Hausa does not have a single suffix meaning “turn any foreign word into a verb.” Borrowed material follows several paths. An old loan can belong to a lexical family such as hukunci → hukunta “judgment → judge/punish”; a learned formation can combine a borrowed base with native derivational material, as in zamani → zamanantar da “modern times/modern → modernize”; and a recent noun can remain a noun after the light verb yi, as in yi fenti “paint/do painting.” The last is a verbal expression, not a one-word verb.
The result must then obey Hausa syntax: subject–TAM marking precedes the predicate, argument marking follows the selected Hausa construction, and a true verb has its own established object forms. Full grade paradigms belong on the page explaining what a Hausa verb grade is—and is not. Here the issue is how a loan becomes usable as a predicate.
All unlabelled examples are (neutral Nigerian Standard Hausa). Ordinary boko retains ɓ, ɗ, ƙ and apostrophes without tone or vowel-length marks.
An old borrowed family: hukunci and hukunta
Hukunci is a noun meaning “judgment, ruling, sentence.” The related verb hukunta means “judge, condemn, punish,” depending on its object and context. Both ultimately belong to an Arabic-derived lexical family, but their modern Hausa categories are distinct.
Alƙali ya yanke hukunci bayan ya saurari shaidu.
The judge delivered a ruling after hearing the witnesses.
Kotu ta hukunta kamfanin saboda karya dokar aiki.
The court penalized the company for violating labour law.
The noun normally combines with yanke, zartar da, or yi in conventional legal expressions. The verb hukunta directly predicates an act of judging or punishing. The visible relation is transparent, but -ta is not a license to verbalize every loan.
Hukuncin ya shafi kamfanin, amma kotu ba ta hukunta ma’aikatan ba.
The ruling affected the company, but the court did not punish the employees.
This sentence contrasts the noun base with the derived verb. Notice also that hukunta takes a direct object, while hukunci heads a noun phrase.
A learned causative: zamani and zamanantar da
Zamani is an old Arabic loan referring to an age or the present era, and na zamani means “modern.” In (formal) administration, journalism, and academic prose, zamanantar da means “modernize, bring up to modern standards.” The formation contains more than a simple detachable ending: zamanantar is used with da before the entity being modernized.
Gwamnati ta fara zamanantar da tsarin rijistar asibitoci.
The government began modernizing the hospital registration system.
Sabbin na’urori za su taimaka wajen zamanantar da aikin tashar.
The new equipment will help modernize the station's operations.
This is a useful transparent family, but it belongs especially to planned, institutional vocabulary. In everyday conversation, speakers often prefer a paraphrase such as sauya shi zuwa na zamani “change it into a modern one.”
Za mu sauya tsohon tsarin ya zama na zamani kafin shekara ta ƙare.
We will change the old system into a modern one before the year ends.
The productive refuge: yi plus a borrowed noun
Recent English-origin nouns often enter a predicate through yi “do/make.” Fenti names paint or painting; yi fenti means “paint/do painting.” Hausa inflects yi, while the loan remains nominal.
Masu gyara sun yi wa bangon fenti kafin suka saka tagogi.
The renovators painted the wall before installing the windows.
Ana yin fenti a ɗakin taro, saboda haka ku yi amfani da wata ƙofa.
Painting is under way in the hall, so use another door.
The complement can participate in ordinary Hausa constructions: yin fenti is the verbal-noun phrase, and an yi fenti is impersonal completive. There is no need to invent a bare verb fenta merely because English uses paint as both noun and verb.
Other borrowed action nouns may select a different light verb or an established Hausa verb. A lasisi “licence,” for example, is normally something an authority ba da “issues/gives” or soke “revokes”; the noun is not freely used after a TAM marker as “to license.”
Hukumar ta ba kamfanin lasisin gudanar da aikin na shekara ɗaya.
The authority granted the company a one-year operating licence.
This analytic strategy preserves a category that English often hides. English conversion lets paint, email, and licence serve as verbs with little or no visible morphology. Hausa normally requires an attested verb, a derivation, or a light-verb construction.
A borrowed noun and a related intransitive verb
Another established Arabic-derived family is amfani “benefit, usefulness, use” beside amfana da “benefit from.” Their meanings overlap but are not interchangeable.
Wannan manhaja tana da amfani ga masu koyon karatu.
This application is useful to people learning to read.
Ɗalibai da yawa sun amfana da horon kwamfuta.
Many students benefited from the computer training.
For transitive “use something,” standard Hausa commonly has yi amfani da:
Likitar ta yi amfani da sabuwar na’urar gwaji.
The doctor used the new testing device.
The lexical family therefore divides semantic labour: amfani is a noun, amfana da profiles the beneficiary, and yi amfani da profiles using an instrument or resource. Copying one English verb use onto all three destroys this distinction.
Phonological integration comes before derivation
A stable derivative normally uses the Hausa-adapted form, not the source pronunciation plus a Hausa-looking ending. Loan integration can insert vowels, simplify clusters, or replace unfamiliar consonants. Fenti, banki, and lasisi are already Hausa-shaped nouns. Their spelling is the base from which Hausa phrases and any established derivatives are learned.
That adaptation does not guarantee a verb. Kwamfuta is a well-integrated noun, yet kwamfuta after ya/ta/sun is not thereby a Standard Hausa verb. Use a precise Hausa predicate such as yi aiki da kwamfuta “work with a computer,” shigar da bayanai “enter data,” or sarrafawa da kwamfuta “process by computer.”
Ma’aikatan sun shigar da bayanan marasa lafiya cikin kwamfuta.
The staff entered the patients' information into a computer.
Code-switching is not the same as derivation
In (informal, bilingual) speech, a speaker may place an English verb inside a largely Hausa utterance. That is a real sociolinguistic practice, but it should not be presented as the neutral Standard Hausa paradigm of a newly derived verb. Formal writing and broad-audience broadcasting normally choose an established Hausa predicate or explain the technical action.
A rahoton hukuma, an rubuta cewa an goge fayil ɗin, ba a yi amfani da kalmar Turanci ‘delete’ ba.
In the official report, it was written that the file was deleted; the English word ‘delete’ was not used.
The quotation explicitly labels the English item. Without that framing, inserting English after a Hausa TAM marker can leave its object behavior, verbal noun, and derived grades undefined.
Common Mistakes
1. Putting a borrowed noun directly after a TAM marker
❌ Ma’aikatan sun fenti bangon jiya.
Incorrect in neutral Standard Hausa—the borrowed noun is being treated as a bare verb.
✅ Ma’aikatan sun yi wa bangon fenti jiya.
The workers painted the wall yesterday.
2. Adding -ta to every new loan
❌ Ta kwamfutata bayanan marasa lafiya.
Incorrect—there is no general rule loan noun plus -ta equals verb.
✅ Ta shigar da bayanan marasa lafiya cikin kwamfuta.
She entered the patients' information into a computer.
3. Confusing amfana da with transitive “use”
❌ Likitan ya amfana da na’urar ya gwada jinin.
Wrong for the intended meaning ‘used the device’; amfana da means benefit from.
✅ Likitan ya yi amfani da na’urar wajen gwada jinin.
The doctor used the device to test the blood.
4. Dropping da from zamanantar da
❌ Ma’aikatar za ta zamanantar tsarin biyan kuɗi.
Incorrect in the established causative construction before this object.
✅ Ma’aikatar za ta zamanantar da tsarin biyan kuɗi.
The ministry will modernize the payment system.
5. Treating an English code-switch as a full Hausa verb
❌ An delete takardun kafin a adana kwafinsu.
Incorrect as neutral Standard Hausa; the English form has no Hausa derivational paradigm here.
✅ An goge takardun kafin a adana kwafinsu.
The documents were deleted before copies were saved.
Key Takeaways
- Hausa has no single verbalizing suffix for all loanwords.
- Old lexical families include hukunci/hukunta and amfani/amfana da, but their syntax and meanings must be learned separately.
- Zamanantar da is a transparent, especially (formal) formation meaning “modernize.”
- Yi + borrowed action noun, as in yi fenti, is productive because yi carries verbal grammar while the loan remains a noun.
- A phonologically integrated noun such as kwamfuta is not automatically a verb.
- Informal code-switching does not establish a complete Standard Hausa verb paradigm.
Related Topics
- Arabic Loanword IntegrationC1 — See how centuries-old Arabic loans have acquired Hausa sounds, gender, plurals, linkers, and meanings.
- English Loanword IntegrationC1 — Understand how English-source words acquire Hausa sound shapes, spelling, gender, plurals, and syntax.
- Productivity versus LexicalizationC1 — Use diagnostics to separate living Hausa word-formation patterns from stored words whose form or meaning has become conventional.
- Verbal Nouns versus Lexical Action NounsA2 — Distinguish verb-paradigm verbal nouns from independently stored action nouns by their continuative, argument, linker, and lexical behavior.
- yi plus Action NounB1 — Use yi as a light verb with Hausa action nouns, and track how TAM, nominal complements, focus, and the continuative shape the construction.
- What a Hausa Verb Grade Is—and Is NotA2 — Understand Hausa verb grades as lexical morphophonological patterns shaped by meaning, valency, and the following object environment—not as tense conjugations.