Guosa

Guosa is a constructed language. It was created by Alex Igbineweka in 1965. It was designed to be a combination of the indigenous languages of Nigeria and to serve as a lingua franca to West Africa.^[1]

Though Guosa draws its vocabulary from at least 118 native West African languages, it gets most of its vocabulary from Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo, either taken directly or made from a combination of words from these languages.^[2] English also provides many of the more technical terms, either directly or through one of the African languages said before. Also, some words were produced a priori via sound symbolism, e.g. meeh "sheep", yanmu-yanmu "mosquito", and wuam "eat".

The different parts of speech came from particular languages. Most nouns come from Hausa, while verbs and abstracts come from Igbo or Yoruba. Also, words from all three source languages are often joined together to create a word that looks like all three. For example, the Guosa word méni "what" comes from Hausa menini, Igbo gini, and Yoruba kini, all meaning "what".^[3]

1. ↑ Okafor, Judd-Leonard (20 March 2016). "Guosa: The lingua franca to oust English". dailytrust.com.ng.^{[permanent dead link]}
2. ↑ Dimgba, Njideka (17 March 2016). "Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba Are The Tripod of Guosa Language – Igbineweka". www.nico.gov.ng. Archived from the original on 25 March 2023. Retrieved 29 August 2023.
3. ↑ Igbinéwéká, Alexander (31 January 2019). The Complete Dictionary of Guosa Language 2nd Revised Edition. Bloomington, IN: iUniverse. ISBN 978-1-5320-6574-3.