Ge the textbook for this course at the following link:
Listen to the audio for the first 10 units of this course at the following link:
Hausa Basic Course (Units 1-10 Audio)
About Hausa
Hausa is the Chadic language with the largest number of speakers, spoken as a first language by about 25 million people, and as a second language by about 18 million more, an approximate total of 43 million people. Hausa is one of Africa’s largest Arabic, French, English, Portuguese and Swahili.
Hausa belongs to the West Chadic languages subgroup of the Chadic languagesgroup, which in turn is part of the Afro-Asiatic language family.
Along with the Chadic language branch, the Afro-Asiatic language family also includes 4 other branches:
- Semitic languages (Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, Amharic, etc.)
- Cushitic languages (Somali, Oromo, etc.)
- Berber languages (Tuareg, Kabyle, etc.)
- Egyptian languages (Ancient Egyptian, Coptic, etc.)
Native speakers of Hausa, the Hausa people are mostly to be found in the African country of Nigerand in the north of Nigeria, but the language is used as a trade language across a much larger swathe of West Africa (Benin, Ghana, Cameroon, Togo, Cote d’Ivoire etc.), Central Africa and western Sudan (Chad, Central African Republic, Sudan, Equatorial Guinea), particularly amongstMuslims. 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.
Hausa has also been written in ajami, a variant of the Arabic script, since the early 17th century. There is no standard system of usingajami, and different writers may use letters with different values. Short vowels are written regularly with the help of vowel marks, which are seldom used in Arabic texts other than the Quran. Many medieval Hausa Manuscripts similar to the Timbuktu Manuscripts written in the Ajami script, have been discovered recently some of them even describe constellations and calendars.
In the following table, vowels are shown with the Arabic letter for t as an example.
| Latin | IPA | Arabic ajami |
|---|---|---|
| a | /a/ | ـَ |
| a | /aː/ | ـَا |
| 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/ | ـِ |
| i | /iː/ | ـِى |
| 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/ | ـُ (same as u) |
| o | /oː/ | ـُو (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/ | ـُ (same as o) |
| u | /uː/ | ـُو (same as o) |
| w | /w/ | و |
| y | /j/ | ی |
| z | /z/ | ز ذ |
| ʼ | /ʔ/ | ع |
