The language of West Africa - Hausa

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The language of West Africa - Hausa

Postby モモンガ » 2012-10-28, 12:48

There has been no single post about Hausa yet.
It has 40 mln speakers.
A lingua franca of Northern Nigeria and Niger.
The most spoken language of Western Africa.
It's quite a fun language, you don't conjugate verbs to alter tense, but pronouns.
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Re: The language of West Africa - Hausa

Postby Meera » 2012-11-05, 19:47

I'm really surprised there isnt a lot on Hausa.
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Re: The language of West Africa - Hausa

Postby linguoboy » 2012-11-05, 20:03

Meera wrote:I'm really surprised there isnt a lot on Hausa.

Here in the forum or just in general?
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Re: The language of West Africa - Hausa

Postby language learner » 2012-11-05, 20:15

モモンガ wrote:It's quite a fun language, you don't conjugate verbs to alter tense, but pronouns.


This sounds quite interesting. Is it similar to "you" vs "you'll" vs "you'd"?

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Re: The language of West Africa - Hausa

Postby Meera » 2012-11-06, 2:56

linguoboy wrote:
Meera wrote:I'm really surprised there isnt a lot on Hausa.

Here in the forum or just in general?


Just in general. I mean I don't think African languages are very popular, but still I don't think it is very popular for people who study African languages. The most popular studied African language I think is Swahili.
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Re: The language of West Africa - Hausa

Postby モモンガ » 2012-11-06, 21:41

Thanks for the interest.
I hope Meera your neighbourhood can be soon back to normal after the storm.


Yes, there are not many people interested in Hausa in general, The part where those people live is still in dire poverty.

This sounds quite interesting. Is it similar to "you" vs "you'll" vs "you'd"?


I guess you could maybe say so.
I don't know much about Hausa myself.






Some resources:
http://aflang.humnet.ucla.edu/Hausa/
http://fsi-language-courses.org/Content.php?page=Hausa
200 Hours Familiarization Course
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Re: The language of West Africa - Hausa

Postby linguoboy » 2012-11-07, 3:22

If it cheers you guys up any, I saw a poster in Hausa at my local police station tonight.

I also found a link to the online Hausa-English-Hausa dictionary I used to consult: http://maguzawa.dyndns.ws/. And I dug out my copies of Teach Yourself Hausa and Newton's The Hausa language : an encyclopedic reference grammar. So I can finally give examples of what Newton calls "Person-Aspect-Complexes" or PACs.

As you might expect, these derive diachronically from the fusion of subject pronouns (some of which in turn derive from earlier object forms) with TAM (Tense-Aspect-Mood) markers. In some cases (e.g. the completive), the merger is total whereas in others (e.g. the continuative) it's only partial and the pronominal component can be dropped where there's a nominal subject, e.g. Yaro yana gyara keke > Yaro na gyara keke "The boy is repairing a bicycle".

Newton gives an interesting example that I'll post to the Interesting Bits thread as well. Hausa has both a "completive" PAC (derived, as mentioned above, from an earlier set of direct object pronouns) and a "preterite". Historically, this preterite was unmarked, but the innovationary completive displaced it and now it's "functionally restricted to narrative uses or to the marked Rel[ative] environment".

One thing "Relative" forms are used for in Hausa is showing focus. But unlike in other languages (e.g. Welsh), the word order doesn't necessarily change. Time expressions, for instance, can occur initially without attracted focus (as is the case in many other languages). So you can have a minimal pair like this:

Jiya sun sanar da mu. "Yesterday they informed us."
Jiya suka sanar da mu. "Yesterday they informed us."

(Cf. wurin da suka tafi "the place that they went".)
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Re: The language of West Africa - Hausa

Postby Alejo » 2013-05-04, 4:47

Hey Yall
I took Hausa for two semesters at my school SUNY Purchase. It's an interesting language, three tones, vowel length, and tenses and aspects expressed primarily through personal pronouns.
Samples:
Ni Alex ne. (indepent-1stpsingular Alex topic-marker). I'm Alex.
Sunana Alex ne. (Name-1st person singular pos. Alex topic-marker). My name is Alex.
Ina karutawa Hausa. (1st-person singular continual). I'm studying Hausa.
Na ci tuwon. (1st-person singular perfect to eat tuwo (basic foodstuff)+determiner). I ate the tuwo.
Ina sonka. (1st-person singular continual to love-linker N-2nd person male singular direct pronoun). I love you.

Its an awesome language, and Hausawa (Hausa people) love when people try to learn their language.

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Re: The language of West Africa - Hausa

Postby Massimiliano B » 2013-07-06, 22:53


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Re: The language of West Africa - Hausa

Postby johnklepac » 2013-07-23, 0:19

Amazingly, my local library has a Hausa grammar; it doesn't host materials for any other African languages, even Swahili.

Personally, I'm more into Southern African languages, so this one wouldn't be at the top of my list.

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Re: The language of West Africa - Hausa

Postby zafeyry » 2013-07-27, 3:34

I feel your pain in trying to find resources for less popular African languages :blush:
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Re: The language of West Africa - Hausa

Postby Trebor » 2013-08-09, 1:10

zafeyry wrote:I feel your pain in trying to find resources for less popular African languages :blush:


Other than Swahili, which African indigenous languages are "popular"? :P
- Native: English
- Intermediate/Advanced: French, Arabic
- Beginner: Somali, Kinyarwanda
- Interested in: Yoruba, Azerbaijani, Uzbek

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Re: The language of West Africa - Hausa

Postby eddeux » 2013-09-23, 2:53

Interesting hearing about Hausa! I have seriously thought about it being my second African language to study, but it's Afro-Asiatic (Chadic), and I'm mostly interested in the Niger-Congo languages.

Trebor wrote:
zafeyry wrote:I feel your pain in trying to find resources for less popular African languages :blush:


Other than Swahili, which African indigenous languages are "popular"? :P

I'd say the rest are somehwat like niches. They have those interested in them but the majority studying an African language choose Swahili. I think this is just due to what's mostly available textbook/media wise.

Zulu, Yoruba and Hausa are also semi-popular choices. There are more than enough African languages to choose to study that are spoken widely either regionally or in their nations, but sadly the resources are lackin'.......I'm sure in the future this issue will slowly be solved, but of course Swahili will most likely always be king.
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Re: The language of West Africa - Hausa

Postby eddeux » 2013-09-23, 2:57

Anyways, the one Hausa song that I do know/love...

Ba Ni Kidi by Darey

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbouVvyISXc
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Re: The language of West Africa - Hausa

Postby Trebor » 2013-12-04, 6:34

eddeux wrote:Interesting hearing about Hausa! I have seriously thought about it being my second African language to study, but it's Afro-Asiatic (Chadic), and I'm mostly interested in the Niger-Congo languages.


It's cool you're into African languages in general. I can relate to your interest in that language group, since I'd like to learn Kinyarwanda, Yoruba, and--to a lesser extent--Bambara.

What does Niger-Congo have that Hausa lacks, in your view?
- Native: English
- Intermediate/Advanced: French, Arabic
- Beginner: Somali, Kinyarwanda
- Interested in: Yoruba, Azerbaijani, Uzbek


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