Hausa
/ˈhaʊsə/noun
A major West African language and the people who speak it, especially in northern Nigeria and Niger.
Did you know?Hausa belongs to the Afro-Asiatic family, and its long history as a trade language helped it spread far beyond the Hausa homeland across West Africa.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Afro-Asiatic
PAA
*ʕaśa?
“No secure reconstruction for the ethnonym itself; the deeper ancestry is not firmly established.”
Pre-11th Century
Hausa
Hausa
“The ethnonym used for the people and their language in West Africa.”
14th Century
Arabic
Ḥawsa / Ḥawāsa
“Arabic forms used by writers referring to the Hausa people and their country.”
19th Century
English
Hausa
“Adopted into English as the name of the people and language of northern Nigeria and neighboring regions.”