Symbols
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Zarma alphabet
One row per letter in Zarma alphabetical order, capital then small, with the added letters beside their base: the nasal vowels à ã, Ẽ ẽ, Õ õ next to A, E, O; Ɲ ɲ and Ŋ ŋ next to N; Š š and Ž ž next to S and Z. There is no v.
Quotation marks
Printed Zarma in Niger quotes with French guillemets, a space inside: « Fofo ».
Where it's spoken
Niger, where Zarma is the second language after Hausa. Prices there are in CFA francs, written F CFA, which have no symbol of their own.
Zarma country
The Niger River, where most Zarma speakers live and pirogues carry people and goods, and the horse, long the pride of Zarma horsemen; the Djerma horse breed is named after them.
On the map
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The Zarma alphabet, letter by letter
Zarma, also spelled Djerma or Dyerma (the French spelling), is written in the Latin alphabet, and Niger's 1999 government decree sets a spelling standard for the language. The core of it is the alphabet you already know, A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U W Y Z, with one big difference in how some letters are read: c is always the ch of church and j the j of jam, while g is always hard. Unicode's CLDR, the data phones and computers use, lists the Zarma alphabet as a ã b c d e ẽ f g h i j k l m n ɲ ŋ o õ p q r s š t u w x y z ž. Although q and x appear in CLDR's list, Niger's school alphabet classifies q, v and x as French-specific letters.
The extra letters sit right where they belong in alphabetical order: ã after a, ẽ after e, ɲ and ŋ after n, õ after o, š after s and ž after z. The grid above shows each base letter on one row, with its capital and small form first and its added letters beside it, so you can see them line up.
What ɲ, ŋ, ã ẽ õ and š ž do in Zarma
Ɲ ɲ (n with a left hook) is one sound, the ny of canyon or the ñ of Spanish, as in ɲa, mother. Ŋ ŋ (eng) is the ng of English sing, and in Zarma it can begin a word, which English never does: ŋwa means to eat. When no keyboard is at hand many people write ny and ng instead, and that is understood, but in a book, a school lesson or a name that should be found by search the real letters are the standard.
A nasal vowel is said partly through the nose. Niger's 1999 orthography marks nasal forms of all five vowel qualities with a tilde below; CLDR also lists above-tilde ã, ẽ and õ. Š š stands for the sh of shoe and Ž ž for the s of measure, the same values these letters have in Czech or Lithuanian. Zarma is a tonal language, but everyday spelling does not mark tone, so you will only meet tone accents in dictionaries and linguistics.
Watch the look-alikes when you copy: ɲ, with its hook on the left, is not ɳ, the retroflex n of the phonetic alphabet with its hook on the right, and ŋ is a letter of its own, not an n with a tail added by a font. The capital of ŋ is Ŋ; some fonts draw it like a big N with a hook, others like a big ŋ, and both are the same letter.
How to type Zarma letters: ɲ, ŋ, ã, ẽ and õ
On Windows, in Microsoft Word, type the code and press AltX: 0272 gives ɲ, 019D Ɲ, 014B ŋ, 014A Ŋ, 00E3 ã, 00C3 Ã, 1EBD ẽ, 1EBC Ẽ, 00F5 õ, 00D5 Õ, 0161 š and 017E ž. The older Alt codes on the number pad work for the letters that French and Central European keyboards share: Alt0227 ã, Alt0245 õ, Alt0154 š, Alt0158 ž. With the US-International layout, type and then a or o for ã and õ. For typing ɲ and ŋ in every program, install a free keyboard layout for Niger's languages, for example through Keyman.
On a Mac, OptionN followed by a or o gives ã and õ. For ɲ, ŋ and ẽ, switch to the Unicode Hex Input layout and hold Option while you type the four-digit codes above. On a phone, long-press a or o for ã and õ; ɲ, ŋ and ẽ usually need a West African keyboard app, or you can copy them from this page and save them as text shortcuts.
In HTML, use ã for ã, õ for õ, ẽ for ẽ, ɲ for ɲ, Ɲ for Ɲ, ŋ for ŋ and Ŋ for Ŋ, š for š and ž for ž. Most system fonts draw all of them, but decorative fonts often lack Ɲ, Ŋ and ẽ.
Quotation marks and prices in Zarma
Printed Zarma in Niger follows French typography; French is a working language used in schooling and government, so quotations sit in guillemets with a space inside: « Fofo ». Prices are in West African CFA francs, shared by eight countries; the currency has no Unicode sign and is written as letters after the amount, 1 000 F CFA or FCFA.
Where Zarma is spoken
Zarma is the second language of Niger after Hausa. CLDR estimates about 4.5 million speakers, out of a population of about 28 million, most of them in the west of the country along the Niger River : in Niamey, the capital, and around Dosso and Tillabéri. In Niamey it is a common language of markets and daily life, spoken by many people whose mother tongue is something else.
Zarma is one of the Songhay languages, which stretch along the Niger from Timbuktu to Benin. It is related to Koyraboro Senni, spoken around Gao in Mali, and Koyra Chiini, spoken around Timbuktu; each has its own collection on this site. In Niger, Zarma lives next to Hausa, Fulfulde (Central-Eastern Niger Fulfulde), the Tuareg language Tamashek and French, and the Niger collection gathers the country's flag, letters and emoji.
How to use them
5 situationsClick to copyZarma Alphabet & Letters combos
10Worth knowing
- Zarma has a word-initial ŋ, as in ŋwa, to eat, a sound English only allows in the middle or at the end of a word.
- The small ɲ sits in Unicode's IPA Extensions block, because phoneticians used it first, while its capital Ɲ is in Latin Extended-B, added for African alphabets that needed a capital the phonetic alphabet never had; Ŋ and ŋ came in together, in Latin Extended-A.
- ẽ is the odd one out among the three above-tilde forms shown here: ã and õ came to computers early through Portuguese, but ẽ lives in Latin Extended Additional, the block shared with Vietnamese, so it is often missing from phone keyboards.
- Hamani Diori, Niger's first president after independence in 1960, was a Zarma.
Questions people ask
7What is the Zarma alphabet?
A Ã B C D E Ẽ F G H I J K L M N Ɲ Ŋ O Õ P Q R S Š T U W X Y Z Ž in capitals and a ã b c d e ẽ f g h i j k l m n ɲ ŋ o õ p q r s š t u w x y z ž in small letters, as CLDR lists it. Niger's 1999 spelling marks nasal forms of all five vowels and excludes q, v and x from the standard alphabet.
Is Zarma the same as Djerma?
Yes. Djerma and Dyerma are French and English spellings of the same name; the language calls itself Zarma ciine.
How to say hello in Zarma?
Fofo is the everyday hello. In the morning people ask Ni kani baani? (“Did you sleep well?”), answered Baani samay (“just fine”). Mate ni go? means “How are you?”
How to type ŋ?
In Word, type 014B and press AltX (014A for the capital Ŋ). In HTML use ŋ. For everyday typing install a West African keyboard layout, or copy ŋ from this page.
How to type ɲ?
In Word, type 0272 and press AltX (019D for the capital Ɲ). In HTML use ɲ. If you cannot type it, ny is the common stand-in.
What are the numbers in Zarma?
One to ten: afo, ihinka, ihinza, itaaci, iggu, iddu, iyye, ahakku, iyegga, iway.
Where is Zarma spoken?
Mainly in western Niger, along the Niger River around Niamey, Dosso and Tillabéri; CLDR estimates about 4.5 million speakers. Closely related Songhay languages are spoken in Mali and Benin.
