Hausa
West Africa's great lingua franca
Hausa belongs to the Chadic branch of the Afroasiatic language family — a different family entirely from Yorùbá or Igbo — and is one of the most widely spoken languages in Africa, used as a lingua franca across the Sahel far beyond its core speaker base in northern Nigeria and Niger. Its reach as a trade and media language means tens of millions of people use it as a second language on top of its native speakers.
Writing system
What counts as correct
Modern Hausa is written in a Latin-based script called boko, which uses hooked letters — ɓ, ɗ, ƙ — for implosive and ejective consonants that don't exist in English, plus an apostrophe for a glottal stop (ʼy). Hausa has also historically been written in ajami, an Arabic-based script, which is still in use in some contexts today.
Why it matters
Precision, not approximation
The hooked letters in Hausa aren't stylistic — they represent sounds that a plain "b", "d", or "k" simply doesn't. Itumo checks that every hooked letter and glottal stop lands correctly, so a Hausa translation reads as native rather than approximated.
Try it
Translate Hausa with Itumo
Pair Hausa with any of Itumo's other languages — including direct African-to-African translation.
Explore