ABSTRACT
Hausa is spoken as a mother tongue by some 25 to 30 million people representing the original Hausa population as well as by people of Fulani ancestry who established political control over Hausaland at the beginning of the nineteenth century. It is the majority language of much of northern Nigeria and of the Republic of Niger. Hausa speakers are also found in Togo and Ghana and in small colonies of settlers and traders in large towns in West Africa. In addition, there is a Hausa-speaking community in the Blue Nile area of Sudan, dating from the British take-over of northern Nigeria at the beginning of the twentieth century. Hausa is also widely spoken as a second (or third) language in Nigeria and Niger,
functioning as a lingua franca for commercial, informational and governmental purposes. Hausa is one of the three indigenous national languages recognised in the Nigerian constitution. Whereas secondary and higher education in northern Nigeria are generally in English, Hausa is commonly the de facto language of instruction in the primary schools. Hausa is now offered as a major degree subject in a number of Nigerian universities. There are many Hausa language newspapers and magazines, a thriving literature and extensive use of the language in radio and television. Hausa language broadcasting is provided not only within Nigeria and Niger, but also by international transmissions from Britain, the USA, Germany, Russia and China. With approximately 40 or so million first-and second-language speakers, Hausa ranks with Swahili as one of the two most important languages in sub-Saharan Africa. Within the Chadic family, Hausa essentially constitutes a group by itself. Gwandara,
the only other member of the group, is a historically relatively recent creolised offshoot of Hausa. The West Chadic groups most closely related to it are the Bole group and the Angas group. What sets Hausa apart from its sister (or cousin) languages is the richness of its vocabulary, due in large part to the enormous number of loanwords from other languages. Tuareg and Kanuri, for example, have contributed significantly to Hausa vocabulary; but the major influence by far has been Arabic (sometimes by way of one
In e.g. government, law, warfare, horsemanship, literature and mathematics, Hausa is literally swamped with words of Arabic origin. In the past century, Hausa has absorbed a massive new wave of loanwords from English (in Nigeria) and French (in Niger). This influence continues unabated. Compared with other large African languages, dialect variation within Hausa is
relatively modest. Nevertheless, on the basis of systematic differences in pronunciation and grammar, it is possible to distinguish a Western dialect (or dialects) (e.g. Sokoto and Gobir) from an Eastern dialect (Kano and Zaria), with Katsina occupying an intermediate position. The dialect described here, which has become established as ‘standard Hausa’, is that of greater Kano, the largest and most important Hausa city.
