Hausa language
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| Hausa | |
|---|---|
| هَرْشَن هَوْسَا Harshen/Halshen Hausa | |
| Pronunciation | /hawˈsa/ ⓘ |
| Native to | |
| Region | West Africa |
| Ethnicity | Hausa |
| Speakers | L1: 58 million (2023–2024)[1] |
| Official status | |
Official language in | |
Recognised minority language in | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | ha |
| ISO 639-2 | hau |
| ISO 639-3 | hau |
| Glottolog | haus1257 |
| Linguasphere | 19-HAA-b |
 Areas of Niger and Nigeria where Hausa people are based. Hausa tribes are shown in yellow. | |
Hausa (/ˈhaʊsə/;[2] in Hausa: Harshen/Halshen Hausa ⓘ /hawˈsa/; Ajami: هَرْشَن هَوْسَا) is a Chadic language spoken by over 94.5 million people in West Africa,[3] primarily by the Hausa people in Niger (where it is the sole official language, having replaced French in 2025) and Nigeria.[4] It serves as a lingua franca in most of northern Nigeria, southern Niger, as well as in northern Cameroon, Ghana (mainly in the north of the country, but also extensively among the Zongo communities all across the country, including in the capital, Accra),[5] Benin and Togo, southern Chad, and parts of Sudan.[6] Hausa also has a significant number of speakers in Côte d’Ivoire and the Central African Republic.[7][6][8][3]
Hausa is a member of the Afroasiatic language family[9] and is the most widely spoken language within the Chadic branch of that family. Hausa is tonal, using relative pitch both to distinguish words, and mark grammatical categories. Ethnologue estimated that it was spoken as a first language by some 58 million people and as a second language by another 36 million, bringing the total number of Hausa speakers to an estimated 94 million.[1]
In Nigeria, the Hausa film industry is known as Kannywood.[10]
Classification
[edit]Hausa belongs to the West Chadic languages subgroup of the Chadic languages group, which in turn is part of the Afroasiatic language family.[11]
Geographic distribution
[edit]Native speakers of Hausa, the Hausa people, are mostly found in southern Niger and northern Nigeria.[8]