ZAHA is an acronym of the Hausa phrase Zauren Hausa (or The Hall of Hausa), a major Nigerian language dominant in the northern part of the country. In the context of Hausa traditional architecture, zaure is a round hut with two opposing entries which serves as the reception and, therefore, introduces a guest into a typical Hausa family home besides being a meeting point. Over the years, and as native-speakers, we have specialized and are experienced in teaching Hausa, equally a dominant African language with close to over 200 (two hundred) million speakers across the continent and globally. Communication-wise, Hausa elegantly stands as the language of commerce and a gateway to lots of businesses, when viewed in the context of its vast and widely spread speakers, particularly in West and Central Africa, as well as in the Arabic speaking countries of Chad, Sudan and Saudi Arabia where centuries ago streams of Hausa migrants had flowed into only to settle there permanently. Bayantech, a Cairo-based language service provider, says “Hausa is among the ten (10) most demanded languages in Africa,” that is, out of over 2000 (two thousand) languages. Hickey (1998) has gone to the extent of positing that “inside Nigeria itself, four out of every five people are Hausa speakers.” Besides being a strong business ally, Hausa is among the most demanded African academic languages in universities and other high institutions at home and abroad in such countries as the USA, Europe, China and Asia. If you look forward to extend or expand your businessin Africa or you are an ardent African language enthusiast, ALCA can help you out via its Hausa language teaching and translation services respectively, and we begin by saying to you ‘Barka Da Zuwa Zauren Hausa.’ (Welcome to the Hall of Hausa); trust us to introduce your business to millions of Hausa speakers continentally and globally via our services.

Meanwhile, to help whet your reading appetite, here are some excerpts from the book The Symbiosis of Language & Culture: The Hausa Experience to begin to introduce you to Hausa culture and society via its language. If you find the articles interesting, you can order for the book. We also are interested in emeeting as many students of Hausa language as possible, globally. Please connect with us through our email address: dargungu@yahoo.com or call us at +2348065589054, +2340781668135, +2348164888870,+2347038572105.

Excerpts from the book: The Symbiosis of Language & Culture: The Hausa Experience by Prof. Dahiru Muhammad Argungu

Excerpt #1.
Hausa - linguistic roots, demographic spread and numerical strength

Hausa is generally known by linguists as a member of the Chadic branch of the Afro-Asiatic family of languages. It is therefore related to a number of the languages of northern Nigeria such as Bole, Tera, Fyem, etc. Like the origins and spread of numerous languages across the world, Hausa owes something initially to the unknown or disputed historical factors which led groups of people speaking broadly a similar tongue (or dialects of it) to be dispersed over a wide geographical area, but which later led to the development of a common form of the language today called Hausa.

Besides northern Nigeria, Hausa remains a language to reckon with in several African countries. For instance, isolated pockets of Hausa immigrants had for centuries lived in the North African countries of Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, among others. Of course, most of these immigrants have now become ‘arabised’ and are able to effectively speak mainly Arabic, the dominant language of their Arabic-speaking hosts.

And adjacent to these areas, particularly in Sudan and Saudi Arabia, huge numbers of Hausa speakers had since become native to these Arabic-speaking lands, but many still exhibit their fluency in Hausa, albeit for some speakers such Hausa is frequently code-switched with Arabic.

Indeed, numerous Hausas had reached the Arab lands in their struggles to accomplish the Hajj (or pilgrimage) following the West-African Sudan Road which had stretched from Mauritania through Niger Republic, Nigeria, Chad and Saudi Arabia. During the two world wars, many pilgrims, among them Hausas, reached Saudi Arabia via North Africa. Several decades ago, Abraham (1949) had this to say about Hausa in Sudan:

While en route to Eriteria via Sudan, I was amazed to see a young girl selling beancakes and calling out ‘Waina! Waina!’. She said that she was of Kano origin and that there were many hundreds of Hausas living in Wadi Medani and many other towns of the Sudan like herself. These people of Wadi Medani and many other towns of the Sudan were Hausa, they have retained Hausa and taught it to their children born in the Sudan.

After the earlier (mainly pre-colonial) mass waves of Hajj-going Hausa migrants, streams of generations of Hausas have, even today, continued to trickle into Sudan and Saudi Arabia initially on account of religious (Hajj) causes, but later many Hausas go to these lands, especially Saudi Arabia to look for better fortunes.

Naturally, West Africa has continued to remain the bastion of Hausawa (Hausa people in Hausa) as it is here that they are found in their large numbers from Senegal to Cameroon, with northern Nigeria serving as their native home. Pockets of Hausa immigrants are also found in the Central African Republic and Gabon. So far, only the Eastern and Southern African countries seem not to host Hausas as immigrants in any large numbers.

In all the countries we have cited above, native Hausa speakers live as traders, artisans, Islamic preachers/teachers, or alternatively as students seeking religious knowledge (from fellow Hausas who have naturalized in these countries and are deeply knowledgeable in Islam). Hence, Hausa as a language has demographically spread partly as a result of its historical links with Islam (along with Arabic language) which enabled it to serve as a vehicle of religious education and propagation specifically in Nigeria and in Hausaphone Africa generally.

Thus, one key reason for the spread of Hausa language is long-distance commercial expeditions in foreign lands which, to many Hausawa, had since become a vocation or profession. As soon as a Hausa group arrives in any foreign land, at home in Nigeria or outside of it in Africa or the Middle East, they naturally congregate to form what ends up becoming a zango (in Hausa or travellers’ camp in English) where they continue to live and serves as a protectionist linguacultural enclave for them to help continue with their mainly traditional lifestyle.

Hausa’s association with Arabic primarily through Islam has helped it to expand lexically and even account for its being a source of borrowing of Arabo-Islamic terms into numerous other African (non-Hausa and non-Muslim) languages. The diffusion of Arabo-Islamic termsinto other African tongues through Hausa is an ongoing contact linguistic process wherever the Hausa-speaking people are found, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.

As for the demographic strength of Hausa, there are conflicting figures from various scholars and researchers of the language. The figures given by scholars often attempt to capture both native and non-native speakers of the language especially in northern Nigeria, but some scholars present such figures looking at Hausa’s pan-African perspective only, that is, the language’s total number of speakers on the continent.

Newman (2000), a veteran American Hausaist, has put Hausa speakers at ‘upwards of thirtyfive million speakers.’ Caron (2013) however says ‘whereas none of the other 170 Chadic languages has more than 200 thousand speakers, Hausa is estimated to be spoken by around 50 million people, three quarters of whom live in Nigeria.’ However, Hausa native scholars have frequently argued that Hausa speakers even in Nigeria, citing both native and non-native speakers, far exceed these numbers.

Undoubtedly, Hausa remains the most-widely diffused indigenous tongue in Nigeria, and possibly even in Africa, thanks to the cultural tenacity, language loyalty and adventurous commercial/religious sojourns of Hausawa into many parts of Africa. Increasingly, therefore, Hausa’s demographic strength is waxing by the day in Nigeria, and, no doubt, in Africa as a whole, where the language continues to surge gaining more speakers within its fold who use it as a first, second, or even third medium of communication.

Following Hausa’s numerical strength, Hickey (1986) argues that ‘inside Nigeria itself, four out of every five people are Hausa speakers’, while Bayantech (a Cairo-based language service provider) says ‘Hausa is among the ten (10) most demanded languages in Africa, that is, out of the continent’s over two thousand (2000+) tongues. According to Jagger (2001) ‘Hausa has more first-language speakers than any other sub-Saharan language’.

On account of its cultural and demographic strength and spread as well as religio-politicoeconomic relevance, Hausa has for decades been a favourite language of several national and international media houses within and outside of Africa, in such countries as Niger Republic, Cameroon, Ghana, Egypt, etc., while the BBC, VOA, RFI, DW, Radio China, and others all broadcast in Hausa. During his visit to Nigeria in 2016, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, said he was proud of putting Hausa language on his website, thus making Hausa one of the few indigenous African languages to enjoy some internet relevance and online presence.

In Ghana, Hausa has surpassed its status as an immigrant tongue, having established itself visibly on that country’s sociolinguistic landscape for hundreds of years. Hausawa arrived in Ghana in pre-colonial times where they had gone primarily for kolanut trade. But they had since adapted and become citizens of that country. Many Hausas have also climbed Ghana’s political ladder finding themselves in positions of authority particularly in that country’spolitics, administration, bureaucracy and the economy. The consequences of these developments have meant increasing fortunes for Hausa language in Ghana, as it’s in a number of West African countries. Even though Hausa immigrants are found in large numbers in countries such as Sudan and Saudi Arabia, as I earlier mentioned, it is unlikely that the acceptance and accommodation Hausa as a language (and its speakers) has found in Ghana will be surpassed, when compared to those other countries.

Excerpt #2.
Hausa - name of language and ethnolinguistic group

Like people in many cultures and societies, Hausawa are by and large defined by their language. This language, which Hausawa feel so dearly about and are strongly attached to, is the lifeblood of their composite cultural and demographic developments. Hausawa believe their language is so easy that learning it takes no time, and this is reflected in their saying: ‘Hausa Ba Dabo Ba Ne’, meaning Hausa is not (a) magic (language); in other words, it is easy to learn and you too can learn it.

The idea of the ease with which Hausa can be learned by non-Hausa speakers seems to confirm the centuries-old cultural as well as sociolinguistic trends in which numerous nonHausa ethnic members easily cross over into mainstream Hausa group, largely upon learning the language and/or adopting Islam as a way of life. However, the belief that Hausa language is easy is equally shared by some non-Hausa people, as Abraham (1949) clearly points out below in respect of a question: is Hausa an easy language?

Yes and no. To learn sufficiently to carry on a conversation is obviously very simple as seen from the fact that so many non-Hausas can easily do so by picking it without the help of explanatory grammars. But Hausa is a language in which correct speech is dependent on tone and stress, the interplay of which constitute the essential rhythm. Once this rhythm is neglected, the language bears little resemblance to the speech of those Hausa-born, whether of high or low degree, for the labourer speaks as accurately and rhythmically as the high official. The non-Hausa must, therefore, study the tones and the formal grammar if he wishes to be respected by the Hausa people who take such interest in their language.

Hausa – the denotation and connotations of a name

Aside from the word Hausa being used to denote the language, the term equally evokes several other meanings, as conceptualized, understood and used by Hausawa. Among such meanings are:

1. Hausa - the language of Hausawa as in ‘Hausa Ba Dabo Ba Ne’, (Hausa is not (a) magic (language), meaning it is easy to learn.

2. Hausa - to possess wisdom, skill, expertise, etc., as in the ambiguous sentence (repeated immediately below) ‘Ba ya da hausa ko kadan’. (He is not at all intelligent, skillful or an expert), perhaps said to someone who fails to accomplish a task as easy as either tying a knot, fixing a hook or a weaving a net.

3. Hausa - being eloquent in speech, as in ‘Ba ya da hausa ko kadan’ (He is not at all eloquent), perhaps said to someone who is either tongue-tied or unable to explain a very simple matter or commits certain linguistic blunders in Hausa.

4. Hausa - the land where Hausa language is spoken, in contrast to non-Hausa speech area, as in ‘Nan ne iyakar Hausa’ (This is the limit of Hausa-speaking territory).

5. Hausa - a word, phrase, speech or language that is correct, as in ‘Ban gane hausar ki ba’. (I do not understand your language or what you (fem.) said or are saying).

6. Wannan hausan Zariya ne. (This is the (Hausa) dialect of Zaria).

7. Hausance mini shi! (Challenge him to a (Hausa) verbal duel on my behalf).

We know that the names of many languages equally globally answer the name of its speakers. In Africa numerous languages, such as Yoruba, Igbo, Gbagi, etc., all reflect or answer the names of their speakers. So too, English as a language translates into the name of its speakers as ‘The English’. Hower, beyond this, how many ethnolinguistic communities in the world are known to generate words (as nouns, verbs, etc.) created from the single name denoting their language and which could be used to write sentences as depicted above with Hausa?

To say a person or group of people are Hausa is to attribute to such a person or group certain socio-cultural and linguistic values, features and behaviours, both major and minor, which converge to define them as Hausa in such a way as to enable a non-Hausa or foreigner toidentify them as such. Yet of all the kaleidoscopic features which converge to define a person as Hausa, language or linguistic features, probably, have remained the most recurring and impacting variables when it comes to the question of identifying Hausawa as a distinct group. Thus, Hausawa are defined more as a linguistic (or language) community than any other thing else. This can be seen from the various definitions about them below.

1. The Hausa are simply a linguistic group consisting of those who speak the Hausa language as their mother tongue and who do not claim Fulani descent, and including a wide variety of stocks and physical types (Abdullahi Smith, 1970).
2. Hausa people or simply Hausa refers to an ever-expanding circle with a fluid boundary into which individuals from an indiscriminate medley of sources are recruited. Hausa does this recruitment by ascription in particular the encompassing of a people who simply identify themselves as members of this (Hausa) group. Frank Salamone, 1976).
3. The Hausa ethnic unit has shown itself as an assimilating ethnic entity and the Hausa language a colonizing one to the extent that many people who were not originally Hausa and did not use the Hausa language as their first language later became Hausa through assimilation (Mahdi Adamu, 1978).

From the above definitions, it can be understood that the identity of Hausawa is largely defined by their language in the sense that whoever speaks the tongue and accepts to be called Bahaushe/Bahaushiya (a male/female Hausa person), becomes one. In other words, Hausawa allow others (who originally were non-Hausa) to become Hausa, ‘by ascription’, as Salamone explains above.