Learn Hardcore Hausa: Diddigen yana da kyau.

In Hausa, it is normal to state the noun and still keep a subject marker in the clause. So Diddigen yana da kyau is structurally like The heel, it is good.

That means diddigen names the thing being talked about, and yana is the grammatical subject marker that the clause still needs. In standard Hausa, leaving out yana here would sound incomplete.

What exactly does yana mean?

Yana is the 3rd-person masculine singular subject form. In a sentence like this, it often corresponds to English he is or it is.

Here, the most natural translation is just is or it is. Depending on context, this Hausa form can also cover meanings that English expresses with the simple present or a more general ongoing/habitual sense.

Why is it yana and not tana? Is the heel being treated like a male thing?

No. This is about grammatical gender, not biological sex.

Hausa nouns are grammatically masculine or feminine, and the agreement word has to match the noun. Diddigen takes masculine singular agreement, so the sentence uses yana.

So here yana does not mean the heel is male. It just means the noun belongs to the masculine grammatical class.