Hausa names both a people and a language. The homeland, Kasar Hausa (“Hausaland”), lies across the savanna and Sahel of northern Nigeria and southern Niger. Its great historic cities are Kano, Katsina, Zaria (Zazzau), Sokoto and Daura, and its large Nigerien towns include Maradi, Zinder and Tahoua.
The Hausa language belongs to the Chadic branch of the Afroasiatic family, which also includes Arabic, Hebrew and the Amazigh (Berber) languages. It is tonal, with a distinctive set of glottalized consonants (such as ɓ, ɗ and ƙ), and it has served for centuries as a trading language from the Niger to Lake Chad and well beyond (Newman 2000).
Almost all Hausa farm at least part of the year. Salamone describes a calendar built around the May–October rains, with millet, sorghum (“guinea corn”), maize and rice as staples, and groundnuts, cowpeas, cotton and sugar cane as other crops. Many Hausa men also hold a second occupation as traders, weavers, dyers, butchers, tailors or Qur’anic teachers, and the markets of Hausaland are among the most famous in West Africa.
| Estimate | What is counted | Source |
|---|---|---|
| about 50 million | speakers of Hausa in West Africa (figure given in 2010) | Salamone 2010 |
| 6–8 million | “Hausa of Nigeria” in the core provinces of Kano, Katsina, Sokoto and Zaria (narrow, older definition) | Salamone 2010 |
| over 80 million | people of Hausa descent in Nigeria, Niger and the diaspora (broad definition) | Unsigned overview (n.d.) |
| over 100 million | first- and second-language speakers of Hausa (claimed) | Unsigned overview (n.d.) |
The figures are far apart because the questions are different: Who counts as “Hausa” (descent, language or religion)? Are second-language speakers included? Nigeria has not recorded ethnic identity in a census for decades. Treat every number on this page as an order of magnitude, not a measurement.
Sources for this article
- Salamone 2010, ch. 1, pp. 1–3; ch. 10, pp. 110–111
- Newman 2000, introduction and phonology
- Unsigned overview (n.d.), section “Introduction to the Hausa Demographic and Geographic Expanse” (estimates only)