The Use of Hausanized Arabic Words in Hausa Poetry: A Study of Professor Aliyu Muhammad Bunza's "EKOWAS ba mu Yarda da Yaƙi ba"

Abstract

Allah the Almighty chose the Arabic language to be an immortal language among the ancient Semitic languages, and perhaps the secret is that it is the language of His clear book, and the language of His eternal message. History clear that there are religious and economic ties between the Arab countries and West Africa from since a long time ago, but historians mentioned that the Arabic language began to penetrate into the countries of West Africa through the trade that was taking place between the Arab countries and those quarters since the eleventh century AD, and as for the primacy of the Arabic language in Kanem Bornu and Hausa lands, as there were frequent narrations that it entered by Arab Muslim merchants through peace, so the people accepted Islam in their Arabic language since that era, until the Arabic language in those countries became the language of culture, writing, speeches, teaching, and even an official language before British colonialism. So this eloquent interest in the Arabic language left its far-reaching impact on the Hausa people, even their poetry, as you do not find a Hausa poet except that he borrowed in his poetry Arabic vocabulary that the Hausa people obsessed with, and among these poets is the poet Professor Aliyu Muhammad Bunza. From this point of view, this haste is an analytical linguistic study of a phenomenon of sociolinguistics titled: The use of Hausanized Arabic words in Hausa poetry: A case study of Professor Aliyu Muhammad Bunza's Poem "Ekowas ba mu yarda da Yaƙi ba". The importance of this article appears to be that, it is an applied, analytical linguistic study that would clarify the pioneering role played by the Arabic language in developing and expanding the vocabulary of the Hausa language, especially among poets.