Author:Abdullahi Na’Allah & Dr. Adebola A. Isaiah
Date: 05/07/2026
Lexical borrowing is one of the most visible consequences of language contact and serves as an important indicator of historical, cultural, religious, and socio-economic interaction between speech communities. In multilingual societies such as Nigeria, the prolonged contact among indigenous languages has resulted in extensive lexical exchange, reflecting centuries of migration, commerce, religious diffusion, and intercultural communication. This study examines the sociolinguistic dimensions of Hausa loanwords in Yorùbá toexplain the historical circumstances that facilitated borrowing, the linguistic processes through which Hausa lexical items have been nativised into Yorùbá, and the sociocultural significance of these borrowings. The study adopts a qualitative research design based on documentary sources, field observations, and native speaker intuitions. The analysis is anchored in the Theory of Loanword Adaptation through Production proposed by Peperkamp and Dupoux (2003), complemented by insights from Language Contact Theory. It explores the socio-cultural factors that facilitate linguistic exchange, particularly trade, religion, and education, highlighting their phonological, morphological, and semantic adaptation. The findings reveal that sustained contact between Hausa and Yorùbá speakers has led to extensive lexical borrowing, reflecting deep historical, economic, and cultural interactions. The study concludes that loanwords not only enrich vocabulary but also serve as indicators of inter-ethnic relations and cultural integration.
Keywords: language contact, Hausa, Yorùbá, nativisation, multilingualism.
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