Introduction to Hausa:

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, the Hausa people 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 (Accra, Abidjan, Dakar, Lomé, Cotonou, Bamako, Conakry, Ouagadougou, etc.) and Central Africa (Douala, Yaoundé, Maroua, Garoua, N'djaména, Bangui, Libreville, etc.), particularly amongst Muslims. Radio stations like BBC, Radio France Internationale, China Radio International, Voice of Russia, Voice of America, Deutsche Welle, and IRIB broadcast in Hausa. It is taught at universities in Africa and around the world.

Official status

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

Dialects

Traditional Hausa Dialects

Eastern Hausa dialects include Kananci which is spoken in Kano, Bausanchi in Bauchi, Dauranchi in Daura, Gudduranci in Katagum Misau and part of Borno and Hadejanci in Hadejiya.

Western Hausa dialects include Sakkwatanci spoken in Sokoto, Katsinanci in Katsina, Arewanci in both Gobir and Adar, Kebbi, Zamfara and Kurhwayanci in Kurfey of Niger Republic. Katsina is transitional between Eastern and Western dialects.

Northern Hausa dialects include Arewa and Arawa.

Zazzaganci in Zaria is the major Southern dialect.

The Kano dialect is the 'standard' variety of Hausa. The BBC, Deutsche Welle and Voice of America offer Hausa Services on its international news web site using Kananci as standard.

Ghanaian Hausa Dialect

The Ghanaian Hausa dialect (Gaananci) forms a separate group, as it is falls outside of the contiguous Hausa-dominant area, and is usually identified by the use of c for ky, and j for gy. Despite this difference, grammatical similarities between Sakkwatanci and Ghanaian Hausa determine that the dialect was derived from Western Hausa.

Hausa is also widely spoken by non-native Gur and Mande Ghanaian Muslims, but differs from Gaananci, and rather follows the description below of non-native Hausa dialects.

Non-native Hausa

Non-native Hausa is a term which defines the Hausa language as spoken by non-native speakers (especially as Hausa language is used as a lingua franca in West Africa). Non-native pronunciation vastly differs from native pronunciation by way of key omissions of implosive and ejective consonants present in native Hausa dialects, such as ɗ, ɓ and kʼ/ƙ, which are pronounced by non-native speakers as d, b and k respectively. This presents confusion among non-native and native Hausa speakers, as there exists a lack of difference between the pronunciation of words like daidai (correct) and ɗaiɗai (one-by-one) in non-native Hausa. Another difference between native and non-native Hausa is the omission of vowel length in words and change in the standard tone of native Hausa dialects (ranging from native Fulani and Tuareg Hausa-speakers omitting tone altogether, to Hausa speakers with Gur or Yoruba mother tongues using additional tonal structures similar to those used in their native languages). Use of Masculine and Feminine Gender nouns and sentence structure are usually omitted or interchanged, and many native Hausa nouns and verbs are substituted for non-native terms from local languages.

Non-native speakers of Hausa number around 15 million, and in some areas live in close proximity to native Hausa.

Derived languages

Barikanchi is a pidgin formerly used in the military of Nigeria.

Phonology

Consonants

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

The three-way contrast between palatalized velars /kʲ ɡʲ kʲʼ/, plain velars /k ɡ kʼ/, and labialized velars /kʷ ɡʷ kʷʼ/ is found only before long or short /a/, e.g. /kʲʼaːɽa/ ('grass'), /kʼaːɽaː/ ('to increase'), /kʷʼaːɽaː/ ('shea-nuts'). Before front vowels, only palatalized and labialized velars occur, e.g. /kʲiːʃiː/ ('jealousy') vs. /kʷiːɓiː/ ('side of body'). Before rounded vowels, only labialized velars occur, e.g. /kʷoːɽaː/ ('ringworm').

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 palatalized glottal stop, 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 Monophthongs and 4 joint vowel sound that are called Diphthongs giving a total number of 14 vowel phonemes.

Monophthongs are:

Single Vowels :/a/, /e/, /i/, /o/ and /u/. Long Vowels:/aa/, /ee/, /ii/, /oo/, and /uu/.

Diphthongs 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 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.