Hausa is West Africa's most widely spoken language. It has more than thirty-five million native speakers and about fifteen million non-native speakers. Hausa is mainly spoken in northern Nigeria, the Republic of Niger, northern Cameroon, and Ghana. It is also used as a trade language in West African capital cities, in some parts of Chad and Sudan, and in north and equatorial Africa. There are significant Hausa-speaking diaspora communities in the Sudan and Saudi Arabia, and new communities in the United States and Europe are already in the making.
Hausa language and culture are wonderful examples of Africa's triple heritage, namely the fusion of African, Arab-Islamic, and Euro-Christian traditions. The Hausa writing tradition dates back to the Middle Ages, when the Ajami (Hausa in Arabic script) literacy was developed through Arab-Islamic schools. Hausa is also written in the Latin alphabet, which is mainly used when teaching the language today.