Going from Zulu to Hausa (Hausa) has a composite linguistic distance of 78% (heuristic estimate). Below is the dimension-by-dimension breakdown.
Shared vocabulary, cognates, and loanwords.
Morphology, syntax, word order, cases.
Shared sounds and phoneme inventory.
Latin → Latin/Arabic
Niger-Congo ↔ Afro-Asiatic
The 5 languages with the lowest linguistic distance from Zulu:
A quick 3-question check between Zulu and Hausa. No signup.