Hausa

latin (boko) orthography notes

This note brings together basic information about the Latin script and its use for
the Hausa language. It aims to provide a brief, descriptive summary of the modern,
printed orthography and typographic features, and to advise how to write Hausa
using Unicode.

Hausa has numerous dialects, each of which may pronounce letters differently. The
pronunciation in this document is generally based on the phonemic transcriptions
provided by Wiktionary, although in some places we describe differences with
other dialects, especially Kano, with more phonetic information.

Phonological transcriptions: These should be treated as an approximate guide,

only. They are taken from the sources consulted, and may be narrow or broad,
phonemic or phonetic, depending on what is available. They mostly represent
pronunciation of words in isolation.

Usage & history

Hausa is normally written in the Latin script, but also (less commonly) using the
Arabic ajami script. The modern official orthography is called boko, and was
introduced in the 1930s by the British colonial administration.

Harshe Hausa háɽ.ʃè háu.sá Hausa language

The centre of the native speaker population is in northern Nigeria and southern
Niger, but Hausa is spoken across the width of the Sahel region, and mostly in
mutually intelligible form. There are significant minorities in Benin, Cameroon,
and Chad, and as a trade language it also reaches into Ghana, Togo, and parts of
Sudan. It is estimated that there are 100-150 million speakers.
Orthographic development & variants

This orthography was introduced by the British around the beginning of the 20th
century, and aligned with the Pan-Nigerian alphabet in the 1980s.5

There are or have been a number of variant practices for writing Hausa boko. They
include:

 alternative representations in Niger and Nigeria for j̰ (see basicconsonants)

 vowel doubling (see vowelcharacters)
 use of ordinary ASCII characters rather than the special forms for implosives
and ejectives (see Ejectives & implosives)
 use of various punctuation characters to represent the apostrophe for the
glottal stop and ejective consonants (see Apostrophe)
 academic and educational texts may add diacritics to indicate tone, and
distinguish between the two r phonemes (see tones and basicconsonants)

Script code latn

Language code ha
Script type alphabet
Total characters 16 + 30
Letters 9
Combining marks 4
Punctuation 3
Native digits 0
Possible other 30
Character counts exclude
ASCII.

Vowels 5 letters
Case distinction yes
Cursive script no
Text direction ltr
 Baseline romn
Word separator space
Wraps at word
Hyphenation ?
Justification ?
Native speakers 43,928,100
Region afr
See the comparison table
See the key

Basic features
The Latin script is an alphabet. This means that it is largely phonetic in nature,
where each letter represents a basic sound. See the table to the right for a brief
overview of features for the modern Hausa orthography using the Latin script.

There is one systematic difference between the orthographies used in Niger and
Nigeria (see basicconsonants), but difficulties in accommodating non-ASCII
characters give rise to a number of variant representations. See Orthographic
development & variants.

Hausa text runs left-to-right in horizontal lines. Words are separated by spaces.
The orthography is bicameral. The visual forms of letters don't usually interact.

Hausa has 21 consonant letters (42 counting uppercase), one of which can be
written in two different ways. A number of sounds are written using digraphs.

Hausa has 10 vowel letters (20 including uppercase). Diphthongs are written using
digraphs.

Long and short vowel sounds are distinctive phonetically, but are not reflected in
the orthography.

Numbers use ASCII digits.

Letters

Combining marks

Show

Punctuation

Show

Phonology

The following represents the repertoire of the Hausa language.

Click on the sounds to reveal locations in this document where they are mentioned.

Phones in a lighter colour are non-native or allophones. Source Wikipedia.

Vowel sounds

Plain vowels
i iːu uːe eːo oːa aː

Diphthongs
iuuiai au

Consonant sounds
 post-
labi dent alveol alveol retrofl palat glott
al al ar ar ex al velar al
pb td cɟ kɡ ʔ
ɓ ɗ cʼ kʷ ɡʷ
stop kʲ gʲ
kʼ kʷʼ
kʲʼ
affricate t͡ sʼ t͡ ʃ d͡ ʒ
f sz ʃʒ h
fricative
fʲ
nasal m n
approxim w l j
ant j̰
trill/flap ɾ ɽ

j̰ is a semi-vowel approximant with creaky voice (laryngealisation). It is not used

in many words, but many of those words are very common, such
asƴaƴa j̰ aj̰ a children

Tone

Hausa uses 3 tones, high, low and falling. They are not indicated in normal text 1,
eg.

ruwa ɽú.wáː water

fure fù.ɽéː flower

kunne kûn.néː ear

Structure
Hausa has 3 syllable types: CV, CVV, and CVC, where VV can be a long vowel or
a diphthong.1 The long vs. short vowel distinction is phonemically important,
however when a syllable with a long vowel acquires and final consonant, the
vowel is shortened.

Consonant clusters may occur where syllables are side by side, but not within a
syllable. Gemination is, however, a distinctive feature.1

Labialisation ʷ and palatalisation ʲ may occur after an initial plosive consonant.

Vowels

This orthography has no special features with respect to the following.

 Consonants used to create vowel sounds.

 Pre-base vowels or circumgraphs, or multipart vowels.
 Vowel length.

Hausa has 10 vowel letters (20 including uppercase). Diphthongs are written using
digraphs.

Long and short vowel sounds are distinctive phonetically, but are not reflected in
the orthography.

Vowel letters

5 vowel letters are used, each with an upper and lower case form.

ii iː0069
uu uː0075
ee eː0065
oo oː006F
aa aː0061
5

I0049
U0055
E0045
O004F
A0041

Although long and short vowel sounds are phonemically distinctive, Hausa doesn't
distinguish between them in writing, eg.uƙuba ʔù.kʼúː.bàː misery, anguish

There was an attempt at one point to introduce vowel doubling to indicate long
vowels in Niger, but that was dropped.

Diphthongs

Hausa is usually described as having the following 4 diphthongs. These are

sequences of vowel sounds that are not separated by a glottal stop.

iuiu0069
0075
uiui0075
0069
aiai0061
0069
auau0061
0075

Examples:laima lái.màː tent, umbrellahausa háu.sá Hausa

Vowel length

Long and short vowel sounds are distinctive phonetically, but are not reflected in
the orthography.

Vowel sounds to characters

This section maps Hausa vowel sounds to common graphemes in the Latin
orthography. Click on a grapheme to find other mentions on this page (links
appear at the bottom of the page). Click on the character name to see examples
and for detailed descriptions of the character(s) shown.

Plain vowels
i iː

i [U+0069 LATIN SMALL LETTER I]

I [U+0049 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I]
u uː

u [U+0075 LATIN SMALL LETTER U]

U [U+0055 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U]
e eː

e [U+0065 LATIN SMALL LETTER E]

E [U+0045 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E]
o oː

o [U+006F LATIN SMALL LETTER O]

O [U+004F LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O]
a aː

a [U+0061 LATIN SMALL LETTER A]

A [U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A]

Diphthongs
iu
 iu [U+0069 LATIN SMALL LETTER
I + U+0075 LATIN SMALL LETTER U]
ui

ui [U+0075 LATIN SMALL LETTER

U + U+0069 LATIN SMALL LETTER I]
ai

ai [U+0061 LATIN SMALL LETTER

A + U+0069 LATIN SMALL LETTER I]
au

au [U+0061 LATIN SMALL LETTER

A + U+0075 LATIN SMALL LETTER U]

Tones

Tone is not indicated in normal text 1,

eg.ruwa ɽú.wáː waterfure fù.ɽéː flowerkunne kûn.néː ear

However, in academic and education text the tone can be indicated using one of the
following characters, representing high, low, and falling, respectively.

́ rare0301
̀ rare0300
̂ rare0302

Consonants

This orthography has no special features with respect to the following.

 Repertoire extensions to cover loan words, etc.

 Conjuncts or other shaping related to consonant clusters.
Hausa has 21 consonant letters (42 counting uppercase), one of which can be
written in two different ways. A number of sounds are written using digraphs.

Basic consonant letters

bb0062
ɓɓ0253
tt0074
dd0064
ɗɗ0257
kk006B
ƙkʼ0199
gɡ0067

B0042
Ɓ0181
T0054
D0044
Ɗ018A
K004B
Ƙ0198
G0047

both

ct͡ ʃ0063
jʒ (d͡ ʒ)006A

both
C0043
J004A

ff0066
ss0073
zz007A
hh0068

F0046
S0053
Z005A
H0048

both

mm006D
nn006E

both

M004D
N004E

ww0077
rɽ ɾ0072
ll006C
yj̰ 0079
ƴj̰ 01B4
ʼʔ02BC

W0057
R0052
L004C
Y0059
Ƴ01B3

ƴ [U+01B4 LATIN SMALL LETTER Y WITH HOOK] is used in Niger,

and ʼy [U+02BC MODIFIER LETTER APOSTROPHE + U+0079 LATIN
SMALL LETTER Y] is used in Nigeria.

The letter r [U+0072 LATIN SMALL LETTER R] represents 2 different

sounds: ɾ and ɽ. In academic or educational texts the former is sometimes
distinguished using r̃ [U+0072 LATIN SMALL LETTER R + U+0303
COMBINING TILDE].

Digraphs

A number of the consonant sounds in Hausa are written using multiple letters.

tst͡ sʼ sʼ0074
0073
kwkʷ006B
0077
kyc006B
0079
ƙwkʷʼ0199
0077
shʃ0073
0068
ʼyj̰ 02BC
0079

The last digraph in the list above is included here because it is the standard way to
write that sound in Nigeria (as opposed to the form in the previous section which is
used in Niger). Other implosives and ejectives may also be written as digraphs
(see Ejectives & implosives).

Allophonic pronunciations

A number of sounds are pronounced differently, according to the dialect. This

section highlights a few differences for velar consonants by contrasting the
standard phonemic representation with the standard pronunciation in the Kano
dialect.

Context phonemic Kano example Kano

s
ki ke k c baki bàː.kíː mouth, beak bàː.cíː
ku ko k kʷ kurma kúɽ.máː deaf kʷʊ́ ɽ.máː
person
ƙi ƙe kʼ cʼ baƙi bá.kʼíː black, dark bə́.cʼíː
ƙu ƙo kʼ kʷʼ ƙugiya kʼúː.ɡì.jáː hook kʷʼúː.ɟɪ̀.jáː
gi ge g ɟ kogi kòː.ɡíː river kʷòː.ɟíː
gu go g ɡʷ mugu múː.ɡùː bad, evil múː.ɡʷùː

Ejectives & implosives

Ejectives and implosives can be represented using special characters, but may also
be represented by a combination of apostrophe and the basic character 5, or often
just by the basic character itself. For example,ɗaya ɗá.já onemight be also
writtendʼayaor simplydaya

Wikipedia uses the special character forms, but the BBC, CRI, and VOA Hausa
pages just use ordinary characters for the ejectives.
The following table lists some single characters that may be written using a normal
letter and apostrophe. Note how the order of the character and apostrophe is
reversed in the final example.

Single Digraph example alt.

letter form
ɓ [U+025 bʼ [U+0062 LATIN raɓa ɽáː.ɓáː dew rabʼa
3 LATIN SMALL LETTER
SMALL B + U+02BC
LETTER MODIFIER LETTER
B WITH APOSTROPHE]
HOOK]
ɗ [U+025 dʼ [U+0064 LATIN ɗaya ɗá.já one dʼaya
7 LATIN SMALL LETTER
SMALL D + U+02BC
LETTER MODIFIER LETTER
D WITH APOSTROPHE]
HOOK]
ƙ [U+019 kʼ [U+006B LATIN ƙashi kʼà.ʃíː bon kʼash
9 LATIN SMALL LETTER e i
SMALL K + U+02BC
LETTER MODIFIER LETTER
K WITH APOSTROPHE]
HOOK]
ƴ [U+01B ʼy [U+02BC MODIFIER ƴa j̰ áː daughter ʼya
4 LATIN LETTER
SMALL APOSTROPHE + U+007
LETTER 9 LATIN SMALL
Y WITH LETTER Y]
HOOK]

The digraph ts [U+0074 LATIN SMALL LETTER T + U+0073 LATIN

SMALL LETTER S] represents an ejective sound without the use of a special
character or apostrophe. The associated sound can be either sʼor t͡ sʼ.

Apostrophe
On its own, the apostrophe represents a glottal stop, eg.jamaʼa (d)ʒà.má.ʔà public,
communityIt is not written in initial position to represent a glottal stop.

It is also used in some cases to spell certain sounds as described in Ejectives &
implosives.

The apostrophe shown here is ʼ [U+02BC MODIFIER LETTER

APOSTROPHE], but the BBC, CRI, and Wikipedia texts use ' [U+0027
APOSTROPHE] instead. Sometimes texts (including VOA) use ’ [U+2019
RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK].

Consonant sounds to characters

This section maps Hausa consonant sounds to common graphemes in the Latin
orthography. Click on a grapheme to find other mentions on this page (links
appear at the bottom of the page). Click on the character name to see examples
and for detailed descriptions of the character(s) shown.

Sounds listed as 'infrequent' are allophones, or sounds used for foreign words, etc.

Stops
p

p [U+0070 LATIN SMALL LETTER P] only

used in a few transliterated words.
b

b [U+0062 LATIN SMALL LETTER B]

B [U+0042 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER B]
ɓ

ɓ [U+0253 LATIN SMALL LETTER B

WITH HOOK] It may sometimes be
spelled bʼ [U+0062 LATIN SMALL LETTER
B + U+02BC MODIFIER LETTER
APOSTROPHE].
Ɓ [U+0181 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER B
WITH HOOK]
t

t [U+0074 LATIN SMALL LETTER T]

T [U+0054 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER T]
d

d [U+0064 LATIN SMALL LETTER D]

D [U+0044 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER D]
ɗ

ɗ [U+0257 LATIN SMALL LETTER D

WITH HOOK] It may sometimes be
spelled dʼ [U+0064 LATIN SMALL LETTER
D + U+02BC MODIFIER LETTER
APOSTROPHE].
Ɗ [U+018A LATIN CAPITAL LETTER D
WITH HOOK]
c

ky [U+006B LATIN SMALL LETTER

K + U+0079 LATIN SMALL LETTER Y]
k

k [U+006B LATIN SMALL LETTER K]

K [U+004B LATIN CAPITAL LETTER K]
ɡ

g [U+0067 LATIN SMALL LETTER G]

G [U+0047 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER G]
kʷ

kw [U+006B LATIN SMALL LETTER

K + U+0077 LATIN SMALL LETTER W]
ɡʷ

gw [U+0067 LATIN SMALL LETTER

G + U+0077 LATIN SMALL LETTER W]
kʼ
 ƙ [U+0199 LATIN SMALL LETTER K
WITH HOOK] It may sometimes be
spelled kʼ [U+006B LATIN SMALL LETTER
K + U+02BC MODIFIER LETTER
APOSTROPHE].
Ƙ [U+0198 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER K
WITH HOOK]
kʷʼ

ƙw [U+0199 LATIN SMALL LETTER K

WITH HOOK + U+0077 LATIN SMALL
LETTER W]
ʔ

ʼ [U+02BC MODIFIER LETTER

APOSTROPHE]

Affricates
t͡ sʼ

ts [U+0074 LATIN SMALL LETTER

T + U+0073 LATIN SMALL LETTER
S] (may be pronounced sʼ in some dialects)
Ts [U+0054 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER
T + U+0073 LATIN SMALL LETTER S]
t͡ ʃ

c [U+0063 LATIN SMALL LETTER C]

C [U+0043 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C]
d͡ ʒ

j [U+006A LATIN SMALL LETTER J]

Fricatives
f

f [U+0066 LATIN SMALL LETTER F]

F [U+0046 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER F]
fʲ
 fy [U+0066 LATIN SMALL LETTER
F + U+0079 LATIN SMALL LETTER Y]
s

s [U+0073 LATIN SMALL LETTER S]

S [U+0053 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER S]
z

z [U+007A LATIN SMALL LETTER Z]

Z [U+005A LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Z]
sʼ

ts [U+0074 LATIN SMALL LETTER

T + U+0073 LATIN SMALL LETTER
S] (may be pronounced t͡ sʼ in some dialects)
ʃ

sh [U+0073 LATIN SMALL LETTER

S + U+0068 LATIN SMALL LETTER H]
Sh [U+0053 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER
S + U+0068 LATIN SMALL LETTER H]
ʒ

j [U+006A LATIN SMALL LETTER J]

J [U+004A LATIN CAPITAL LETTER J]
h

h [U+0068 LATIN SMALL LETTER H]

H [U+0048 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER H]

Nasals
m

m [U+006D LATIN SMALL LETTER M]

M [U+004D LATIN CAPITAL LETTER M]
n

n [U+006E LATIN SMALL LETTER N]

N [U+004E LATIN CAPITAL LETTER N]
Other
w

w [U+0077 LATIN SMALL LETTER W]

W [U+0057 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER W]
ɾ~r

r [U+0072 LATIN SMALL LETTER R]

R [U+0052 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER R]
ɽ

r [U+0072 LATIN SMALL LETTER R]

R [U+0052 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER R]
l

l [U+006C LATIN SMALL LETTER L]

L [U+004C LATIN CAPITAL LETTER L]
j

y [U+0079 LATIN SMALL LETTER Y]

Y [U+0059 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Y]
j̰

ƴ [U+01B4 LATIN SMALL LETTER Y

WITH HOOK] in Niger
ʼy [U+02BC MODIFIER LETTER
APOSTROPHE + U+0079 LATIN SMALL
LETTER Y] in Nigeria
Ƴ [U+01B3 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Y
WITH HOOK] in Niger
ʼY [U+02BC MODIFIER LETTER
APOSTROPHE + U+0059 LATIN CAPITAL
LETTER Y] in Nigeria

Numbers, dates, currency, etc

This section describes typographic features related to digits, dates, currencies, etc.

European digits are used.

Text direction

Hausa boko text runs left to right in horizontal lines.

Glyph shaping & positioning

The following features are not found in this orthography.

 Cursive joining (ie. joined up like Arabic).

 Context-based shaping (letters do not interact).

Topics needing investigation...

Writing styles
How are fonts grouped into recognisable writing styles? How is each writing style
used?

Letter form slopes, weights, & italics

Are italicisation, bolding, oblique, etc relevant? Do italic fonts lean in the right
direction? Is synthesised italicisation problematic? Are there other problems
relating to bolding or italicisation - perhaps relating to generalised assumptions of
applicability?

This section describes typographic features related to font/writing styles, cursive

text, context-based shaping, context-based positioning, letterform slopes, weights
& italics, and case & other character transforms.

You can experiment with examples using the Hausa (boko) character app.

Transforming characters

Is the orthography bicameral? Are there other character pairings, especially when
transforms are needed to convert between the two?

Hausa is bicameral, and applications may need to enable transforms to allow the
user to switch between cases.
Graphemes

Do Unicode grapheme clusters appropriately segment character units for the

script? Are there special requirements for the following operations:
forwards/backwards deletion, cursor movement & selection, character counts,
searching & matching, text insertion, line-breaking, justification, case
conversions, sorting?

Grapheme clusters

A grapheme is a user-perceived unit of text. Text operations that use graphemes

as a unit of text include line-breaking, forwards deletion, cursor movement &
selection, character counts, text spacing, text insertion, justification, case
conversions, and sorting. The Unicode Standard uses generalised rules to define
'grapheme clusters', which approximate the likely grapheme boundaries in a
writing system, however they don't work well with many complex scripts.

Punctuation & inline features

Topics needing investigation...

Emphasis
How are emphasis and highlighting achieved? If lines are drawn alongside, over
or through the text, do they need to be a special distance from the text itself? Is it
important to skip characters when underlining, etc? How do things change for
vertically set text?

Abbreviation, ellipsis & repetition

What characters are used to indicate abbreviation, ellipsis & repetition?

Inline notes & annotations

What mechanisms, if any, are used to create *inline* notes and annotations? (For
referent-type notes such as footnotes, see below?

Other punctuation
Punctuation not already mentioned, such as dashes, connectors, separators, scare
quotes, etc.
Other inline text decoration
Any other form of highlighting or marking of text, such as underlining, numeric
overbars, etc. What characters or methods (eg. text decoration) are used to convey
information about a range of text? If lines are drawn alongside, over or through
the text, do they need to be a special distance from the text itself? Is it important to
skip characters when underlining, etc? How do things change for vertically set
text?

This section describes typographic features related to word boundaries, phrase &
section boundaries, bracketed text, quotations & citations, emphasis, abbreviation,
ellipsis & repetition, inline notes & annotations, other punctuation, and other
inline text decoration.

Word boundaries

Are words separated by spaces, or other characters? Are there special

requirements when double-clicking on the text? Are words hyphenated?

The concept of 'word' is difficult to define in any language (see What is a word?).
Here, a word is a vaguely-defined, but recognisable semantic unit that is typically
smaller than a phrase and may comprise one or more syllables.

Words are separated by spaces.

Words can also be hyphenated. This is especially, but not solely, true for words
that repeat the same sound, eg.wuƙi-wuƙi wù.kʼìː.wú.kʼíː children fidgetingdushi-
dushi dú.ʃí.dú.ʃí difficult to see, hazyatone-janar ʔà.tóː.nè.(d)ʒá.nàr attorney
general

Phrase & section boundaries

What characters are used to indicate the boundaries of phrases, sentences, and
sections?

6
,002C
;003B
:003A
.002E
?003F
!0021

Hausa uses ASCII punctuation.

phrase , [U+002C COMMA]

; [U+003B SEMICOLON]
: [U+003A COLON]
sentenc . [U+002E FULL STOP]
e ? [U+003F QUESTION MARK]
! [U+0021 EXCLAMATION MARK]

Parentheses & brackets

What parentheses, brackets or other punctuation is used to offset parenthetical

information?

both

(0028
)0029

Hausa commonly uses ASCII parentheses to insert parenthetical information into

text.

start end
standar ( [U+0028 LEFT ) [U+0029 RIGHT
d PARENTHESIS] PARENTHESIS]
Quotations & citations

What characters are used to indicate quotations? Do quotations within quotations

use different characters? What characters are used to indicate dialogue? Are the
same mechanisms used to cite words, or for scare quotes, etc? What about citing
book or article names?

“201C
”201D
‘2018
’2019

Hausa texts may use quotation marks around quotations. Of course, due to
keyboard design, quotations may also be surrounded by ASCII double and single
quote marks.

start end
initial “ [U+201C LEFT ” [U+201D RIGHT
DOUBLE DOUBLE QUOTATION
QUOTATION MARK] MARK]
neste ‘ [U+2018 LEFT ’ [U+2019 RIGHT
d SINGLE QUOTATION SINGLE QUOTATION
MARK] MARK]

Line & paragraph layout

Topics needing investigation...

Text alignment & justification

Does text in a paragraph needs to have flush lines down both sides? Does the
script allow punctuation to hang outside the text box at the start or end of a line?
Where adjustments are need to make a line flush, how is that done? Does the script
shrink/stretch space between words and/or letters? Are word baselines stretched,
as in Arabic? What about paragraph indents?
Text spacing
This section looks at ways in which spacing is applied between characters over
and above that which is introduced during justification. For example, does the
orthography create emphasis or other effects by spacing out the words, letters or
syllables in a word? (For justification related spacing, see Text alignment &
justification, above).

Counters, lists, etc.

Are there list or other counter styles in use? If so, what is the format used? Do
counters need to be upright in vertical text? Are there other aspects related to
counters and lists that need to be addressed?

Styling initials
Does the script use special styling of the initial letter of a line or paragraph, such
as for drop caps or similar? How about the size relationship between the large
letter and the lines alongide? where does the large letter anchor relative to the
lines alongside? is it normal to include initial quote marks in the large letter? is
the large letter really a syllable? Are dropped, sunken, and raised types found?
etc.

This section describes typographic features related to line breaking &

hyphenation, text alignment & justification, text spacing, baselines, line height,
counters, lists, and styling initials.

Line breaking & hyphenation

Are there special rules about the way text wraps when it hits the end of a line?
Does line-breaking wrap whole 'words' at a time, or characters, or something else
(such as syllables in Tibetan and Javanese)? What characters should not appear at
the end or start of a line, and what should be done to prevent that? Is hyphenation
used, or something else? What rules are used? What difficulties exist?

Lines are generally broken between words.

Show (default) line-breaking properties for characters in the Hausa boko

orthography described here.
Baselines, line height, etc.

Does the script have special requirements for baseline alignment between mixed
scripts and in general? Is line height special for this script? Are there other
aspects that affect line spacing, or positioning of items vertically within a line?

Hausa uses the 'alphabetic' baseline.

Page & book layout

Topics needing investigation...

This section describes typographic features related to general page layout &
progression; grids & tables, notes, footnotes, etc, forms & user interaction, and
page numbering, running headers, etc.

Online resources

1. Wikipedia
2. BBC News
3. Voice of America
4. CRI Online
5. Deutsche Welle

References & sources

1Bernard Comrie, The World's Major Languages, Oxford University Press,

ISBN 978-1138184824

2Peter T. Daniels and William Bright, The World's Writing Systems, Oxford
University Press, ISBN 0-19-507993-0✓

3Omniglot, Hausa (Harshen Hausa / ‫)َهْر َش ن َهْو َس‬

4Pan AfriLoc, Hausa - Haoussa - ‫✓هوس‬

5Wikipedia, Hausa language