Abstract

This study explores the semiotics of Hausa and Fufulde languages in Northern Nigeria, and how they derive a lot of linguistic and paralinguistic, as well as cultural behaviors from Arabic language and culture. The research selected these languages because of their prestige as the major languages in Northern Nigeria, each claiming more than millions of speakers. Using data collected across these languages, the research findings revealed that there is a substantial similarity on the semiotics of the selected languages. This is not unconnected with the historical fact that Arabic, as the language of Islam, had had strong influences on the languages through numerous semiotic nuances. Arabic linguistic codes such as loan words, morphosyntactic and other linguistic and, indeed, paralinguistic behaviors such as dressing code, signs and symbols inherent in the doctrine of Islam, are found profusely in the vocabularies of these languages. By extension, Arabic script, known as Ajami, became the written script with which Hausa, in particular, and to a large extent, Fulfulde, use to communicate their thoughts, long before the advent of Western literacy in Nigeria. These semiotic correlations have, in a substantial way, brought about cultural affinity between these languages which also affected other minority languages in Northern Nigeria.

Keywords: Semiotics, Hausa and fulfulde, Arabic influence, Language and culture and Northern Nigeria