Editing Hausa language (section)

==Oral literature==
[[File:Introduction to Hausa proverbs.jpg|thumb|Introduction to Hausa proverbs in Rattray (1913)]]In 1905, George Charleton Merrick (a British army officer and Hausa interpreter)<ref>C. G. G. (1913). [https://books.google.com/books?id=65o1AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA408 "The Upavon Incident."] ''The Aeroplane'': 408.</ref> published ''Hausa Proverbs,'' a collection of over 400 proverbs in Hausa (Roman script) with English translations.<ref>Merrick, George C. (1905). ''[https://archive.org/details/hausaproverbs00merrrich/ Hausa Proverbs.]''</ref> Here are some of those proverbs: 
*"''Fawa biu tana bata hankali'n kuda.''" "Two pieces of meat confuse the mind of the fly (i.e to hesitate between two things)." (#18)
*"''Da ayi jiranka ga abinchi, gara akayi ka jira'n abinchi.''" "Better that you should be made to wait for food than that food should be made to wait for you." (#26)
*"''Kunkurru ya so dambe, ba shi da yasa.''" "The tortoise wishes to fight with his fists, but he has no fingers (i.e. impotent wrath)." (#45)
*"''Komi ya ke chikkin dan kaza, shafu ya deddi da sanninshi.''" "Whatever there is inside a chicken, the hawk has been familiar with it for a very long time (i.e. there is not much that you can teach me about that)." (#47)
*"''Kaffa'n woni ba ta wa woni taffia.''" "The legs of one man are no good to another for walking." (#61)
Charles Henry Robinson's ''Hausa Grammar'', also published in 1905, contains a selection of proverbs in Hausa (Roman script) with English translations; here are a few of those proverbs:<ref>Robinson, Charles H. (1905). ''[https://archive.org/details/hausagrammarwit00burdgoog/page/n105/mode/2up?view=theater Hausa Grammar.]'' pp. 91-106.</ref>
*"''Giwa awani gari zomo.''" "An elephant is a hare in another town (i.e. a great man is a nobody where no one knows him)."
*"''Idan ka rubuta ya tabbatta, idan ka kiyaye ya gudu.''" "If you write, the writing remains; if you keep a thing in your mind, it flees away."
*"''Alberkachin kaza kadangari shi kan sha ruan kasko.''" "Thanks to the fowl, the lizard finds water to drink in the pot (i.e. if there were no fowls, there would be no water put out; this is said when a man gains some benefit through no virtue of his own)."
*"''Karambanin akwai ta gaida kura.''" "It is no business of the goat to salute the hyena; i.e. if a man meddles with that which does not concern him, he has only himself to thank for his misfortune."
*"''Haukan kaza amren musuru.''" "It is madness for the fowl to marry a cat (i.e. the meaning is practically the same as the preceding)."
A collection of over 100 Hausa proverbs in both Hausa and English translation appears in Volume 2 of [[Robert Sutherland Rattray|R. S. Rattray]]'s ''Hausa Folklore, Customs, Proverbs, etc. by Malam Shaihu''.<ref>Rattray, R. S.  (1913). ''[https://archive.org/details/hausafolklorecus02rattuoft/page/252/mode/2up?view=theater Hausa Folklore, Customs, Proverbs, etc. by Malam Shaihu: Volume 2.]'' pp. 252-279.</ref> The Hausa text is printed both in Arabic script as provided by Malam Shaihu, a [[Kano (city)|Kano]]-born Hausa teacher,<ref>Bivins, Mary Wren (1997). "Daura and Gender in the Creation of a Hausa National Epic." ''African Languages and Cultures''. 10: 12.</ref> and in Roman transliteration provided by Rattray. Here are some of those proverbs:
*"''Hanchi bai san dadin gishiri ba.''" "The nose does not know the flavor of the salt." (#7)
*"''Kinwa che ba ta gida, domin hakanan bera ke gada.''" "The cat is not at home, because of that the mice are playing." (#15)
*"''Kaza mai-yaya, ita ke tsoro shirwa.''" "It is the hen with chicks that fears the hawk." (#21)
*"''Gingidin kunama, kowa ya taba, shi sha kashi.''" "The snoozing scorpion, whoever touches it (quickly) gets a blow." (#39)
*"''Harara bai mari ba.''" "A frown is not a slap (it does not hurt)." (#43)
[[File:Cu31924026919518 0000.jpg|thumb|Cover of AJN Tremearne's Hausa Folktales (1914) showing Gizo the Spider]]Rattray also includes 30 stories told in Hausa by Malam Shaihu: 21 stories with human characters in volume 1,<ref>Rattray, R. S.  (1913). ''[https://archive.org/details/hausafolklorecus01rattuoft/ Hausa Folklore, Customs, Proverbs, etc. by Malam Shaihu: Volume 1.]''</ref> and 9 animal stories in volume 2,<ref>Rattray, R. S.  (1913). ''[https://archive.org/details/hausafolklorecus02rattuoft/page/10/mode/2up?view=theater Hausa Folklore, Customs, Proverbs, etc. by Malam Shaihu: Volume 2.]'' pp. 10-149.</ref> featuring a cycle of stories about Gizo, the [[Cultural depictions of spiders#Africa|trickster spider of Hausa tradition]].

There are several other collections of traditional Hausa tales available in both Hausa and English translation. [[James Schön|J.F. Schon]]'s ''Magana Hausa'' of 1885 includes the Hausa text of 83 tales with an English translation available in some, but not all, editions.<ref>Schön, James Frederick (1885). ''[https://archive.org/details/schon-magana-hausa-english-1885 Magana Hausa, to Which Is Added a Translation in English.]''</ref> In 1914, [[Arthur John Newman Tremearne|A.J.N. Tremearne]] published the Hausa texts of over 170 Hausa stories in ''Hausa Folktales'',<ref>Tremearne, Arthur John Newman (1914). ''[https://archive.org/details/cu31924026919518 Hausa Folktales: The Hausa Text of the Stories in Hausa Superstitions and Customs, in Folk-lore, and in Other Publications.]''</ref> which features Gizo the trickster spider on its cover, with English translations having appeared earlier in Tremearne's ''Hausa Superstitions and Customs''<ref>Tremearne, Arthur John Newman (1913). ''[https://archive.org/details/cu31924026472278/ Hausa Superstitions and Customs]''</ref> and other publications. More recently, Neil Skinner's ''Hausa Tales and Traditions''<ref>Skinner, Neil (1969). [https://archive.org/details/hausatalestradit0001edga/ ''Hausa Tales and Traditions: An English Translation of Tatsuniyoyi na Hausa''].</ref> provides English translations of the stories that first appeared in 1924 in Frank Edgar’s ''Tatsuniyoyi na Hausa''.<ref>Edgar, Frank (1924). ''[https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006941062 Tatsuniyoyi na Hausa.]''</ref>