Hausa is one of the most spoked languages of Nigeria. 22 million navitve speak hausa and about 17 million use it as a second language. It is believed that about one-fourth of the language is from Arabic and the rest from the Fulfudle and Kanuri. Some english is used along with barely any french. Every city in West Africa has a central Hausa community, usually called zango or zongo, which was originally the stopping point for trade caravans.
"The Hausa language has a wider range over Africa north of the equator, south of Barbary and west of the valley of the Nile, than any other tongue. It is a rich sonorous language, with a vocabulary containing perhaps 10,000 words. As an example of the richness of the vocabulary Bishop Crowther mentions that there are eight names for different parts of the day from cockcrow till after sunset. About a third of the words are connected with Arabic roots, nor are these such as the Hausa could well have borrowed in anything like recent times from the Arabs. Many words representing ideas or things with which the Hausa must have been familiar from the very earliest time are obviously connected with Arabic or Semitic roots. There is a certain amount of resemblance between the Hausa language and that spoken by the Berbers to the south of Tripoli and Tunis. This language, again, has several striking points of resemblance with Coptic. If, as seems likely, the connexion between these three languages should be demonstrated, such connexion would serve to corroborate the Hausa tradition that their ancestors came from the very far east away beyond Mecca. The Hausa language has been reduced to writing for at least a century, possibly very much longer. It is the only language in tropical Africa which has been reduced to writing by the natives themselves, unless the Vai alphabet, introduced by a native inventor in the interior of Liberia in the first half of the 19th century be excepted; the character used is a modified form.of Arabic. Some fragments of literature exist, consisting of political and religious poems, together with a limited amount of native history. A volume, consisting of history and poems reproduced in facsimile, with translations, has been published by the Cambridge University Press."
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Hausa
| Famous Hausa saying... Karatu, farkonka madaci, karshenka zuma or it may be bitter to begin study but the end is sweet" |
