An African Language Experience: Aspects of the Relationship Between Language and Culture Among the Hausa People of Northern Nigeria

By Dahiru Muhammad Argungu

The present book is about Hausa linguacultural practices. Its primary goal is to demonstrate aspects of the relationship between Hausa language and culture as it affects northern Nigeria, the territory with the largest concentration of native-Hausa speakers on earth today. Using various examples, illustrations and real-life situations, the book seeks to portray Hausa speakers experiences and practices as they daily exploit their language to communicate their needs and, in the process, express their culture. These experiences and practices are realised largely through Hausa verbal and non-verbal means or both which together give rise to linguacultural patterns of behaviour unique to the speakers.

It is hoped that readers, particularly non-Hausas, will find the book enjoyable especially in trying to experience what native-Hausa speakers, using their language to communicate, experience during social interactions. Supported by a number of optional activities and exercises, students and teachers of Hausa will particularly find the book not only resourceful and entertaining but also reader-friendly especially with regard to the role of culture in language learning and teaching. Indeed the book has been partly written to encourage the use of Hausa culture in language teaching and learning.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Africa
• Release date: Sep 21, 2017
• ISBN: 9781482876055

Dahiru Muhammad Argungu

Dahiru Muhammad Argungu is Professor of Linguistics in the Department of Modern European Languages & Linguistics of Usmanu Danfodiyo University Sokoto, Nigeria. A keen practicing polyglot, Argungu speaks and has working knowledge of English, French, Arabic and Swahili besides his native Hausa. He is the author of Communication Skills’ Companion (Tetfund 2013). A Translator, Transcriber (Hausa/English), and former Official (Parliamentary) Reporter, Argungu is principal partner, researcher and coordinator at the Sokoto-based Africa Language & Communication Academy (ALCA). He can be reached at [e-mail] and [phone], [phone].

Book preview

AN AFRICAN

LANGUAGE

EXPERIENCE

Aspects of the Relationship between Language and

Culture Among the Hausa People of Northern Nigeria

Dahiru Muhammad Argungu

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Copyright © 2017 by Dahiru Muhammad Argungu.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-4828-7604-8

                   eBook         978-1-4828-7605-5

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

Introduction

CHAPTER TWO

Language And Culture – A Complex, Intrinsic And Fascinating Bond

CHAPTER THREE

Culture And Language: A Reciprocal, Inseparable And Interdependent Relationship

CHAPTER FOUR

Hausa Language Teaching And Learning Through Its Culture

CHAPTER FIVE

Hausa Socio-Cultural Values And Practices

CHAPTER SIX

Hausa - Name Of Language And Ethnolinguistic Group

CHAPTER SEVEN

Hausa – The Denotation And Connotations Of A Name

CHAPTER EIGHT

Hausa - Linguistic Roots, Demographic Spread And Numerical Strength

CHAPTER NINE

Hausa Ethnolinguistic Identities

CHAPTER TEN

Hausa Sub-Ethnolinguistic Groups

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Hausa Facial Marks For Cultural Communication And Projection Of Sub-Ethnic Identities

CHAPTER TWELVE

Hausa Intra- And Inter-Ethnic Jokes And Plays

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Hausa Pronouns And The Complexity Of Their Use During Conversations

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Hausa And The Culture Of Naming And Nicknaming Names

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Hausa Titles, Greeting And Leave-Taking Formulas As Indicators Of Social Class And Social Stratification

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Hausa Mother-Child Communication Relationship

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Hausa Language Of Condolence

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Hausa Language And The Nature Of Communication In An Emir’s Palace

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Hausa Women’s Oral Songs: Relief Through Self-Expression

CHAPTER TWENTY

Hausa Songs Of Almajiri: The Itinerant Child-Beggar

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Hausa Colour Terms In Society

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Hausa Proverb In Its Cultural Communication Contexts

CHAPTER ONE

Introduction

There has always existed a strong bond between language and culture, on the one hand, and language and society, on the other, to which scholars and other keen observers of these phenomenal interrelationships generally have long recognized and even studied. Similarly, a number of researches linking several areas of Hausa language with its culture and society also exist, but these are to be found mostly in isolated journals and other publications. In other words, examining the nature of the Hausa/culture bond or how such bond within the language/culture nexus exists in detail and in form of a bound volume covering as many areas of the phenomena as possible has always left a yawning gap awaiting the attention of scholars and students of Hausa.

Indeed studies on Hausa have largely concentrated on various aspects of the language’s grammar and literature. Presently, therefore, there are few researches in the area of Hausa sociolinguistics in general, and even very few such studies in the field of Hausa cultural linguistics. Therefore, the present study is an attempt to fill this hiatus. However, an understanding of Hausa language, society and culture bonds will undoubtedly be richer and more incisive if such an academic undertaking first surveys ideas about these bonds, in a general sense, for a better understanding of the interrelationships. This, of course, is largely as a result of the complex nature of the bonds between language and culture as well as society.

CHAPTER TWO

Language and culture – a complex, intrinsic and fascinating bond

Not only is the bond between culture and language complex, but it is equally intrinsic and fascinating. The complexity of this bond, according to Pride (1974), has reached an extent whereby the boundaries between language and culture ‘defy near delimitation.’ The problem reminds one of the egg and chicken riddle, which came first, the egg or chicken? If the egg from which chicken, and if the chicken from which egg? Whether the riddle in the context of language/culture bond can be resolved is something many more studies in the field will reveal. However, a fact about this complex relationship is that it can be studied from various angles and levels. This is because, as Gleanson (1974:2) has rightly observed, ‘language has so many interrelationships with various aspects of human life that it can be studied from numerous points of view. All are valid and useful, as well as interesting in themselves’.

Another peculiarity of the bond between culture and language is that it is intrinsic, particularly when examined from the perspective of the symbolic view of language principle. The symbolic view of language is based on a principle expressed by Paterson and O’Hanlon (2015) which states that ‘most people value their language not only instrumentally but also intrinsically, as a cultural inheritance and as a marker of identity’.

Certainly, it is in this regard that UNESCO considers human languages as intangible heritages that need not only be protected but also preserved in order to scale the level of endangerment and, indeed, loss facing these invaluable heritages in form of numerous languages worldwide.

The bond between language and culture is also fascinating in the sense that such bond is highly characterized by feelings and other emotional experiences, the types which any language learner, second or foreign language learner, experiences, almost in similar ways a native speaker of any language experiences them. Using language as its principal tool, these experiences unveil themselves as opportunities, indeed avenues, for an individual to participate in a culture and/or society, including a culture or society which is new or foreign to him or her, once he or she has acquired the language of a people. Clearly, therefore, there is a link between the culture of a people and their communication systems, the most prominent being their language which facilitates how they conduct their affairs in society.

Thus, one can always find a point of departure in studying the bond between language and culture. Wardhaugh (2000) however cautions that ‘the only problem is deciding the nature of the bond and finding suitable ways to demonstrate it.’ Many decades ago, Malinowski (1922) alerted scholars of the world that language cannot be studied without reference to social context. He called his experience with the Trobriand islanders of Melanesian New Guinea ‘participant observation’. This fact had since been acknowledged by subsequent linguists, particularly sociolinguists, researchers and other keen observers of language in society.

Hymes (1964), for instance, has observed that, ‘in practice, the study of language in its social and cultural contexts covers a range of activities extending from the basically linguistic to the basically non-linguistic.’ In the present study, an attempt has been made not only to discuss aspects of the bond between Hausa language and its culture and society, but an in-depth and careful selection of examples, illustrations and real-life experiences have all been included to demonstrate the nature of this bond. The study is to help explain how Hausa people experience culture through their language.

Side by side with this goal is the need to introduce to students of Hausa, particularly foreign students of the language, numerous culture words and phrases which are to be found on several pages of this book. It is expected that the students will draw from this list linguistic data to help them conceptualize, visualize and actualize in as many instances of simulated social relationships and cultural occasions as possible matching such instances with as many appropriate Hausa words and phrases as can be used in their efforts to practice with the language.

In addition to the analyses, I have equally provided in the book a series of what I termed ‘Optional Experience Activities’ to help readers, particularly different categories of Hausa students, experience, as much as possible, what native Hausa speakers experience when trying to communicate in the contexts of their language, culture and society. However, all the exercises and/or discussion questions provided in the book are optional; readers may therefore read the whole book without attempting any of the questions provided therein.

It is my hope that the reader, even where their background in Hausa is only superficial, insufficient or completely non-existent, will enjoy the book. To the best of my knowledge, this book is the first of its kind in the field of what, for want of a better term, I would prefer to call ‘Applied Hausa Cultural Linguistics’. In this sense, the book can be used either as a general reader or a text in the field of Hausa Cultural Linguistics. Finally, I welcome readers’ suggestions in order to improve future editions of the book.

CHAPTER THREE

Culture and Language: a reciprocal, inseparable and interdependent relationship

Of the numerous relationships language has with human life, two of these possibly stand out as the most discussed by sociolinguists. The first is the relationship between language and culture, and, by extension, the connection between language and society. The two phenomena can be likened to the two sides of a coin which try to semantically support each other. Several sociolinguists have expressed their opinions pointing out what appears to be a single phenomenon, yet with two or even more sides, when trying to explain, on the one hand, language/society and, on the other, culture/language interrelationships. For instance, Wardhaugh (2000:10) observes that there are several possible relationships between language and society, although he outlined only four such possibilities as follows:

(i) that social structure may either influence or determine linguistic structure and/or behavior.

(ii) that linguistic structure and/or behavior may either influence or determine social structure (Whorfian hypothesis).

(iii) that the influence is bi-directional: language and society may influence each other.

(iv) that there is not relationship at all between linguistic structure and social structure and that each is independent of the other.

As regards language and culture interrelations, Kachru (1996c:127) says ‘it is made up of shared knowledge of what people must know in order to act as they do, make things they make, and interpret their experience in the distinctive way they do’. He goes further to point out that behaviours in culturally appropriate ways include verbal interaction in socially defined contexts in a culturally appropriate code or codes. For instance, how various speech acts such as apologizing, complementing, inviting, praying, requesting, and so on, are performed and which code or codes are selected for such speech acts depend on the socio-cultural norms of the group participating in interaction.

For Hausa, the implications underlying all of the above observations is that numerous words, phrases and sentences in the language can hardly be understood, translated or transmitted without reference to either the culture or society of its (Hausa) speakers. For example, how easily can any second learner of Hausa decode,