THE HAUSA LANGUAGE

The Hausa language is spoken by over 150 ethnic groups, and in at least 11 African countries. There are Hausa speakers in Nigeria 🇳🇬, Niger Republic 🇳🇪, Cameroon 🇨🇲, Ivory Coast 🇨🇮 , Sudan 🇸🇩, South Sudan 🇸🇸 , Ghana 🇬🇭, Benin 🇧🇯, Eritrea 🇪🇷, Togo 🇹🇬 , Gabon 🇬🇦 and Algeria 🇩🇿 . In Nigeria, about 85 to 95 ethnic groups speak Hausa. Hausa is spoken by so many ethnic groups because before European colonization of Africa, for around 1,500 years the Sahel was covered by numerous multiethnic kingdoms and federations, some of which had Hausa ruler and many of which had Hausa are a Lingua Franca for trade.

Hausa is not only a language but also an ethnic group. The precolonial Hausa people belonged to many different kingdoms and federations throughout the last 2,000 years. They were not all organised into one state in the various eras before European colonization or before defeat to Fulani clerics. Instead, the population was so large that there were speak out across a diversity of independent political jurisdictions.

The number of Hausa speakers is larger than the number of Hausa people. There are about 85 million Hausa speakers in Africa in total: 54 million people speak Hausa as a first language while 34 million people speak Hausa as a second language.

People who don’t know the history of the Hausa people, or the nature of Hausa identity, often misidentify all Hausa speakers as “Hausa”, which is similar to thinking all French speakers are French citizens.

Hausas in the narrow sense are indigenous of Kasar Hausa (Hausaland) who are found in West Africa. Within the Hausa, a distinction is made between three subgroups: Habe, Hausa-Fulani (Kado), and Banza or Banza 7.

* "Habe" are taken to be pure Hausas. They include Gobirawa, Kabawa, Rumawa, Adarawa, Maouri, and others. These groups were the rulers of Hausa Kingdoms before the Danfodiyo revolution (Jihad) of 1804.

* "Hausa–Fulani" or "Kado" are Hausanized Fulas, people of mixed Hausa and Fulani origin, most of whom speak a variant of Hausa as their native language. According to Hausa genealogical tradition, their identity came into being as a direct result of the migration of Fula people into Hausaland occurring from the 15th century and later at the beginning of the 19th century, during the revolution led by Sheikh Usman Danfodiyo against the Hausa Kingdoms, founding a centralized Sokoto Caliphate. They include Jobawa, Dambazawa, Mudubawa, Mallawa, and Sullubawa tribes originating in Futa Tooro.

In some ancient texts referring to the region of northern Nigeria in the late 1st millennium AD and early second millennium AD, the Hausa people were called the Habe, and Hausa kingdoms are called the Habe kingdoms. 

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