A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF HAUSA AND BADE SEGMENTAL PHONEMES

Abstract

The paper attempts to compare and contrast the segmental phonemes of Hausa and Bade languages both belonging to Afro-asiatic phylum. It also predicts the areas of troublesome for Hausa Second Language Learners whose First Language is Bade. A Contrastive Analysis as a sub-field of Applied Linguistics, aimed at comparing two or more distinct languages. The comparison can be at the level of sound system, grammatical structure, vocabulary system, writing system or the culture of the languages. In view of this, the paper compared sound systems of Hausa and Bade with special consideration of fishing out the similarities and differences that are involved. This is in addition to the detailed discussion on distribution patterns of the phonemes in the two languages. The research work being a contrastive analysis sought its data through secondary source. The sources include written records, such as journal articles, dissertations, thesis, dictionaries, and textbooks. The theoretical framework employed by the research is Contrastive Analysis Theory, which was developed by Charles Fries in 1945 and put into practice by Lado (1957). It is established that Hausa and Bade sound systems are very similar, as a result the differences are very minor. Therefore, the areas of troublesome of Hausa Second Language Learners whose First Language is Bade is also very minimal.