₦airaland Forum

Gobe may mean "tomorrow" in Hausa but in Yoruba, it means serious problem. For example: " Gbogb gone ni má ba e fa leni"...meaning, I will go down with you in serious trouble today.

The same thing with Shege in Yoruba. It may mean bastard in Hausa but it means serious trouble in Yoruba. For example: "Akano fi oju mi ri sege ni àna...meaning, Akano showed me a hell of trouble yesterday.

Bakrabas:
I disagreed with some of the write up.

The word "Wahala" is not borrowed is a pure yoruba word.

Buka is an abbreviation of Bucateria short form is Buka I don't know it origin though.

Haba can also be found in Yoruba word

Mugu the correct spelling in Yoruba is Mugun "someone that looks cheap to dupe"



The remaining hausa written there are not used in pidgin except if you want to communicate with Aboki in pidgin that's where some of those words are used.

What does suffering mean in Yoruba? In hausa suffering is "wahala".

Nigerian broken English is mostly coined from the 3 major tribes

A hausa guy in the east or west that can not understand their local dialect has to break down his English by mixing it. Likewise, a yoruba guy that found himself in the North or East, same as ibo


Go to the Barracks both military and police, and you will see that most of the broken English there are Hausa coined words, even their songs and some parade instructions.

melonsgroup:
ABOKI

Emeka, quit hating who pass you.

Bakrabas:
I disagreed with some of the write up.

The word "Wahala" is not borrowed is a pure yoruba word.

Buka is an abbreviation of Bucateria short form is Buka I don't know it origin though.

Haba can also be found in Yoruba word

Mugu the correct spelling in Yoruba is Mugun "someone that looks cheap to dupe"



The remaining hausa written there are not used in pidgin except if you want to communicate with Aboki in pidgin that's where some of those words are used.

Wahala is not a Yoruba word. It is Arabic just like the op said. Yoruba Muslims made its use popular in Yoruba language.

Wow!


Hausa is a language in Nigeria which I desire to speak fluently m..my reason for wishing to understand the language is their humanity....once they discover that you can speak fluently, they'd be glad to speak with you and they can be very humble... they're the most humble tribe in Nigeria and they don't joke with their 5hrs prayers no matter how busy or rich and poor they might be.


It's only their anger that I dislike about them......they fight in unison...and won't remember you were a friend while at it.... they'd support their erring hausa family above you... either guilty or not.



But I love thier language... humility and humanity.

I can speak little of their basic language and wish I could learn more.

Op any reference on how to learn more about hausa language alone?

Echoban:
Nop
Waja looking for fight.

Wahala is trouble

Wahala is not a Yoruba word!

BenjaminDomer:
What about.

Bura

Duri

Gutsu

Gindi

maniyyi ??

you are a Dan iska

falcon01:
you are a Dan iska

A proud one

BenjaminDomer:
A proud one

Boro Oban ka,,,

BeanmanX:
Boro Oban ka,,,

Shege dan banza

Echoban:
Nop
Waja looking for fight.

Wahala is trouble

Wahala is hausa,,, Yoruba borrowed it
The OP is right..

BenjaminDomer:
Shege dan banza

Bura mama ka,,,

BeanmanX:
Bura mama ka,,,

Duri uwa ka

BeanmanX:
Bura mama ka,,,

ina son zuba maniyyi a cikin yan uwanku mata'n duri

BenjaminDomer:
ina son zuba maniyyi a cikin yan uwanku mata'n duri

I don't know what u said,,,but make u rest..

I'm outta this thread.

Jovialjune1:
Wahala is not a Yoruba word, it is purely an Hausa word.

@JovialJune1, what happened to your original NL account? Was it thrown into the Gulag? *smirk*



Side Note: Point of correction:

It's actually a loan word from Arabic. There are a handful of loan words (such as wahala, wakati, alubosa, etc), from Arabic in Hausa and Yoruba... and other West African languages that have a very strong contact with Islam within the last 1000 years.

Islam has existed in Yorubaland for over 500 years with the first mosque built in Iwo town (in the current Osun State), which was then part of the great
Oyo Empire that stretched from Nigeria to parts of Togo.

These Arabic loan words in Yoruba have original Yoruba word equivalents though.


Hope this helps.


Cc: Bakrabas, Jazzman01, Beanmanx, fk001, Echoban

Abujaexpress:
Since 2015, every August 26 has been observed as “Hausa Day” (or “Ranar Hausa” in the Hausa language) by Hausa-speaking people all over the world. In honour of this day, I highlight 20 Nigerian English—and Nigerian Pidgin English— expressions that owe debts to the Hausa language.

As with every language that leaves its primordial shores, the Hausa words that make it to Nigerian English are often contorted from their original forms and meanings.

1. “Jaara.” Most speakers of Nigerian English recognize this word as an additional, often small, quantity that a merchant gives to a customer who purchases goods in the market as a show of appreciation for the customer’s business. It is derived from the Hausa “gyara.”

The word’s corruption to “jaara” in Nigerian (Pidgin) English) is a consequence of the absence of the Hausa phoneme “gy” in most Nigerian languages.

Interestingly, in the U.S. state of Louisiana, when I lived for almost two years before moving to Georgia, people use the term “lagniappe” (pronounced Lan-Yap) to signify what Hausa people call “gyara” and that Nigerian English speakers call “jaara.”

No other part of the United States has a culture of merchants giving a small gift to their customers after a transaction. I once speculated that the Louisiana “lagniappe” culture may be traceable to enslaved Hausa people in the state hundreds of years ago.

2. “Babban riga.” The resplendent, broad-sleeved, flowing gown that has now become the attire of choice of Nigerian politicians of all ethnicities is often called “babban riga” in Nigerian English. It’s a slight distortion of “babbar riga,” its Hausa name.

3. “Megad.” This Nigerian English word for what native English speakers call a door guard, a gatekeeper, a uniformed doorman, or a hall porter came to us from a distortion of the Hausa “maigadi,” itself a blend of the Hausa “mai” and the English “guard.”

The fact that most doorkeepers in Nigerian urban centers used to be—probably still are—Hausa or Hausa-speaking northerners helped to admit “megad” into the pantheon of unique Nigerian English expressions.

4. “Buka.” This word now means a cheap, casual, ramshackle eatery that sells already prepared food. It came from the Hausa word “bukka,” which means a temporary, tumble-down hut or tent.

Since most roadside or dirt-cheap eateries in Nigeria used tents (many don’t these days), Nigerians neologized the word “bukateria” from “bukka” on the model of cafeteria, itself an American English word borrowed from Spanish.

5. “Burantashi.” Most Nigerians know this word to be the Hausa word for an aphrodisiac, that is, the bitter herbal concoction that reputedly stimulates sexual desire in men. “Bura” is the Hausa word for the male reproductive organ and “tashi” is the Hausa word for rising, waking up, etc. Curiously, however, the word “buratashi” (which is probably how it would have been
Menu

In everyday conversational Hausa, at least among Hausa Muslims, “bura” is rarely used except in vulgar insults such as “bura uban ka/ki” (which is now rendered as “borobanka” in some varieties of Nigerian Pidgin English).

I’m genuinely curious how “burantashi” came to be if it’s almost absent in the demotic repertoire of native Hausa speakers. Hausa people call aphrodisiacs “maganin karfin maza” or “gagi.”

6. “Fadama.” This Hausa word for a fertile wetland is now a widely used terminology in agriculture in Nigeria and beyond.

7. “Do guy.” To “do guy” in Nigerian English is to preen, to show off with elaborate sartorial care. That expression owes provenance to the Hausa “gayu,” where it means the same thing. A dandy is called “dan gaye” or “dan danyu” in Hausa.

But it seems like there is a circular sociolinguistic loop in the emergence of this expression from Hausa to Nigerian English. Since “gayu” itself doesn’t seem to be native to Hausa, it’s reasonable to assume that it’s a loan to the language from the English “guy.”

Guy means an adult male in English, and men who wore shirts and trousers (as opposed to the more common Hausa attires of kaftans and babbar riga) were referred to as “guys.” So, “guy” might have changed meaning from just being men attired in Western clothes to dandies, from where it made its way to Nigerian Pidgin English and later to Nigerian English to simply mean preening.

8. “Long leg,” the Nigerian English idiomatic expression for connections (which even Wole Soyinka used in one of this iconic plays) is said to be the direct translation of the Hausa dogon-kafa. Dogon-kafa can mean long-established, and it can colloquially mean (unfair) advantages that come with knowing people in high places.

9. “Kaya mata” or “kayamata” (which native Hausa speakers would write as “kayan mata”) has come to mean sexual stimulant for women and is now widely known by that name in southern Nigeria.

10. “Mudu,” the unit of measurement that most Nigerians use in the market, is a Hausa word.

11. To “see gobe” in southern Nigeria is to be in trouble, sometimes good trouble. It’s the title of Davido’s 2013 hit song. It may have been derived from the Hausa “sai gobe,” which literally translates as “until tomorrow.” I am also curious to know how the semantic transition occurred from “until tomorrow” to “being in trouble.”

12. “Suya” literally means frying in Hausa, but it has become the name for barbecued meat in Nigeria, which Hausa people call “tsire.” Since most non-Hausa Nigerians can’t faithfully pronounce the phoneme “ts” in Hausa, it’s entirely possible that Hausa tsire sellers encouraged the popularization of suya, an easier word to pronounce among non-Hausa-speaking people.

13. “Dogon yaro” (which literally means tall child) is the Hausa word for neem tree, but it is almost universally known by that name in Nigeria.

14. “Wahala.” Although “wahala” is an Arabic word, it came to Nigerian (Pidgin) English most likely through Hausa. It’s derived from the Arabic “wahla,” which means fright or terror, and is now firmly established in most Nigerian languages—and in the West African Pidgin English spoken in Nigeria, Ghana, and Cameroon

15. “Waaka.” In Nigerian Pidgin English, “waaka” is a popular insult often uttered in moments of extreme exasperation with all five fingers stretched out. It’s a corruption of the Hausa “uwar ka” (male) “uwar ki” (female). Uwa means “mother” in Hausa, so “uwar ka” is “your mother!”

16. “Mugu.” Nigerian 419 email scammers popularized this expression in Nigeria and beyond. It is understood to mean a chump, that is, a fool who can easily be tricked to part with his or her prized possessions under false pretenses. But this meaning of the word departs from its original Hausa meaning of “sadist.” Now, mugu has other variations such as “maga.”

17. “Haba!” This exclamation of astonishment or disappointment that has crept into Standard Nigerian English is native to the Hausa language. But a British linguist by the name of Roger Blench observed that “Habahaba! was a common expression of joking amazement in the US in the 1940s,” and wonders if there is any relationship between the Nigerian “haba!” and the obsolete American English “habahaba!” in light of the phono-semantic similarities between both expressions. I doubt that there is.

18. “Shikenan” (often rendered as “shikena” in southern Nigeria), the Hausa term for “that is it,” is now almost universally used in Nigerian (Pidgin) English.

19. “Shege.” This means bastard in Hausa, although it can also be used as an intensifier. It is now widely understood and used in the same context in Nigerian Pidgin English.

20. “Zobo” (short for zoborodo), a kind of drink originally limited to Hausa land is now probably the most pan-Nigerian locally produced drink. It is sold in African shops in Europe and North America.

Bonus: Turenchi, usually dogo turenchi, (which would be turanci, dogon turanci in Hausa), is now widely used in Nigerian Pidgin English and in informal standard Nigerian English to mean long, boring, ineffective harangue in English by politicians and academics.
Source: http:///d8391a2220827en_ng?link=1&client=news

#8, 17 and 19 are debatable.

The U.S-based Farooq Kperogi is from the Bariba ethnic group which shares a direct land boundary with
Yorubaland in Kwara State. His article's are sometimes filled with inaccacuracies which only well-informed folks like me can easily spot.

OP thank you for this. A very informative one.

Abujaexpress:
Since 2015, every August 26 has been observed as “Hausa Day” (or “Ranar Hausa” in the Hausa language) by Hausa-speaking people all over the world. In honour of this day, I highlight 20 Nigerian English—and Nigerian Pidgin English— expressions that owe debts to the Hausa language.

As with every language that leaves its primordial shores, the Hausa words that make it to Nigerian English are often contorted from their original forms and meanings.

1. “Jaara.” Most speakers of Nigerian English recognize this word as an additional, often small, quantity that a merchant gives to a customer who purchases goods in the market as a show of appreciation for the customer’s business. It is derived from the Hausa “gyara.”

The word’s corruption to “jaara” in Nigerian (Pidgin) English) is a consequence of the absence of the Hausa phoneme “gy” in most Nigerian languages.

Interestingly, in the U.S. state of Louisiana, when I lived for almost two years before moving to Georgia, people use the term “lagniappe” (pronounced Lan-Yap) to signify what Hausa people call “gyara” and that Nigerian English speakers call “jaara.”

No other part of the United States has a culture of merchants giving a small gift to their customers after a transaction. I once speculated that the Louisiana “lagniappe” culture may be traceable to enslaved Hausa people in the state hundreds of years ago.

2. “Babban riga.” The resplendent, broad-sleeved, flowing gown that has now become the attire of choice of Nigerian politicians of all ethnicities is often called “babban riga” in Nigerian English. It’s a slight distortion of “babbar riga,” its Hausa name.

3. “Megad.” This Nigerian English word for what native English speakers call a door guard, a gatekeeper, a uniformed doorman, or a hall porter came to us from a distortion of the Hausa “maigadi,” itself a blend of the Hausa “mai” and the English “guard.”

The fact that most doorkeepers in Nigerian urban centers used to be—probably still are—Hausa or Hausa-speaking northerners helped to admit “megad” into the pantheon of unique Nigerian English expressions.

4. “Buka.” This word now means a cheap, casual, ramshackle eatery that sells already prepared food. It came from the Hausa word “bukka,” which means a temporary, tumble-down hut or tent.

Since most roadside or dirt-cheap eateries in Nigeria used tents (many don’t these days), Nigerians neologized the word “bukateria” from “bukka” on the model of cafeteria, itself an American English word borrowed from Spanish.

5. “Burantashi.” Most Nigerians know this word to be the Hausa word for an aphrodisiac, that is, the bitter herbal concoction that reputedly stimulates sexual desire in men. “Bura” is the Hausa word for the male reproductive organ and “tashi” is the Hausa word for rising, waking up, etc. Curiously, however, the word “buratashi” (which is probably how it would have been
Menu

In everyday conversational Hausa, at least among Hausa Muslims, “bura” is rarely used except in vulgar insults such as “bura uban ka/ki” (which is now rendered as “borobanka” in some varieties of Nigerian Pidgin English).

I’m genuinely curious how “burantashi” came to be if it’s almost absent in the demotic repertoire of native Hausa speakers. Hausa people call aphrodisiacs “maganin karfin maza” or “gagi.”

6. “Fadama.” This Hausa word for a fertile wetland is now a widely used terminology in agriculture in Nigeria and beyond.

7. “Do guy.” To “do guy” in Nigerian English is to preen, to show off with elaborate sartorial care. That expression owes provenance to the Hausa “gayu,” where it means the same thing. A dandy is called “dan gaye” or “dan danyu” in Hausa.

But it seems like there is a circular sociolinguistic loop in the emergence of this expression from Hausa to Nigerian English. Since “gayu” itself doesn’t seem to be native to Hausa, it’s reasonable to assume that it’s a loan to the language from the English “guy.”

Guy means an adult male in English, and men who wore shirts and trousers (as opposed to the more common Hausa attires of kaftans and babbar riga) were referred to as “guys.” So, “guy” might have changed meaning from just being men attired in Western clothes to dandies, from where it made its way to Nigerian Pidgin English and later to Nigerian English to simply mean preening.

8. “Long leg,” the Nigerian English idiomatic expression for connections (which even Wole Soyinka used in one of this iconic plays) is said to be the direct translation of the Hausa dogon-kafa. Dogon-kafa can mean long-established, and it can colloquially mean (unfair) advantages that come with knowing people in high places.

9. “Kaya mata” or “kayamata” (which native Hausa speakers would write as “kayan mata”) has come to mean sexual stimulant for women and is now widely known by that name in southern Nigeria.

10. “Mudu,” the unit of measurement that most Nigerians use in the market, is a Hausa word.

11. To “see gobe” in southern Nigeria is to be in trouble, sometimes good trouble. It’s the title of Davido’s 2013 hit song. It may have been derived from the Hausa “sai gobe,” which literally translates as “until tomorrow.” I am also curious to know how the semantic transition occurred from “until tomorrow” to “being in trouble.”

12. “Suya” literally means frying in Hausa, but it has become the name for barbecued meat in Nigeria, which Hausa people call “tsire.” Since most non-Hausa Nigerians can’t faithfully pronounce the phoneme “ts” in Hausa, it’s entirely possible that Hausa tsire sellers encouraged the popularization of suya, an easier word to pronounce among non-Hausa-speaking people.

13. “Dogon yaro” (which literally means tall child) is the Hausa word for neem tree, but it is almost universally known by that name in Nigeria.

14. “Wahala.” Although “wahala” is an Arabic word, it came to Nigerian (Pidgin) English most likely through Hausa. It’s derived from the Arabic “wahla,” which means fright or terror, and is now firmly established in most Nigerian languages—and in the West African Pidgin English spoken in Nigeria, Ghana, and Cameroon

15. “Waaka.” In Nigerian Pidgin English, “waaka” is a popular insult often uttered in moments of extreme exasperation with all five fingers stretched out. It’s a corruption of the Hausa “uwar ka” (male) “uwar ki” (female). Uwa means “mother” in Hausa, so “uwar ka” is “your mother!”

16. “Mugu.” Nigerian 419 email scammers popularized this expression in Nigeria and beyond. It is understood to mean a chump, that is, a fool who can easily be tricked to part with his or her prized possessions under false pretenses. But this meaning of the word departs from its original Hausa meaning of “sadist.” Now, mugu has other variations such as “maga.”

17. “Haba!” This exclamation of astonishment or disappointment that has crept into Standard Nigerian English is native to the Hausa language. But a British linguist by the name of Roger Blench observed that “Habahaba! was a common expression of joking amazement in the US in the 1940s,” and wonders if there is any relationship between the Nigerian “haba!” and the obsolete American English “habahaba!” in light of the phono-semantic similarities between both expressions. I doubt that there is.

18. “Shikenan” (often rendered as “shikena” in southern Nigeria), the Hausa term for “that is it,” is now almost universally used in Nigerian (Pidgin) English.

19. “Shege.” This means bastard in Hausa, although it can also be used as an intensifier. It is now widely understood and used in the same context in Nigerian Pidgin English.

20. “Zobo” (short for zoborodo), a kind of drink originally limited to Hausa land is now probably the most pan-Nigerian locally produced drink. It is sold in African shops in Europe and North America.

Bonus: Turenchi, usually dogo turenchi, (which would be turanci, dogon turanci in Hausa), is now widely used in Nigerian Pidgin English and in informal standard Nigerian English to mean long, boring, ineffective harangue in English by politicians and academics.
Source: http:///d8391a2220827en_ng?link=1&client=news

Very informative

SavageResponse:
Very informative

It is indeed