Chadic

The Chadic languages form a branch of the Afroasiatic family, spread across the Sahel from northern Nigeria and southern Niger into southern Chad and northern Cameroon. Loanwords from the Songhay and Maban languages record early contact with Nilo-Saharan speakers as Chadic-speaking peoples moved westward.

The branch is dominated by Hausa, a West Chadic language of the Hausa city-states of Kano, Katsina and Gobir; along the trans-Saharan trade routes it became the common tongue of merchants across much of inland West Africa. From the early 1600s Hausa was written in ajami, an adaptation of the Arabic script, beginning with religious works such as Abdullahi Suka's Riwayar Nabi Musa, while many smaller Chadic languages of the Mandara Mountains and Lake Chad basin remained spoken rather than written.