User:Picaroon/Hausa people

''This is a draft rewrite of Hausa people. Some text might be copied from there, in which case you can find attribution at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hausa_people&action=history. If this draft works out, it will be merged with Hausa people.''

The Hausa (, also spelled Haussa and Haoussa) are a West African ethnic group who live primarily in Northern Nigeria and southeastern Niger, although smaller numbers live in other West and Central African countries. Hausa population is concentrated in the area known as "Hausaland", the stretch of Sudanic grasslands between Lake Chad in the east and the River Niger in the west.

The Hausa are a largely agricultural people who raise crops and livestock, including cattle. They speak the Hausa language, an Afro-Asiatic language in the Chadic language group. Sunni Islam is the dominant religion.

Name
In Ethnic and Cultural Diversity in Nigeria, Ibrahim Khaleel identifies the origin of the name "Hausa" as the Arabic al-lisan and the Hebrew ha-lashon, both of which mean "the language". Khaleel states the word came to be as a result of eighth century AD trans-Saharan trading.

According to Diedrich Westermann, writing in the introduction to G. P. Bargery's 1934 Hausa-English dictionary, the first recorded use of a similar word was in the thirteenth century, by Andalusian writer Ibn Said, who referred to Ḥauṣiyin. Westermann states that the next recorded use is in the Tarikh es-Sudan, written four centuries later.

The Hausa are referred to as Hausanko'en by the Fulani, as Gambaru by the Yoruba, and as Afnū by the Kanuri.

Origin myths
One origin myth among the Hausa is the story of Bayajidda, or Abuyizadu. Tradition holds that Bayajidda was a Baghdadi prince who left what is now Iraq and crossed the Sahara with a group of followers. He married a Bornoan princess, who gave birth to a son; they later fled Borno due to a disagreement with his wife's father, the king. Bayajidda had blacksmiths forge him a knife in Gaya (in modern southern Niger), after which he traveled to Daura (in modern northern Nigeria). In that city, the prince slew a serpent who prevented the people from drawing water from the well, and the Queen of Daura, Daurama, married him out of gratitude. Their son, Bawo, had six of his own children, and these six, along with Bayajidda's son by the Bornoan princess, went on to rule the seven Hausa Bakwai.

Hausa Kingdoms


Amina

Language, literature, and media


Hausa is a West Chadic language, part of the Chadic language group of the Afro-Asiatic languages. According to John Iliffe, writing in Africans: The History of a Continent, the language is "relatively homogeneous", and is most closely related to languages spoken in the east of modern Chad. It is written in the Ajami, a variant of Arabic script, and boko, using Latin alphabet characters.

According to Hausa language specialist Ibrahim Yaro Yahaya, the first recorded Hausa literature is a seventeenth century Ajami manuscript written by 'Abd Allah Suka, a Fulani scholar and immigrant to Kano.

The first Hausa-language newspaper was Gaskiya Ta Fi Kwabo, established in 1939.

Music
Bòòríí

Religion
The majority of Hausa people are Sunni Muslims. The remainder, estimated at less than .5% of all Hausa, are Christians or animists known as Maguzawa, or Azna. (Maguzawa is derived from madjus, the Arabic word for "pagans".)

Following the Fulani Jihad, the Maguzawa were not forced to convert to Islam; in Zaria, a Sarkin Mai was appointed by the Fulani to manage affairs pertaining to the animists. In the early 1900s, Christian missionaries were prevented from working among the Maguzawa.

Sports
One traditional Hausa sport is dambe, a type of boxing originally played by members of butchers' guilds. Dambe competitions initially took place at village festivals in the midst of a clearing known as the dandali, or "battlefield", around which spectators gathered.

Population distribution
All large cities in West Africa have Hausa inhabitants; the community they form is known as a zango or zongo. Settlements of migrant Hausa in Yoruba towns are known as Sabo.

The following is a table of Hausa population by country: