Boko (or bookoo) is a Latin-script alphabet used to write the Hausa language. The first boko alphabet was devised by Europeans in the early 19th century,[1] and developed in the early 20th century by the British and French colonial authorities. It was made the official Hausa alphabet in 1930.[2] Since the 1950s boko has been the main alphabet for Hausa.[3] Arabic script (ajami) is now only used in Islamic schools and for Islamic literature. Since the 1980s, Nigerian boko has been based on the Pan-Nigerian alphabet.
The word boko also refers to non-Islamic (usually western) education ('yan boko = "modern school")[4] or secularism. The word is often described as being a borrowing from English book.[5] However, in 2013, leading Hausa expert Paul Newman published "The Etymology of Hausa Boko", in which he presents the view that boko is in fact a native word meaning "sham, fraud", a reference to "Western learning and writing" being seen as deceitful in comparison to traditional Quranic scholarship.[6]
| Letter | A a | B b | C c | D d | E e | F f | G g | H h | I i | J j | K k | L l | M m | N n | O o | R r | S s | T t | U u | W w | Y y | (Ƴ ƴ) | Z z | ʼ | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IPA | pronounced as //a// | pronounced as //b// | pronounced as //ɓ// | pronounced as //tʃ// | pronounced as //d// | pronounced as //ɗ// | pronounced as //e// | pronounced as //ɸ// | pronounced as //ɡ// | pronounced as //h// | pronounced as //i// | pronounced as //(d)ʒ// | pronounced as //k// | pronounced as //kʼ// | pronounced as //l// | pronounced as //m// | pronounced as //n// | pronounced as //o// | pronounced as //r/, /ɽ// | pronounced as //s// | pronounced as //ʃ// | pronounced as //t// | pronounced as //(t)sʼ// | pronounced as //u// | pronounced as //w// | pronounced as //j// | pronounced as //ʔʲ// | pronounced as //z// | pronounced as //ʔ// |
There are some differences in boko used in Niger and Nigeria due to different pronunciations in the French and English languages. The letter (ƴ) is used only in Niger; in Nigeria it is written (ʼy).
Tone, vowel length, and the distinction between pronounced as //r// and pronounced as //ɽ// (which does not exist for all speakers) are not marked in writing. So, for example, pronounced as //daɡa// "from" and pronounced as //daːɡaː// "battle" are both written daga.