Beauty of construction, richness of expression

Abstract

Abstract A History of the Hausa Language is the first book-length historical study of any language of the Chadic branch of Afro-Asiatic. It synthesizes and updates the scholarly output on the topic by Paul Newman, for many decades Hausa’s most productive and influential scholar. In this review article we discuss Newman’s most striking findings on the history of Hausa’s phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexicon, adding questions and critiques where called for. We find the book to be a contribution without parallel to Hausa and to African linguistics.