Haoussa

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The Hausa country corresponds to the zone of continuous extension of the language, situated from the 4th to the 11th degree of longitude east, and from the 10th to the 15th of latitude north, and corresponding to the north of Nigeria and the south of Niger to an area that allowed the development of agriculture and cavalry. Hausa society became politically established from the 10th century onwards, with the opening of trans-Saharan trade routes and the spread of Islam.

Discover the language

Hausa is one of the national languages of Niger and Nigeria. Dialectal distributions are linked to the Hausa country's former political entities (city-states). Hausa speakers are nevertheless fairly homogeneous, and, due to the use of "Standard Hausa" in the media and schooling policies (at least in Nigeria), they are becoming increasingly so. Indeed, the British colonial press selected the Kano dialect variety for the standard of its writings, and it's the one found today in regular reference publications, as well as in the Hausa broadcasts of international radio stations (BBC World Service, China Radio International, Deutsche Welle, Radio France Internationale,and Voice of America).

Parallel to this, the emergence of a secular Hausa literature, written in standard orthography (Latin characters), accompanies the expansion of an urban norm, and shows the dynamics of a language whose vehicular function is now preponderant.

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Training courses

Haoussa is studied in these courses:
Licence LLCER, Afrique-Océan Indien course, haoussa
Master LLCER, Afrique-Océan Indien course