LINGram 23: Hausa Grammar

Hausa Grammar

Charles H. Robinson

Hause is probably the most widely-spoken language on the continent of Africa. The country inhabited by the Hausas, extending, roughly speaking, from lat. 8 N. to 14 N., and from long. 4 E. to 11 E., and including about half a million square miles, contains a population which is estimated at twenty-five millions. Of these, about fifteen millions are believed to speak the Hausa language, or, in other words, the Hausa-speaking people form one per Cent, of the whole population of the world. Hausa, moreover, acts as a sort of lingua franca and as the language of trade, far outside the actual limits of Hausaland. Settlements of Hausa-speaking people are to be found in places as far separated from one another as Suakim, Alexandria, Tripoli, Tunis, and Lagos; and Hausa Caravans are constantly passing to and fro between all these places and Hausaland proper.

Contents: The personal pronouns, the verbs " to be " and " to have" ; demonstrative, relative, and interrogative pronouns, formation of the genitive, the negative; Indefinite, reciprocal, and reflexive pronouns, the noun-agent, uses of mai and ma; the possessive pronouns, separable and inseparable forms ; the verb: tense formations, the verbal substantive; the future tense, the Infinitive, uses of kan and sai; the passive voice, the imperative mood of the active and passive voices, the negative of the subjunctive, and the imperative, participles in ehe and she; the terminal vowels of Hausa verbs, various verbal suffixes, reduplication of verbal forms; prepositions, various meanings of the word da; formation of the plural, patronymics, substantives ending in chi or ta ; the numerals; Hausa genders, list of simple adjectives, past participles used äs adjectives, degrees of comparison; adverbs, conjunctions, and interjections; forms of salutation, hours of the day, days of the week, names of the months, points of the compass, expressions used in buying and selling, etc.

This re-edition of Charles H. Robinson’s (a sometime lecturer of Hausa in the University of Cambridge) Hausa Grammar has been published as no. 22 in the LINCOM Gramatica (LINGram) series (originally published 1922, 4th edition, London, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd.).

ISBN 978 3 86290 032 9. LINCOM Gramatica 23. 228pp. 2011.