A Morphophonological Analysis of Selected Loanwords from English Language to Hausa Language

ABSTRACT

This dissertation examines English loan words in Hausa language and their nativisation through morphophonological processes. The contact situation between speakers of both languages through colonialism has brought about borrowing from the English language into the Hausa language. However, certain morphophonemic processes have accounted for the nativisation of such loanwords in the Hausa lexicon. The aim of the research is to examine the morphological and phonological processes that account for the domestication of loanwords from English borrowed into the Hausa language. Using morphophonemic approach as its framework, findings reveal that: insertion of extra syllables/ morphemes (Epenthesis), substitution of letters/ phonemes, deletion of letters/phonemes, shortening of long vowel sounds and metathesis are some of the morphophonemic processes that account for the nativisation of loanwords from the English language to the Hausa language.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background to the Study

Borrowing words from other languages is among the key attributes of growing languages. For any language that is determined to grow, borrowing is inevitable. This is why a language that refuses to borrow will likely die out as was the case of Vulgar Latin. There is hardly any language that has not borrowed from another throughout its existence. Harris corroborates this assertion by submitting that,

all languages have borrowed from other languages, though obviously not all to the same degree. Just to stay with your question, French has borrowed lots of words from mediaeval and scholastic Latin (as opposed to the “genuine” French words derived organically from Vulgar Latin), and modern spoken French has borrowed heavily from English (despite the strictures of purists). Sanskrit borrowed heavily from Dravidian. Classical Arabic borrowed from Aramaic, Middle Persian and Greek, and Modern Arabic dialects have borrowed lots of words from Turkish, French, English, and (in Iraq and the Gulf) from Persian. (8)

To illustrate the positions stated above further, the English language as an international or global language is unarguably the fastest growing language today because, apart from the fact that it came into existence centuries ago through borrowing from the Angles, Saxons and Jutes or the Scandinavian languages; it continues to borrow widely today from many languages of the world like French, Arabic, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese among others.
Harris’s view underscores the fact that borrowing sustains all languages of the world as long as

language contact is still a possibility today. Just as in Europe where languages like Germany, English, Russia among other languages are building up their word stock through borrowing, in Asia. Norman (72) opines that “Japanese and Korea continue to borrow from Chinese which has also borrowed from other smaller languages in China like Cantonese, Yue, Jin, Wu, Gan, Xiang, Min, Hakka, among others.”

In the African continent also, no language, be it major or minor can be said to be insulated from borrowing. Swahili and Arabic have borrowed extensively from both Asian and African languages especially those within the communities where they are widely spoken. Another African language that has continually proved to be a formidable competitor linguistically among the most widely used languages of Africa owing largely to its ability to borrow extensively from other languages is the Hausa language. The Hausa language has been able to maintain its position as one of the dominant languages in Africa largely due to its borrowing capacity. Although the Hausa language has borrowed from several other languages, one of its major lexifiers is the English language from which it has borrowed its vocabulary extensively. Examples of such loan English language words abound in Hausa which have become domesticated to suit the morphological and phonological systems of the Hausa language.

Colonialism and linguistic contact have been adduced by linguists like Baldesh (19) and Ogbuehi (26) as some of the factors that bring about linguistic borrowing. Historically speaking, it has been widely maintained that colonialism and trade were the major factors that connected African indigenous cultures with Western civilization. The relationship between Hausa leaders and British imperialists through the indirect rule is also believed to have developed as a result of the factors highlighted. According to Ogbuehi

Many reasons that were not unconnected with eminent fear of hostility and resistance as well as lack of personnel made English colonialists to opt for that system of rule which made it easier to control Hausa States through the emirs without exhausting more resources than necessary. For communication reason, the English colonial masters had to resort to the services of intermediaries to serve as interpreters; passing information from the English colonialists to the Hausa emirs in the then traditional political system. Those interpreters were mostly bilinguals who spoke English as L2 and Hausa as L1.This practice facilitated the process where many English language loanwords were transported to Hausa and they have undergone certain morphological changes which have also affected their phonological renditions. ¬http

These morphological changes, according to Uba (234), could be in the forms of metathesis which he explained to mean the reordering of segments. For example, words like ‘christian’ becomes ‘kirshn,’ ‘flask’ becomes ‘flaks,’ and so on. There is also Epenthesis which refers to sound insertion or addition between vowels or consonants of the borrowed word. For example, ‘resignation’ becomes ‘resigination’ and ‘British’ becomes ‘Biritish’ respectively. In the case of Ecthlipsis which according to Tiffen (13) refers to the deletion of sound segment especially when they occur at penultimate positions of a word, preceded by a vowel and followed by the morpheme ‘s’. For example, ‘goods’ becomes ‘gus’, ‘minutes’ becomes ‘minis’, ‘characteristics’ becomes ‘karakteristis’ and so on. As could be noticed, ecthlipsis is the opposite of epenthesis. This means that morphophonemic analysis takes place at the levels of morphological and phonological changes respectively.

Thus, this study intends to examine some of the borrowed words of Hausa from English and analyse the possible morphophonemic changes that have taken place before their naturalization into the Hausa linguistic or communication system.

Statement of the Problem

Over the years, the Hausa language has witnessed significant growth and recognition both nationally and internationally as it assumes the position of a first, second or foreign language. Undoubtedly, this significant development cannot be detached from the “expertise” of the Hausa language when it comes to borrowing of lexical items from other languages generally, and particularly the English language to enrich its vocabularies.

The problem, however, is that most of the borrowed words from the English language into the Hausa language have hardly maintained their original forms in both pronunciation (phonology) and spelling (morphology). It is against this background that this study sets out to describe the morphophonemic factors responsible for the changes that lead to the ‘’nativisation’’ or ‘’Hausanisation’’ of certain English loan words into the Hausa language.

Aim and Objectives of the Study

This research work is aimed at exploring and analysing the morphophonological changes of Hausa loanwords borrowed from the English language. The objectives of this research are:

i. To analyse the changes in the syllable structure of the loanwords from both the donor language and the host language (English to Hausa)

ii. To investigate the loss and addition of phonemes or syllables from the donor language to the host language. (English to Hausa)

iii. To establish the factors or processes responsible for these changes that seem to affect the morphological and phonological makeup of the loans from English to Hausa.