HAUSA IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: AN OVERVIEW1

Abstract

The Romanization of the Hausa language, which has been written in Arabic script since pre-colonial times, as well as the origin of Hausa language examinations for Northern Nigerian civil servants, have long been questions of interest to Nigerians. Much unsubstantiated speculation has been published, and many assumptions have also circulated among ordinary Nigerians. For example, in the July 1984 (Shawwal 1404) issue of Afkar magazine, Ahmad Hallirio Arfani attributed the Romanization of Hausa to a missionary and colonial conspiracy intended to undermine Islamic civilization and ultimately destroy Islam. 2 This article, however, assumed that British colonialism had had a ‘civilizing mission’ along the lines of French colonial policy, without bothering to document such a policy. It also assumes a greater degree of coordination and cooperation between missionaries and colonial administrators than was generally the case. Among ordinary Nigerians it is common to assume that Hausa language examinations, as well as the fluency and literacy in Hausa that they tested, were imposed by the Sardauna of Sokoto, Ahmadu Bello, when he became Premier of the Northern Region of Nigeria, as part of a 1 Much of the research for this article has been published in my book Spurious Arabic: Hausa and Colonial Nigeria, Madison: University of Wisconsin African Studies Center 2000. It is here expanded to present a new theory of the causes of Romanization and other material of relevance. 2 ‘Hausa: Missionizing the Script’, 66-7.

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