Hausa language
| Hausa | |
|---|---|
| هَوُسَ | |
| Native to | Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Niger, Nigeria, Togo |
Native speakers | 24 million as a first language, 15 million as a second language |
| Official status | |
Official language in | Northern States of Nigeria |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | ha |
| ISO 639-2 | hau |
| ISO 639-3 | hau |
Hausa is a 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 Kananci which is spoken in Kano, Zazzaganci in Zaria, Bausanchi in Bauchi, Dauranchi in Daura, Gudduranchi in Guddiriand Hadejanchi in Hadejiya. Western Hausa dialects include Sakkwatanchi spoken in Sokoto, Katsinanchi in Katsina Arewanchi in both Gobir and Adar,Kebbi,Zamfara and Kurhwayanchi in Kurfey of Nijer Republic . 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. The BBC offers a Hausa Service on its international news web site.
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.
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Postalveolar / Palatal |
Retroflex | Velar | Glottal | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palatalized | Plain | Labialized | ||||||||||||||
| Plosives and affricates |
b | t | d | ʧ | ʤ | kʲ | ɡʲ | k | ɡ | kʷ | ɡʷ | ʔ | ||||
| Ejectives | ʦʼ | jʼ | kʲʼ | kʼ | kʷʼ | |||||||||||
| Implosives | ɓ | ɗ | ||||||||||||||
| Nasals | m | n | ||||||||||||||
| Fricatives | ɸ | s | z | ʃ | h | |||||||||||
| Trill | r | |||||||||||||||
| Flap | ɽ | |||||||||||||||
| Approximants | j | w | ||||||||||||||
| Lateral approximants | l | |||||||||||||||
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.
b' / ɓ, an implosive consonant, IPA [ɓ], or sometimes [ʔb];
d' / ɗ, an implosive [ɗ], sometimes [dʔ];
ts', an ejective consonant, [tsʼ] or [sʼ] according to the dialect;
ch', an ejective [tʃʼ] (does not occur in Kano dialect)
k' / ƙ, an ejective [kʼ]; [kʲʼ] and [kʷʼ] are separate consonants;
'y is a glottalized y, found in only a small number of high frequency words. Historically it developed from palatalized [ɗ].
Vowels
Hausa has 5 phonemic vowel sounds which are both single and long, giving a total of 10 vowel phonemes which are called '''''Monopthongs''''' and 4 joint vowel sound that are called '''''Dipthongs''''' giving a total numer of 14 vowel phonemes.
Monopthongs are:
Single Vowels :/a/, /e/, /i/, /o/ and /u/. Long Vowles:/aa/, /ee/, /ii/, /oo/, and /uu/.
Dipthongs are: /ai/, /au/, /iu/ and /ui/.
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 systems
Boko (Latin)
Hausa's modern official orthography is a Latin-based alphabet called boko, which was introduced in the 1930s by the British colonial administration.
| A a | B b | Ɓ ɓ | C c | D d | Ɗ ɗ | E e | F f | G g | H h | I i | J j | K k | Ƙ ƙ | L l |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| /a/ | /b/ | /ɓ/ | /tʃ/ | /d/ | /ɗ/ | /e/ | /ɸ/ | /ɡ/ | /h/ | /i/ | /(d)ʒ/ | /k/ | /kʼ/ | /l/ |
| M m | N n | O o | R r | S s | Sh sh | T t | Ts ts | U u | W w | Y y | (Ƴ ƴ) | Z z | ʼ | |
| /m/ | /n/ | /o/ | /r/, /ɽ/ | /s/ | /ʃ/ | /t/ | /(t)sʼ/ | /u/ | /w/ | /j/ | /ʔʲ/ | /z/ | /ʔ/ |
The letter ƴ is used only in Niger; in Nigeria it is written ʼy.
Tone, vowel length, and the distinction between /r/ and /ɽ/ (which does not exist for all speakers) are not marked in writing. So, for example, /daɡa/ "from" and /daːɡaː/ "battle" are both written daga.
Ajami (Arabic)
Hausa has also been written in ajami, a variant of the Arabic script, since the early 19th century. There is no standard system of using ajami, and different writers may use letters with different values.
In the following table, vowels are shown with the Arabic letter for t as an example.
| Latin | IPA | Arabic ajami |
|---|---|---|
| a | /a/ | تَ |
| a | /aː/ | تَا |
| b | /b/ | ب |
| ɓ | /ɓ/ | ب (same as b), ٻ (not used in Arabic) |
| c | /tʃ/ | ث |
| d | /d/ | د |
| ɗ | /ɗ/ | د (same as d), ط (also used for ts) |
| e | /e/ | تٜ (not used in Arabic) |
| e | /eː/ | تٰٜ (not used in Arabic) |
| f | /ɸ/ | ف |
| g | /ɡ/ | غ |
| h | /h/ | ه |
| i | /i/ | تِ |
| i | /iː/ | تِى |
| j | /(d)ʒ/ | ج |
| k | /k/ | ك |
| ƙ | /kʼ/ | ك (same as k), ق |
| l | /l/ | ل |
| m | /m/ | م |
| n | /n/ | ن |
| o | /o/ | تُ (same as u) |
| o | /oː/ | تُو (same as u) |
| r | /r/, /ɽ/ | ر |
| s | /s/ | س |
| sh | /ʃ/ | ش |
| t | /t/ | ت |
| ts | /(t)sʼ/ | ط (also used for ɗ), ڟ (not used in Arabic) |
| u | /u/ | تُ (same as o) |
| u | /uː/ | تُو (same as o) |
| w | /w/ | و |
| y | /j/ | ى |
| z | /z/ | ز, ذ |
| ʼ | /ʔ/ | ع |
See also
External links
