Afro-Asiatic language of northern Nigeria and southern Niger.
Hausa, which is spoken by some 31 million people, belongs to the Chadic branch of Afro-Asiatic. Outside of Hausaland, communities of Hausa merchants have stimulated the use of Hausa as a lingua franca by tens of millions more across a broad area of the African Sahel and savanna region. Hausa is now customarily written in the Latin alphabet , introduced in the early 20th century, though writing in an adaptation of the Arabic alphabet , attested about a century earlier, continues in Qur 02BE; 0101; nic schools and some other contexts.