Abubuwa da yawa sun canza a ƙarnin da ya gabata.

Abubuwa means things and is the plural of abu, which means thing.

So:

• abu = thing
• abubuwa = things

This is not a simple add one ending kind of plural, so it is worth learning as a vocabulary pair.

da yawa means many or a lot of when it follows a noun.

So:

• abubuwa da yawa = many things

This is a very common Hausa pattern:

• mutane da yawa = many people
• littattafai da yawa = many books

Even though da often means with, in this expression da yawa works together as a quantity phrase.

sun is the 3rd person plural completive/perfective subject marker. It agrees with Abubuwa, which is plural.

So sun canza means something like:

• they changed
• they have changed

Here they refers to abubuwa = things.

It can often be understood either way in English, depending on context.

In this sentence, sun canza is naturally translated as:

• changed
• have changed

Hausa does not map onto English tenses exactly. The form sun canza presents the change as completed, so English may use either a simple past or a present perfect translation.

In a straightforward main clause like this one, sun is the normal choice.

suka often appears in other environments, especially after certain kinds of focus, relative constructions, or in narrative sequencing. For a plain statement like:

• Abubuwa da yawa sun canza = Many things have changed

sun is the expected form.

So for a learner, the safest rule here is:

• ordinary statement with a plural subject -> sun

canza means change.

In this sentence it is intransitive, meaning the subject itself changes:

• Abubuwa da yawa sun canza = Many things have changed

But canza can also be used transitively in some contexts, where someone changes something.

Here, though, the meaning is clearly things changed, not someone changed things.

Here a is a preposition meaning in, at, or during, depending on context.

So:

• a ƙarnin da ya gabata = in the past century / in the last century

It introduces the time expression.

This is because the noun is followed by a modifier: da ya gabata.

In Hausa, a noun often appears in a linking/construct form before something that modifies it. Here, ƙarni becomes ƙarnin before the relative clause:

• ƙarni = century
• ƙarnin da ya gabata = the century that passed / the past century

So the -n is not a separate word with a separate meaning like the; it is part of the way the noun links to what follows.

Literally, da ya gabata means that passed or which passed.

Breaking it down:

• da = that/which, introducing a relative clause here
• ya = he/it (masculine singular agreement)
• gabata = pass, go by, come before

So:

• ƙarnin da ya gabata = the century that passed

In natural English, that becomes:

• the past century
• the last century

Because ƙarni is grammatically masculine in Hausa, and the agreement marker must match it.

So:

• masculine singular -> ya
• feminine singular -> ta

That is why the sentence has:

• ƙarnin da ya gabata

and not ƙarnin da ta gabata.

This is grammatical gender, so it is about noun class/agreement, not biological sex.

ƙ is not the same as ordinary k in Hausa.

It is pronounced as an ejective k, with a sharper, more forceful sound. If you are a beginner, it is enough to notice that:

• k and ƙ are different letters in Hausa
• ƙ has a distinct, stronger sound

So ƙarni should not be pronounced exactly like a simple English karni with an ordinary k.

Often yes, but not always in a narrow historical sense.

Depending on context, it can mean:

• in the last century
• in the past century
• over the past hundred years

So if the surrounding context is historical, it may mean the previous century. In a broader context, it can also mean the past hundred years more generally. English chooses the most natural wording from context.