- Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi Fen-Edebiyat Fakültesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi
- Issue: 33
- The Expansion of a Language to the Function of Vehicular Language in Niger: the Case of Hausa
The Expansion of a Language to the Function of Vehicular Language in Niger: the Case of Hausa
Authors : Abdou Djibo Moumouni
Pages : 187-196
View : 6 | Download : 1
Publication Date : 2015-01-19
Article Type : Research
Abstract :Since the appearance of humanity on Earth people have worked to transform their natural environment in order to satisfy increasing daily needs. These efforts led to verbal communication by means of articulated language. There is no society without this means of communication, and there is no language without a society. The world’s languages follow a natural law. Some gain ground and spread more easily than others, crossing national boundaries or states, whereas others regress or stagnate and sometimes disappear. Languages that spread most often do so along a geographically determined axis. Indeed, even if roads, trails, rivers and mountains are not primarily responsible for the expansion of a language, they certainly determine the direction of the language’s expansion to the function of a vehicular language. Today it is clear that Hausa has emerged in different regions of Niger either as a first or second dominant lingua franca. This situation is the result of both exogenous and endogenous factors. The purpose of this study is to examine the factors that enabled the Hausa language to spread throughout Niger as a vehicular languageKeywords : language, expansion, Hausa, factor, vehicular, Niger