Hausa

Also known as Hausa language

Chadic language native to the Hausa people

AI overview

Hausa is a language spoken by the Hausa people, an ethnic group primarily located in West Africa. It belongs to the Chadic language family and is one of the most widely spoken languages in the region, making it an important means of communication and cultural identity for millions of people.

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Wikidata facts

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Wikimedia language code: ha
native label: هَوْسَ
number of speakers, writers, or signers: 43900000
Commons category: Hausa language
exact match: publications.europa.eu/resource/authority/language/HAU
P10369: Saturn
P11012: Archi people

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Article

Hausa (/ˈhaʊsə/; in Hausa: Harshen/Halshen Hausa listen /hawˈsa/; Ajami: هَرْشَن هَوْسَا‎) is a Chadic language spoken by over 94.5 million people in West Africa, primarily by the Hausa people in Niger (where it is the sole official language, having replaced French in 2025) and Nigeria, but also as a lingua franca in most of northern Nigeria, southern Niger, as well as in northern Cameroon, Ghana (mainly in the north of the country, but also extensively among the Zongo communities all across the country, including in the capital, Accra), Benin and Togo, southern Chad, and parts of Sudan. Hausa also has significant a number of speakers in Côte d’Ivoire and the Central African Republic.

Hausa is a member of the Afroasiatic language family and is the most widely spoken language within the Chadic branch of that family. Hausa is tonal, using relative pitch both to distinguish words, and mark grammatical categories. Ethnologue estimated that it was spoken as a first language by some 58 million people and as a second language by another 36 million, bringing the total number of Hausa speakers to an estimated 94 million.