Langenesis

Afro-Asiatic family

Hausa

c. 1000 CE – today Living

Hausa (c. 1000 CE – today) is a living Afro-Asiatic language. Lineage: Proto-Afro-Asiatic → Proto-Chadic → Hausa.

See Hausa on the interactive map
Speakers
50M (50,000,000)
ISO 639-3
hau
Glottocode
haus1257

West Chadic language of northern Nigeria and southern Niger and a major West African lingua franca; tens of millions of additional L2 speakers. Written in Ajami (Arabic script) and, since the colonial period, in Latin script (Boko).

Lineage

  1. Proto-Afro-Asiaticc. 10,000 BCE – 7,000 BCE
  2. Proto-Chadicc. 5,000 BCE – 3,000 BCE
  3. Hausac. 1000 CE – today

Sources