The Hausa Language: An Encyclopedic Reference Grammar

TLDR

This book offers the most authoritative and detailed grammar of Hausa, a major African language spoken by about 35 million native speakers and 15 million second‑language users, drawing on two centuries of scholarship by world authority Paul Newman. The grammar is alphabetically organized, covering core topics such as tonology, noun plurals, and verbal tense/aspect, while also addressing neglected areas like verbal idioms, proper names, and language games, and includes historical notes linking current phenomena to Chadic and Afroasiatic origins. Readers benefit from the alphabetic layout, which makes it easy to locate specific topics of interest.

Abstract

This book is a comprehensive grammar of Hausa, one of the largest and most important languages of Africa. Hausa is spoken by some 35 million people as a first language and approximately 15 million more as a second language. Paul Newman, a world authority on the Hausa language, draws on two centuries of Hausa linguistic scholarship to provide the most authoritative and detailed grammar of the language ever written. Unlike other grammars, this book is organised alphabetically. Readers will appreciate the ease with which they can find the specific individual topics that interest them. The grammar covers such expected topics as tonology, noun plurals, and verbal tense/aspect as well as often neglected topics, including verbal idioms, proper names, and language games. Newman also incorporates historical linguistic notes that explain and explicate current Hausa phenomena, especially puzzling anomalies, in terms of their Chadic and Afroasiatic origins.