The most widely spoken Chadic language is Hausa, a lingua franca of much of inland West Africa.

In Africa there is no term for music in Tiv, Yoruba, Igbo, Efik, Birom, Hausa, Idoma, Eggon or Jarawa.

Hausa ( ه َ و ُ س َ, Yaren Hausa – language of the Hausa ) is the Chadic language with the largest number of speakers, spoken as a first language by about 25 million people, and as a second language by about 18 million more, an approximate total of 43 million people.

Hausa is one of Africa's largest spoken languages after Arabic, French, English, Portuguese and Swahili.

Hausa belongs to the West Chadic languages subgroup of the Chadic languages group, which in turn is part of the Afro-Asiatic language family.

Native speakers of Hausa, the Hausa people are mostly to be found in Niger and in the north of Nigeria, but the language is used as a trade language across a much larger swathe of West Africa ( Benin, Ghana, Cameroon, Togo, Côte d ' Ivoire etc.

Eastern Hausa dialects include Kananci which is spoken in Kano, Bausanchi in Bauchi, Dauranchi in Daura, Gudduranci in Katagum Misau and part of Borno and Hadejanci in Hadejiya.

This link between non-tonality and geographic location is not limited to Hausa alone, but is exhibited in other northern dialects of neighbouring languages ; such as the difference within Songhay language ( between the northernmost Koyra Chiini and Koyraboro Senni dialects of Timbuktu and Gao, and the Zarma dialect, spoken from western Niger to northern Ghana ), and within the Soninke language ( between the northernmost dialects of Imraguen and Nemadi spoken in east-central Mauritania, and the southern dialects of Senegal, Mali and the sahel ).

The Ghanaian Hausa dialect ( Gaananci ), spoken in Ghana and western Ivory Coast, is a distinct western native Hausa dialect-bloc with adequate linguistic and media resources available.

Separate smaller Hausa dialects are spoken by an unknown number of Hausa further west in parts of Burkina Faso, and in the Haoussa Foulane, Badji Haoussa, Guezou Haoussa, and Ansongo districts of northeastern Mali ( where it is designated as a minority language by the Malian government ), but there are very little linguistic resources and research done on these particular dialects at this time.

Gaananci forms a separate group from other Western Hausa dialects, as it now falls outside the contiguous Hausa-dominant area, and is usually identified by the use of c for ky, and j for gy.

This is attributed to the fact that Ghana's Hausa population descend from Hausa-Fulani traders settled in the zongo districts of major trade-towns up and down the previous Asante, Gonja and Dagomba kingdoms stretching from the sahel to coastal regions, in particular the cities of Tamale, Salaga, Bawku, Bolgatanga, Achimota, Nima and Kumasi.

Gaananci exhibits noted inflected influences from Zarma, Gur, Dyula and Soninke, as Ghana is the westernmost area in which the Hausa language is a major lingua-franca ; as well as it being the westernmost area both the Hausa and Djerma ethnic groups inhabit in large numbers.

Immediately west from Ghana ( in Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso ), Hausa is abruptly replaced by Dioula – Bambara as the main lingua-franca of what become predominantly Manding areas, and native Hausa populations plummet to a very small urban minority.

Links to the Hausa states were also established, providing horses and salt from Bilma for Akan gold.

Hausa is also spoken various parts of Cameroon and Chad, which combined the mixed dialects of Northern Nigeria and Niger Republic, French has made a great influence in the way Hausa is spoken by the native Hausa speakers.

The Hausa people of Sudan have a term equivalent to lesbian, kifi, that may also be applied to males to mean " neither party insists on a particular sexual role ".

The largest ethnic groups in Niger are the Hausa, who also constitute the major ethnic group in northern Nigeria, and the Zarma Songhay ( also spelled Djerma-Songhai ), who also are found in parts of Mali.

Albanian, Arabic, Assyrian ( VSO and VOS are also followed, depending on the person ), Berber, Bulgarian, Chinese, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, Italian, Ganda, Greek, Hausa, Hebrew, Javanese, Kashmiri, Khmer, Latvian, Macedonian, Polish, Portuguese, Quiche, Rotuman, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Swahili, Thai, Vietnamese, Yoruba and Zulu are examples of languages that can follow an SVO pattern.

The northeastern sector of the country was also influenced by an influx of Hausa Muslim traders from the 16th Century onwards

The Hausa, also of West Africa, classify drummers into those who beat drums and those who beat ( pluck ) strings ( the other 4 player classes are blowers, singers, acclaimers, and talkers ), as reported by Ames and King in Glossary of Hausa Music and its Social Contexts, 1971, Northwestern U. Press.

Fulani in English is borrowed from the Hausa term, and it is also used by the Manding peoples, being the diminutive form of the word " Fula " in their language, essentially meaning " little Fula ".

It was also widely supported by the Hausa peasantry who felt over-taxed and oppressed by their rulers.

The call for jihad did not only reach other Hausa states such as Kano, Katsina and Zaria but also Borno, Gombe, Adamawa, Nupe and Ilorin.

Usman also criticized the heavy taxation and obstruction created in the business and trade of the Hausa states by the legal system.

A few languages utilise ejective fricatives: in some dialects of Hausa, the standard affricate is a fricative ; Ubykh ( Northwest Caucasian, now extinct ) had an ejective lateral fricative ; and the related Kabardian also has ejective labiodental and alveolopalatal fricatives,.

The Mandinka, Malinke ( also known as Mandinko or Mandingo ) are one of the largest ethnic groups in West Africa with an estimated population of eleven million ( the other 3 major ethnic groups in the region being the non-related Fula, Hausa and Songhai ).

A very unusual minimal contrast, and possibly unique to the Abdzakh dialect of Adyghe, is a three-way contrast between plain, labialized and palatalized glottal stops ( although a palatalized glottal stop is also found in Hausa ).

Tie-dye techniques have also been used for centuries in the Hausa region of West Africa, with renowned indigo dye pits located in and around Kano, Nigeria.

The xalam is commonly played in Mali, Gambia, Senegal, Niger, Northern Nigeria, Northern Ghana, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, and Western Sahara ; it is also known in other languages as bappe, diassare, hoddu ( Pulaar ), koliko ( Gurunsi ), kologo ( Frafra ), komsa, kontigi ( Hausa ), koni, konting ( Mandinka ), molo ( Songhay / Zarma ), ndere, ngoni ( Bambara ), and tidinit ( Hassaniyya Arabic ).

There are also a few thousand Hausa speakers in the south.

Its population is mainly from the Ga tribal group, but houses also members of Hausa, Ewe, and Akan.

Other widely spoken Afroasiatic languages are Amharic, the national language of Ethiopia, with 18 million native speakers ; Somali, spoken by around 19 million people in Greater Somalia ; and Hausa, the dominant language of northern Nigeria and southern Niger, spoken by 18. 5 million people and used as a lingua franca in large parts of the Sahel, with some 25 million speakers in total.

Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo are the most widely used Nigerian languages.

As in most parts of Northern Nigeria, the Hausa Language is widely spoken in Kano.

When Oudney and Clapperton set out for the Hausa states in December 1823, Denham remained behind to explore the western, south and south-eastern shores of Lake Chad, and the lower courses of the rivers Waube, Logone and Shari, proving beyond doubt that Lake Chad was not the source of the Niger, as had been widely believed.

She is widely credited with building the earthen walls that surround Hausa cities.

Within Africa, Oromo is the language with the fourth most speakers, after Arabic ( if one counts the mutually unintelligible spoken forms of Arabic as a single language and assumes the same for the varieties of Oromo ), Swahili, and Hausa.

It is the leading indigenous language of the southwestern lobe of the West African nation of Niger, where the Niger River flows and the capital city, Niamey, is located, and it is the second leading for that entire nation, after Hausa, which is spoken in south central Niger.

The power of the mai was undermined by droughts and famine that were becoming more intense, internal rebellion in the pastoralist north, growing Hausa power, and the importation of firearms which made warfare more bloody.

Non-native pronunciation vastly differs from native pronunciation by way of key omissions of implosive and ejective consonants present in native Hausa dialects, such as ɗ, ɓ and kʼ / ƙ, which are pronounced by non-native speakers as d, b and k respectively.

Led by public figures of the MNSD outside government, the group took the name of Tandja's 2004 re-election slogan, Tazartché: a Hausa word meaning " Continuity ".

Armed conflict was usually motivated by economic concerns, as coalitions of Hausa states mounted wars against the Jukun and Nupe in the middle belt to collect slaves or against one another for control of trade.