Arabic Patterns in Hausa Poetry: Stanza, Metre and Rhyme in Comparative Perspective
Arabic Patterns in Hausa Poetry: Stanza, Metre and Rhyme in Comparative Perspective

Summary/Abstract: The paper deals with prosodic patterns of the Hausa poetry and investigates its stanzaic, metre, and rhyme structure with reference to the patterns developed in the Arabic poetry. Using the corpus of poems written in ajami by four contemporary poets the use of Arabic-based patterns as well as their “deviated” or “defected” forms have been investigated. The analysis confirms the cross-fertilization between the oral and written poems tradition in Hausa.

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