Hausa is generally written these days in a Latin script with three or
four additional characters to represent implosive or ejective sounds
(the difference being that Niger uses a hooked-y while Nigeria uses
a 'y). This is often referred to as "Boko."

Historically, like many languages of the Sahel, and still today to
some degree, it was/is written in Arabic script with some
modifications. As in the case of other languages this is of course
known as Ajami.

There are apparently some other writing systems of sometimes
uncertain origin and possibly specialized but in any event very
limited use. I bring this up because a "Hausa alphabet" was brought
to my attention not long ago (see
http://www.bisharat.net/Demos/Hausa_alphabet.htm ) that was claimed
to be very old but which most agree appears actually to be recent.

In the discussion on H-Hausa, other info has come up. Nikolay
Dobronravin mentioned a "Gurma script (syllabary)" and a script
invented by Hausa writers in the 1970s. Mary Wren Bivins brought up
possible similarities with some mostly ceremonial scripts described
by others (such as the nsibidi "spirit writing" of the Ejagham).

Would anyone here have any comments?

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net