Jakar barci tana cikin tanti.

In this sentence, tana is the part that corresponds most closely to English is.

More precisely, it is a feminine singular present/imperfective marker. Hausa uses this kind of form not only for ongoing actions, but also for current states and location, so tana cikin tanti means is in the tent or is inside the tent.

Because Hausa often changes the first noun when it is followed by another noun in a possessive or descriptive noun-noun construction.

Here, jaka means bag, but before barci it becomes jakar. That -r is a linking form. So jakar barci literally means bag of sleep, which is how Hausa expresses sleeping bag.

No. Barci is a noun, meaning sleep.

Hausa often uses noun + noun combinations where English uses an adjective or an -ing form. So instead of saying something like sleeping bag with an adjective-like word, Hausa says bag of sleep: jakar barci.

Yes, tana can also mean she is, but Hausa uses the same agreement forms for inanimate nouns too.

The noun jaka is grammatically feminine, so it takes tana. This is grammatical gender, not biological sex. In Hausa, even objects are treated as masculine or feminine for agreement.

Because jaka is a feminine noun.

In Hausa, words like yana and tana must agree with the noun. A masculine singular noun would normally take yana, but jaka takes the feminine form tana.

Ciki means inside or interior, and cikin is the form used before another noun.

So cikin tanti means inside the tent or in the tent. It is very similar in structure to jakar barci, where the first word changes form because another noun follows it.

Hausa does not have articles that work exactly like English a/an and the.

Whether something is a sleeping bag or the sleeping bag, a tent or the tent, is usually understood from context. So the same Hausa sentence can often be translated in slightly different ways depending on the situation.

Yes, fairly similar.

The structure here is:

• Jakar barci = the subject
• tana = the present/state-location marker
• cikin tanti = the location

So it lines up quite neatly with English The sleeping bag is in the tent, even though the internal structure of jakar barci is more literally bag of sleep.

That is normal in Hausa.

The same form used for ongoing or present-time situations is also used for states and where something is. So tana cikin tanti does not mean the sleeping bag is actively doing something; it simply means it is located in the tent right now.