Learn Hardcore Hausa: Malami bai yi magana da haushi ba.

Malami – teacher (also: scholar, learned person)
bai – he did not (negative 3rd person masculine singular verb marker, perfective)
yi – do/make
magana – speech, talking
da – with
haushi – anger, annoyance, irritation
ba – negative particle that closes the negation

Literal idea: “As for the teacher, he did not do speech with anger.”
Natural English: “The teacher did not speak angrily.”

Which part of the sentence means “not”, and why does Hausa seem to have two negatives (bai … ba) here?

Negation in this sentence is expressed by a split (discontinuous) negative:

bai at the beginning of the verb phrase
ba at the end of the verb phrase

Together they surround the verb phrase to say “did not …”.

More precisely:

bai = ba + ya (historically), i.e. “not + he (perfective)”, but in practice you just learn it as a single form meaning “he did not (do X)”.
The final ba is required to complete the negation.

So the template for “he did not do X” is:

bai + [verb phrase] + ba

In this sentence:

bai yi magana da haushi ba = he did not speak angrily.

Why is there a pronoun-like element (bai) if we already have Malami (“teacher”) as the subject? Why not just say Malami yi magana …?

In Hausa, finite verbs normally take a pronominal subject marker, even when there is a full noun phrase (like Malami) before the verb.

So:

Malami ya yi magana. – The teacher spoke.
- ya is the 3rd person masculine subject marker (“he”).
Malami bai yi magana ba. – The teacher did not speak.
- bai is the negative 3rd person masculine marker (“he did not”).

You can think of the structure as:

[Malami] [he-did-not] [do speaking with anger]

The noun Malami is the lexical subject, and bai is the obligatory subject marker in the verb complex. You generally cannot drop it in normal Hausa grammar.

What does “yi magana” literally mean, and why do we need yi here? Isn’t magana already “speech”?

Yes, magana means “speech, talk,” but in Hausa you often form a verb by combining:

a light verb like yi (“do, make”)
with a verbal noun like magana (“speech, speaking”)

So:

yi magana literally: “do speech / do speaking”
Functionally: “to speak, to talk”

This is very common in Hausa:

yi aiki – do work → “to work”
yi tafiya – do a journey → “to travel”

So in this sentence, yi magana is just the normal way to say “speak / talk.”

Is bai yi magana past tense (“did not speak”) or something like “has not spoken”?

Hausa works more with aspect than strict tense, but practically:

bai yi magana is perfective negative for 3rd person masculine.
In most contexts it is closest to English simple past:
- “He did not speak.”
Depending on context, it can also cover something like “has not spoken (on that occasion)”, but there is no built-in “up to now” meaning the way English present perfect often has.

So for this sentence, the safest default translation is:

“The teacher did not speak angrily (on that occasion).”

What does “da haushi” literally mean, and how does it come to mean “angrily”?

Literally:

da – with
haushi – anger, irritation, annoyance

So da haushi = “with anger”.

Hausa often uses da + noun to express an adverb-like meaning:

da sauri – with speed → “quickly”
da ƙarfi – with strength → “forcefully”
da kyau – with goodness → “well / nicely”

In the same way:

da haushi – with anger → “angrily”

So bai yi magana da haushi ba = “he did not speak with anger, i.e. he did not speak angrily.”

How would I say the positive version: “The teacher spoke angrily”?

You just remove the negative form and use the ordinary perfective:

Malami ya yi magana da haushi.
- Malami – the teacher
- ya – he (3rd person masc, perfective)
- yi magana – spoke
- da haushi – angrily / with anger

So:

Malami ya yi magana da haushi. = “The teacher spoke angrily.”

What if I want to say “The teacher does not (generally) speak angrily” rather than “did not (on that occasion)”?

For a habitual / general statement, Hausa usually uses the imperfective (often translated as present/habitual) with negation. A common way is:

Malami ba ya magana da haushi.
- literally: “The teacher is not (one who) speaks with anger.”
- natural: “The teacher doesn’t speak angrily.” / “The teacher doesn’t talk in an angry way.”

So:

bai yi magana da haushi ba → a specific completed event: “He did not speak angrily (that time).”
ba ya magana da haushi (or baya magana da haushi in some writing) → habitual/general: “He doesn’t speak angrily (as a rule).”

How would the sentence change if the subject were a female teacher instead of male?

“Female teacher” is:

Malama – female teacher

You must also change the subject marker to the feminine form:

Positive perfective:
- Malama ta yi magana da haushi. – The (female) teacher spoke angrily.
Negative perfective:
- Malama ba ta yi magana da haushi ba. – The (female) teacher did not speak angrily.

So bai (he-did-not) becomes ba ta (she-did-not) for a female subject.

Can I drop Malami and just say Bai yi magana da haushi ba? Does it still mean “He did not speak angrily”?

Yes. If the context already makes it clear who “he” is, you can simply say:

Bai yi magana da haushi ba. – He did not speak angrily.

Here:

The subject is expressed only by the pronominal form bai (“he did not”).
Malami in the original sentence just specifies who “he” is (“the teacher”).

So:

Malami bai yi magana da haushi ba. – The teacher did not speak angrily.
Bai yi magana da haushi ba. – He did not speak angrily.

Why isn’t there a word for “the” before Malami? How do we know it’s “the teacher” and not “a teacher”?

Hausa does not have articles like English “a / an / the.”

Malami on its own can mean “a teacher” or “the teacher”, depending on context.
Definiteness (whether something is “the X” vs “a X”) is understood from:
- previous mention in the conversation
- shared knowledge between speakers
- additional markers (like demonstratives: wancan malam “that teacher”, malamin nan “this/that teacher here”)

In this sentence, English typically prefers “the teacher” because it sounds like we’re talking about someone identifiable in the situation, but Hausa just uses Malami and lets context decide.

Is the sentence polite / neutral / rude in Hausa, or does bai yi magana da haushi ba carry any special tone?

The sentence itself is neutral in tone. It simply describes how the teacher spoke:

It does not sound rude, disrespectful, or especially formal.
It just states a fact: “The teacher did not speak angrily.”

Any politeness or emotional coloring would have to come from context, intonation, or added words, not from the basic grammar or vocabulary of Malami bai yi magana da haushi ba.