Public-Domain Ajami Passage in Transliteration

An Ajami reading is strongest when the manuscript image, an edition’s transliteration, and a modern editorial normalization remain three distinct layers. This page applies that discipline to a tiny public-domain Hausa colophon. The passage is short enough to verify sign by sign, yet it shows why readers must use syntax, formulaic genre, and reference—not just letter substitution.

Source and verification

The source is L. E. O. Charlton, A Hausa Reading Book (Oxford University Press, 1908), a public-domain volume of facsimiles from Hausa manuscripts with Roman transliterations. The relevant image is facsimile plate [45], headed WAKA, in the Internet Archive scan. Charlton’s corresponding printed Roman transliteration is on page 77. Both pages were inspected directly: the Ajami was not generated by converting modern boko, and the boko reading was checked against the edition’s own line.

The plate attributes the handwriting to Mu’allamu Aliyu Bagobiri. It does not date the underlying composition, and Charlton’s book does not make every spelling a universal Hausa Ajami convention. The facsimile reflects this writer and this copy. The broader regional and author-specific conventions page explains why one manuscript cannot define the whole writing tradition.

Complete short source passage

The following target is a conservative, unvocalized Unicode representation of the visible Ajami base-letter sequence. It contains Ajami alone; the romanization line preserves Charlton’s printed Roman wording, spelling, and capitalization. Unicode spacing is editorial because connected handwriting and typographic word spaces are not perfectly equivalent; the facsimile remains the authority for its vowel signs and exact ductus.

Charlton prints Wonga waka ta chikki da iko allah— / Rubutun hanu muallamu aliyu bagobiri / tammat. This page does not silently turn that diplomatic reading into Standard Hausa. A separate editorial normalization is: Wannan waƙa ta cika da ikon Allah. Rubutun hannun Mu’allamu Aliyu Bagobiri. Tammat. The first sentence uses the historical spelling chikki in a completion formula. Elsewhere in the same volume Charlton prints the directly comparable Labari ta chikka da iko allah, “the story came to completion through the power of God,” which supports modern cika, not cikin.

Reading the first line

The opening group corresponds to Charlton’s Wonga waka, editorially wannan waƙa “this song.” The source’s wonga is an older or author-specific demonstrative form in the edition, not the unmarked production form taught in Nigerian Standard Hausa.

The sequence shows two difficulties at once. First, Ajami spelling conventions for Hausa consonants are not uniform across manuscripts. Second, the edition’s Roman waka does not distinguish modern waƙa with ƙ. The modern glottalized consonant is supplied by lexical identification and later Standard orthography, not by pretending Charlton printed it.

The next group is Charlton’s ta chikki, editorially modernized here as ta cika “it came to completion.” In the clause, ta is third-person feminine singular completive, agreeing with waƙa. It is not the feminine copula ce, a possessive linker, or an English-style pronoun that may be dropped.

Charlton’s chikki is not silently emended inside the diplomatic line. The comparison with Labari ta chikka da iko allah supplies unusually strong internal evidence for the completion reading, while the separate modern normalization supplies cika. This is safer than treating chikki as modern cikin, which would leave the completive marker ta without a following verb.

The final phrase in Charlton’s line is da iko allah, normalized da ikon Allah. Da marks means here, “with/by the power,” and iko-n Allah contains the masculine linker joining “power” to “God.”

The phrase’s natural English translation is “through the power of God,” not merely “with power God.” A structure-sensitive gloss preserves the linker: da iko-n Allah, “with power-of God.”

Reading the attribution line

The second line begins with the source sequence that Charlton transliterates Rubutun hanu, modern rubutun hannu. The -n links “writing/handwriting” to “hand,” creating the conventional sense “handwriting.”

Charlton prints the remaining name phrase as muallamu aliyu bagobiri. In the modernized discussion, Mu’allamu is an Arabic-derived learned title, here translated “Teacher.” Bagobiri identifies Aliyu by association with Gobir. The colophon tells us who wrote the copy; it does not necessarily identify the original composer of the song.

Reference matters. English “by Teacher Aliyu Bagobiri” makes agency explicit with by. Hausa instead presents a nominal phrase, rubutun hannu [na] Mu’allamu Aliyu Bagobiri, and the colophon genre supplies the relation. The edition’s compact wording leaves a linker or attribution relation recoverable rather than spelling out a full verbal clause such as Mu’allamu Aliyu Bagobiri ya rubuta ta “Teacher Aliyu Bagobiri wrote it.”

The Arabic closing formula

The final تمت is the Arabic formula tammat, “it is complete/finished.” It belongs to a learned manuscript convention and is not analyzed as a Hausa subject–TAM complex plus Hausa verb. Formulaic Arabic and Hausa can share one document without every word becoming morphologically Hausa.

These smaller readings are deliberately confined to signs present on the plate. They do not supply a new Ajami sentence. Tone and vowel length are also left unmarked: the facsimile and Charlton’s line do not license a complete modern prosodic reconstruction.

A source-aware reading workflow

First locate the same physical line in the facsimile and the edition. Second segment only what the script and parallel transliteration support. Third identify morphology: feminine completive ta, the completion verb normalized as cika, instrumental da, and linkers in ikon and rubutun. Fourth produce an explicitly labeled modern boko normalization. Only then make a natural English translation.

The workflow prevents a common circular error: starting from the translation “this song was made by…” and inventing the Ajami one expects to see. Here the visible colophon is primary, Charlton’s transliteration controls the diplomatic reading, and any modernization is openly editorial.

Reusable structural patterns in modern boko

These are boko pattern extractions, not newly generated Ajami; accordingly they are discussed in prose rather than placed in Ajami target fields. The historical source form ta chikki should not be copied as modern boko; normalize the completion verb as ta cika, or productively say An kammala wannan aiki da ikon Allah “This work was completed by God’s power.” For attribution, use Rubutun hannun Amina ne “It is Amina’s handwriting,” or the verbal Amina ta rubuta shi “Amina wrote it.”

Common Mistakes

1. Reading the source demonstrative as modern wannan without labeling the intervention.

2. Treating ta as optional because English uses only “this song.”

The following source form chikki, normalized as cika, supplies the completion predicate; English must not erase the overt Hausa preverbal marker.

3. Translating the linkerless English word sequence literally.

4. Turning the scribal attribution into authorship.

5. Inventing certainty about every historical letter value.

Key Takeaways

• The passage comes from Charlton’s verified public-domain 1908 facsimile plate [45], with the corresponding Roman line on page 77.
• Ajami, diplomatic Roman transliteration, modern boko normalization, and English translation are four separate editorial layers.
• Ta is the feminine completive marker agreeing with the song; source chikki corresponds here to modern cika; da introduces means; linkers organize ikon Allah and rubutun hannu.
• A scribal colophon identifies a hand, not automatically the poem’s composer.
• No tone, vowel length, missing letter, or generalized Ajami spelling rule should be invented from this short author-specific line.