate
Trill
Tap or flap
Approximant
Lateral approximant
Implosive
Ejective

Glottalic Consonants

Hausa has glottalic consonants (implosives and ejectives) at four or five places of articulation (depending on the dialect). They require movement of the glottis during pronunciation and have a staccato sound.

They are written with modified versions of Latin letters. They can also be denoted with an apostrophe, either before or after depending on the letter, as shown below.

, an implosive consonant, IPA , or sometimes ;

, an implosive , sometimes ;

ts', an ejective consonant, or according to the dialect;

ch', an ejective (does not occur in Kano dialect)

, an ejective ; and are separate consonants;

'y is a glottalized y, found in only a small number of high frequency words. Historically it developed from palatalized .

Vowels

Hausa has 5 phonemic vowel sounds and 2 lengths, giving a total of 10 vowel phonemes.

Tones

Hausa is a tone language. Each of its five vowels a, e, i, o and u may have low tone, high tone and falling tone.

For representing tones the French accented vowels may be used:

à è ì ò ù (low tone)

á é í ó ú (high tone)

â ê î ô û (falling tone)

In standard written Hausa, tone is not marked. However it is needed for disambiguation and thus it is marked in dictionaries and other scientific works.

Writing system

Hausa has had a written form for more than 200 years, at first with a variant of the Arabic script called Ajami.

Ajami has largely been superseded by a Latin alphabet (called boko) which was introduced at the beginning of the 20th century as a result of the British occupation of Nigeria. There are three consonants which are added to the basic Latin alphabet: , and . A fourth consonant is used in Niger. The distinction between and which exists for some speakers is not represented in the orthography.

The following letters represent sounds which do not correspond with the same letter as the IPA symbol (eg B represents ):

-
c -
-
f -
-
j -
sh -
ts - or depending on the dialect
y -
-

Although vowel length and tone are phonemic in Hausa, neither are marked in the standard orthography.

External links

Chadic languages | Languages of Niger | Languages of Nigeria

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