A Survey of Hausa Vocabulary Used in Traditional Medicine Practice in Kebbi State

Traditional medicine in Hausa communities is embedded in a rich specialized vocabulary that encodes indigenous knowledge of herbal remedies, disease concepts, diagnostic categories, and healing practices. This study surveys Hausa vocabulary associated with traditional medicine practice in Kebbi State, documenting key terms and examining their conceptual structures. A descriptive ethnolinguistic design was employed, with data collected from 80 traditional medicine practitioners across four local government areas in Kebbi through guided elicitation sessions and recorded interviews. Field notes from observations of consultations and herbal preparation activities supplemented the elicited vocabulary. Collected terms were classified into semantic fields including disease names, body part vocabulary, plant names used medicinally, spiritual illness categories, and procedural terms for treatment. The vocabulary corpus was then compared with Standard Hausa dictionary entries to assess documentation gaps. Findings reveal over 300 specialised terms in active use among practitioners, many of which are absent from existing Hausa lexicographic resources. Significant regional variation in terminology between districts in Kebbi State is also documented, reflecting local botanical environments and healing traditions. The study argues for the urgency of systematic documentation before this vocabulary is lost with ageing practitioners. Recommendations include a state-supported traditional medicine vocabulary documentation project, collaboration between linguists and health researchers, and inclusion of ethnomedical vocabulary in Hausa advanced lexicography curricula at Federal University Birnin Kebbi. Keywords: Hausa vocabulary, Traditional medicine, Kebbi State, Ethnolinguistics, Documentation.