English can put one unchanged color word before almost any noun: a white ram, a white cow, white cattle. Hausa color words do not all work that way. Core colors such as fari “white,” baƙi “black,” and ja “red” belong to the small class of true adjectives: they can change for masculine singular, feminine singular, and plural agreement, and their form also depends on where they stand in the noun phrase.
The key is to learn each core color as a three-form paradigm, not as one English-style label. Unless a passage below is explicitly labeled otherwise, the forms are neutral Nigerian Standard Hausa and are suitable in both (informal) conversation and (formal) prose.
The core agreement pattern
The following paradigms are especially useful. Hausa has no feminine-versus-masculine contrast in the plural; one plural adjective form serves all plural nouns.
| Meaning | Masculine singular | Feminine singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|---|
| white | fari | fara | farare |
| black | baƙi | baƙa | baƙaƙe |
| red | ja | ja | jajaye |
The fact that masculine and feminine ja look alike does not make agreement optional. Its plural is still jajaye. Nor can the plural of every color be guessed from its singular: fari → farare, baƙi → baƙaƙe, and ja → jajaye follow different patterns. There is no reliable one-suffix shortcut; memorize the three forms with examples.
Rago fari yana tsaye a bakin ƙofa.
A white ram is standing by the doorway.
Saniya fara tana kiwo kusa da rafi.
A white cow is grazing near the stream.
Shanu farare sun dawo daga kiwo.
The white cattle have returned from grazing.
Yaron ya sayi hula baƙa.
The boy bought a black cap.
The last example uses feminine baƙa because hula “cap” is grammatically feminine. Agreement follows the Hausa noun's grammatical gender, not the sex of an owner and not the gender of the corresponding English word. See Masculine and Feminine Adjective Forms for the larger agreement system.
Color before the noun: adjective + linker + noun
The common pre-nominal pattern places the adjective first. The adjective then carries a linker: -n with a masculine singular or plural noun, and -r with a feminine singular noun. In ordinary spelling the linker is attached to the adjective.
| Agreement | Phrase | Structure |
|---|---|---|
| masculine singular | farin rago | fari + -n + rago |
| feminine singular | farar saniya | fara + -r + saniya |
| plural | fararen shanu | farare + -n + shanu |
Na ga farin rago a kasuwa.
I saw a white ram at the market.
Farar saniyar nan ta ɓace jiya.
That white cow disappeared yesterday.
Fararen shanun sun sha ruwa.
The white cattle drank water.
Ta zaɓi baƙar jaka domin aiki.
She chose a black bag for work.
In fararen shanun, the adjective has plural form farare plus its linker -n, while shanun is the definite form “the cattle.” Do not interpret both final *n*s as the same morpheme. One links the adjective to the noun; the other marks the definite noun.
Color after the noun: no linker
The order noun + adjective is also possible. Here the adjective still agrees, but there is no linker between noun and adjective. This order can make the color more contrastive—“the white one, not the black one”—though context and intonation determine how strong that contrast is.
Ka kawo min riga fara, ba baƙa ba.
Bring me a white gown, not a black one.
Ina neman takalma baƙaƙe da zan sa a ofis.
I'm looking for black shoes to wear at the office.
Ta ɗauko kwando ja daga ɗakin ajiya.
She brought a red basket from the storeroom.
Mun sayi huluna jajaye domin bikin.
We bought red caps for the celebration.
English speakers often try to preserve English order mechanically. Hausa permits both orders, but it signals their structure differently: pre-nominal adjectives take a linker, while post-nominal adjectives do not. The page on Adjectives before and after Nouns develops the information-structure difference.
Saying that something is a color
When a true color adjective is the predicate, use subject + agreeing adjective + ne/ce. Use ce for a feminine singular subject and ne for a masculine singular or any plural subject. No linker appears because the adjective is no longer attached inside a noun phrase.
Bangon fari ne, amma ƙofar baƙa ce.
The wall is white, but the door is black.
Rigar ja ce, kuma takalman baƙaƙe ne.
The gown is red, and the shoes are black.
Jakunkunan nan jajaye ne sosai.
These bags are very red.
Compare the three jobs of one paradigm:
| Job | Example | What marks the relation? |
|---|---|---|
| before the noun | farar riga | feminine adjective plus -r |
| after the noun | riga fara | feminine agreement, no linker |
| predicate | Rigar fara ce. | feminine agreement plus ce |
Not every color expression is a simple adjective
Hausa color vocabulary extends beyond the core adjective class. Some labels have their own paradigms, while more specific shades are often expressed through a noun meaning “color” or a phrase introduced by mai “having.” For example, mai launin ruwan hoda literally means “having the color of pink.” In the singular, mai does not change for the gender of the head noun; plural masu does.
Ta sayi zani mai launin ruwan hoda domin bikin.
She bought pink-colored cloth for the celebration.
Sun rataya labulaye masu launin ruwan ƙasa a falon.
They hung brown-colored curtains in the sitting room.
This is not an agreement failure. It is a different construction: mai/masu marks a possessor of a property, and the property phrase follows it. Compare true-adjective farar riga with possessive-property riga mai launin ruwan hoda. English hides this difference by calling both white and pink adjectives.
Speakers also use reduplication for an attenuated shade, such as fari-fari “whitish/off-white” or baƙi-baƙi “blackish.” This is neutral in ordinary description, not automatically childish or (informal), but the exact shade depends on context.
Na fi son farar rigar; mai launin ruwan hoda ta yi mini haske sosai.
I prefer the white gown; the pink one looks very bright to me.
That judgment shows why choosing a Hausa construction matters. The first color uses an agreeing adjective; the second uses a possessive color phrase. Neither should be forced into the other's morphology.
Color agreement survives definiteness and demonstration
Making a noun definite or adding a demonstrative does not cancel adjective agreement. The adjective still matches the noun's gender or plurality; definiteness is marked on the noun phrase by its own morphology. This matters because English learners sometimes see the final -n/-r of a definite Hausa noun and mistake it for the linkers used after a pre-nominal adjective.
Farar rigar nan ta fi dacewa da takalman.
This white gown matches the shoes better.
Baƙin dokin nan na maƙwabcinmu ne.
This black horse belongs to our neighbor.
Jajayen jakunkunan nan sun yi mini yawa.
These red bags are too many for me.
In farar rigar nan, farar is the feminine linked adjective and rigar is the definite form of riga. In jajayen jakunkunan nan, the adjective is plural, and the noun phrase separately contains its definite and demonstrative marking. The repeated endings are not redundant: each belongs to a different layer of the noun phrase.
The same principle applies after the noun. Rigar nan fara ce means “this gown is white”: nan helps identify the subject phrase, while predicate fara ce still carries feminine agreement. Demonstratives never authorize the default masculine form.
Practice
Choose the form that matches the noun, then decide whether a linker is required.
- “a black car” with the adjective before feminine mota: baƙar mota.
- “red bags” with the adjective after plural jakunkuna: jakunkuna jajaye.
- “the cow is white” with feminine saniya: Saniyar fara ce.
- “pink-colored shoes” with a possessive property phrase: takalma masu launin ruwan hoda.
Sabuwar motar baƙa ce, ko ba haka ba?
The new car is black, isn't it?
Common Mistakes
1. Keeping the masculine adjective with a feminine noun
❌ Na sayi farin riga jiya.
Incorrect — riga is feminine, so both the adjective form and linker are wrong.
✅ Na sayi farar riga jiya.
I bought a white gown yesterday.
2. Adding a linker after the noun
❌ Ina son riga farar.
Incorrect — a post-nominal adjective has no linker.
✅ Ina son riga fara.
I want a white gown.
3. Using a singular color with a plural noun
❌ Ya kawo jakunkuna ja daga shago.
Incorrect — the plural noun requires the plural adjective.
✅ Ya kawo jakunkuna jajaye daga shago.
He brought red bags from the shop.
4. Translating English “is” without Hausa predication
❌ Ƙofar baƙa.
Incomplete as a neutral standalone statement — use the feminine copula ce.
✅ Ƙofar baƙa ce.
The door is black.
Key Takeaways
- Learn core colors in masculine, feminine, and plural forms: fari/fara/farare.
- Before a noun, attach -n for masculine or plural and -r for feminine: farin rago, farar saniya, fararen shanu.
- After a noun, keep agreement but omit the linker: saniya fara.
- In a predicate, agree both the adjective and ne/ce: Saniyar fara ce.
- More specific colors may use mai/masu launin ... rather than the simple-adjective pattern.
Related Topics
- Core Attributive AdjectivesA1 — Build Hausa noun phrases with the small core of agreeing adjectives, their gender and number forms, and the required pre-nominal linker.
- Masculine and Feminine Adjective FormsA1 — Match Hausa singular adjectives to masculine and feminine nouns in linked attributive phrases and in predicates with ne and ce.
- Plural Adjective FormsA1 — Use Hausa plural adjective stems with plural nouns before the noun, after it, and in property predicates.
- Adjectives before and after NounsA1 — Distinguish the common linked adjective-before-noun pattern from post-nominal contrast, quality-noun phrases, and adjectival predicates.
- Predicative Quality with ne and ceA2 — How agreeing Hausa adjectives form present-time quality predicates with clause-final ne and ce.