The sounds of Hausa (3)

You can use the idea of stress in English to help you listen for tone and length in Hausa. You should note two significant differences, though:

• In Hausa, pitch and length are not tied together as much as in English. Short vowels can have high tone and long vowels can have low tone.
• Hausa vowels tend to keep their distinctiveness even when short and low tone, unlike English where they tend to be lumped together into a catchall ‘uh’-like vowel. You might describe this as Hausa being more “exactly” pronounced.

Tone in Written Hausa

• Tone is not indicated in normal written Hausa.
• There is no standard way of marking tone even when you want to.

One common method, which we’ll use, is this:

• Low vowels are marked with a grave accent, “ ` ”
• Long vowels are marked with a macron (line) above.
• Falling vowels (always long) are marked with a circumflex accent, “ ^ ”

Tone—Summary

• Tone or pitch has important functions in all spoken languages.
• If you speak a language, you already know how to use tone correctly – you are not tone-deaf!
• Paying close attention to your own language can help you become more aware of tone so you will hear it more clearly in Hausa.