Hausa has had a large media presence since the middle of the twentieth century. The BBC began broadcasting in Hausa in 1957, and the Voice of America, Deutsche Welle, Radio France Internationale and others later joined, so that Hausa became one of the best-served African languages on international radio. National and state stations broadcast in Hausa, and television, film, music and social media now carry the language to young people in cities and villages alike.
Higher education has grown too: Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, Bayero University in Kano and Usman Danfodiyo University in Sokoto train teachers, scientists and writers, and Hausa writers publish novels, poetry and journalism. In business, Kano’s long commercial tradition (see the chapter on Trade) continues in the careers of entrepreneurs such as Aliko Dangote, born in Kano in 1957.
The Hausa people have preserved their languages, courts and customs through colonial rule, military governments and economic crisis. As this site shows, the story is not one of unchanging tradition. It is one of cities and farmers, scholars and traders, women and men, who have kept adapting what they inherited.
Haƙuri maganin duniya.
Hausa proverb: “Patience is the medicine of the world.”
Sources for this article
- Falola & Heaton 2008, chapters on the late twentieth century
- Larkin 2008, chapters on media in Kano