Pojęcie „wody” w języku i kulturze Hausa

The paper tries to answer the question of how the conception of “water” is understood by the Hausa people living mainly in Nigeria and Niger. The main aim of the paper is to develop a cultural schema of water based on everyday contact with this liquid in the household and in the natural environment. The analysis is based on the methodology of cultural linguistics (Sharifian 2017) which examines the relationship between language and cultural conceptualizations. The first part of the article is devoted to every-day use of water. The second part deals with ritual cleansing and healing. The third part describes natural and artificial water reservoirs. Particular attention has been paid to terms co-occuring with the Hausa word ruwa meaning ‘water’, i.e. names of vessels, containers, tanks, and reservoirs as well as people and creatures related to water, such as water carriers, masters of water and supernatural beings inhabiting rivers and lakes.