Body parts in Hausa proverbs

The word “proverb” from Latin “pro-verbium” (“pro” meaning “in\ud front of” and “verbium” meaning “word”), suggests that a proverb takes the\ud place of ordinary words. Proverbs have had a great influence on the lifestyles\ud of many people, mainly through means of religion and culture. They\ud are very common and employed in African societies, particularly in Hausa,\ud a language very rich in this field. In this paper 28 Hausa proverbs, related to\ud 14 human body parts, are quoted and some metaphorical usages of them,\ud found in works listed in References, are given

On Some Loans in Fulfulde

Fulfulde with Hausa and Kanuri are the main spoken languages in West\ud Africa. They had during many centuries so close contacts among them that\ud they exchanged many words. Among them most of the loans in Fulfulde were\ud from Arabic, but a relevant stock came from Hausa and some other language\ud of the area, as well from the colonial language, i.e. English in British former\ud colonies and French in French ones. Therefore, apart from Arabic loans\ud which were spread from one language to another and were the objects of a\ud few previous articles,1 it is interesting to investigate how many loans from\ud Hausa arrived in Fulfulde. For this research Taylor’s and Noye’s dictionaries\ud were examined, all words which could have been of Hausa origin were recorded.\ud Taylor’s dictionary was the first one to have been explored and later\ud Noye’s one for Fulfulde words not recorded in the previous one. Noye was\ud writing in French, so I am quoting him in his language also respecting the\ud Fulfulde orthography used by him, as well as that one employed for Taylor’s\ud work

Arabic Loanwords Entered in African Languages through Kanuri

Analysis of 72 Arabic loans arrived via Kanuri into some 30 West African languages

Ideophones in Hausa

The following presentation is based on a database of 243 ideophones taken from various dictionaries and sources. It should be stressed that generally the use of ideophones in Hausa is very common. They will be analysed morphologically and syntactically, trying also to categorise them according to their phonetics and semantics. As observed by Newman (2000: 242): “Ideophones have a much more significant role in the language than do English onomatopoeic words, with which they should not be compared”