Hausa

Story

Hausa belongs to the Chadic branch of the Afroasiatic family, making it a distant cousin of Arabic and Amharic rather than of its Niger-Congo neighbours. It has been written in an adapted Arabic script called Ajami since at least the early 17th century, with medieval manuscripts describing constellations and calendars. The Latin-based Boko script was introduced under British colonial rule in the early 20th century and is now the primary writing system for print and broadcasting. Hausa is tonal with three pitch levels and serves as the dominant commercial lingua franca across the West African Sahel, and in 2025 Niger made it an official language, replacing French.

At a glance

• Also known as: Harshen Hausa
• Family: Afroasiatic
• Region: West Africa
• Speakers: 94M (total speakers (l1 plus l2), ethnologue estimate (2023 to 2024): 58 million l1 plus 36 million l2)
• Writing system: Latin (Boko) and Arabic script (Ajami)
• Greeting: Sannu (hello)

Spoken in

Nigeria, Niger, Ghana, Cameroon, Chad, Benin, Togo, Sudan

Common questions