Hausa Culture and the Internet

Abu-Ubaida Sani

The internet has become an indispensable aspect of human life. Today, if the internet should cease to exist for just an hour, the magnitude of catastrophic consequential loss that will follow is unimaginable. Several academic fields and languages have wholeheartedly embraced the internet. Hausa is one of the developing languages on the internet. By the end of 2020, there were at least 44 highly visited Hausa websites with diversed contents and high online visibility. On this basis, research works should be conducted about the Hausa on the internet to ascertain the current situation and scenarios as well as to see to the improvement of same. The objectives of the research are to study the (i) Hausa culture-based internet contents, (ii) the attainments and challenges surrounding Hausa websites and blogs, and (iii) determining sustainable measures for enriching and dissemination of Hausa culture-based contents on the internet. The scope of the study is limited to Hausa culture within the domain of the internet. The study methodologically used interviews and online textual analysis in obtaining the research data. Platonism is adapted as a theory that guides the research, on the basis of which the research opines the existence of a physical world and an incorporeal world – the latter being the internet. It is also based on the Hausa philosophy that “zamani riga ce” (change before you have to), which emphasizes that the Hausas should embrace and utilize the internet as a precaution to being poorly represented. The research confirms that today, nothing can be successful and earn global recognition and acceptance without the help of the internet. It also realizes that, though the Hausa culture is spreading more on the internet, Hausa websites and blogs face a lot of challenges one of which is inadequate knowledge of the language by the websites and/or blogs administrators. Finally, the research offers some recommendations among which one is that the individuals and authorities concerned - including agencies, departments, instructors, and researchers - should make efforts to ensure adequate representation and presentation of Hausa on the internet.

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