1. Family: Afro-Asiatic
  2. Subfamily: Chadic
  3. Genus: West Chadic

Hausa

WALS coordinates: 12° N, 7° E

spoken in Nigeria, Niger

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Hausa
Routledge:
    Other:
      ISO 639-3:

      Features

      Feature Value References
      Phonology
      Consonant Inventories Moderately large
      Vowel Quality Inventories Average (5-6)
      Consonant-Vowel Ratio Moderately high
      Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In both plosives and fricatives
      Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems Missing /p/
      Uvular Consonants None
      Glottalized Consonants Ejectives and implosives
      Lateral Consonants /l/, no obstruent laterals
      The Velar Nasal No velar nasal
      Vowel Nasalization Contrast absent
      Front Rounded Vowels None
      Syllable Structure Moderately complex
      Tone Simple tone system
      Absence of Common Consonants All present
      Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
      Morphology
      Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Exclusively isolating
      Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives No case
      Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb 6-7 categories per word
      Locus of Marking in the Clause Double marking
      Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases Dependent marking
      Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology Inconsistent or other
      Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Little affixation
      Reduplication Productive full and partial reduplication
      Case Syncretism No syncretism
      Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking No subject person/number marking
      Nominal Categories
      Number of Genders Two
      Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems Sex-based
      Systems of Gender Assignment Semantic and formal
      Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural suffix
      Occurrence of Nominal Plurality All nouns, always obligatory
      Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem + pronominal plural affix
      The Associative Plural Unique periphrastic associative plural
      Definite Articles Definite word distinct from demonstrative
      Indefinite Articles Indefinite word distinct from 'one'
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns No inclusive/exclusive
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No person marking
      Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Four-way contrast
      Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Identical
      Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Unrelated
      Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns In 3rd person + 1st and/or 2nd person
      Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns No politeness distinction
      Indefinite Pronouns Generic-noun-based
      Person Marking on Adpositions Pronouns only
      Number of Cases No morphological case-marking
      Asymmetrical Case-Marking No case-marking
      Position of Case Affixes No case affixes or adpositional clitics
      Comitatives and Instrumentals Identity
      Ordinal Numerals First, two-th, three-th
      Distributive Numerals Marked by reduplication
      Numeral Classifiers Absent
      Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes Possessive suffixes
      Nominal Syntax
      Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
      Possessive Classification No possessive classification
      Action Nominal Constructions Restricted
      Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' identical to 'with'
      Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Differentiation
      Verbal Categories
      Perfective/Imperfective Aspect No grammatical marking
      The Past Tense No past tense
      The Future Tense No inflectional future
      The Perfect No perfect
      Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes No tense-aspect inflection
      The Morphological Imperative Second singular
      The Prohibitive Special imperative + special negative
      Imperative-Hortative Systems Both types of system
      The Optative Inflectional optative absent
      Situational Possibility Verbal constructions
      Epistemic Possibility Verbal constructions
      Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking Overlap for either possibility or necessity
      Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
      Coding of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
      Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect None
      Verbal Number and Suppletion None
      Word Order
      Order of Subject, Object and Verb SVO
      Order of Subject and Verb SV
      Order of Object and Verb VO
      Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb VOX
      Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Prepositions
      Order of Genitive and Noun Noun-Genitive
      Order of Adjective and Noun Adjective-Noun
      Order of Demonstrative and Noun Mixed
      Order of Numeral and Noun Noun-Numeral
      Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause
      Order of Degree Word and Adjective Adjective-Degree word
      Position of Polar Question Particles Final
      Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Mixed
      Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause Initial subordinator word
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase VO and Prepositions
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun VO and NRel
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun VO and AdjN
      Simple Clauses
      Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases Neutral
      Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Neutral
      Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Neutral
      Expression of Pronominal Subjects Subject pronouns in different position
      Verbal Person Marking No person marking
      Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking No person marking
      Order of Person Markers on the Verb A and P do not or do not both occur on the verb
      Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Secondary-object construction
      Reciprocal Constructions Distinct from reflexive
      Passive Constructions Present
      Antipassive Constructions No antipassive
      Applicative Constructions Benefactive and other; both bases
      Periphrastic Causative Constructions Sequential but no purposive
      Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
      Negative Morphemes Negative particle
      Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Both
      Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/Cat
      Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation Predicate negation also present
      Polar Questions Question particle
      Predicative Possession Conjunctional
      Predicative Adjectives Nonverbal encoding
      Nominal and Locational Predication Different
      Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible
      Comparative Constructions Exceed
      Complex Sentences
      Relativization on Subjects Gap
      Relativization on Obliques Pronoun-retention
      'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is expressed overtly
      Purpose Clauses Deranked
      'When' Clauses Balanced/deranked
      Reason Clauses Balanced
      Lexicon
      Hand and Arm Identical
      Finger and Hand Different
      Numeral Bases Decimal
      M-T Pronouns No M-T pronouns
      N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns
      Tea Words derived from Sinitic cha
      Other
      Para-Linguistic Usages of Clicks Affective meanings