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Fun fact: Chadwick Boseman was of Yorùbá decent HISTORY AND LOCATIONYorùbá (èdè Yorùbá) pronounced YOH-RU-BAH, /ˈjɒrʊbə/ is one of the largest Niger-Congo languages spoken by approximately 40 million people. Yorùbá is an official language in Benin Republic and Togo as well as a major language in Nigeria (21%), the most populous country in Africa and the largest black nation on earth. Yorùbáland (ilẹ̀ Yorùbá) (the homeland of Yorùbá people) stretches between Ghana and Nigeria - the latter’s South West region is where most of its speakers originate from. The Yorùbá have an extensive diaspora, due to the Transatlantic Slave Trade, particularly in North America, Cuba and Brazil with a more recent wave of migration to UK/US/Europe/Oceania. Consequently, Yorùbá is spoken widely on every continent but Antarctica. There are 20-30 Yorùbá dialects (classed as separate but closely related languages and peoples) on a continuum of mutual intelligibility with the Ọ̀yọ́/ Ìbàdàn dialect considered to be nearest to standard which is spoken and understood by most Yorùbás. This dialect was chosen by Bishop Samuel Àjàyí Crowther, an ex-slave turned polyglot, the first Anglican Bishop who amongst his many accolades, was the first man to write a dictionary for Yorùbá in 1843, a biography of the Yorùbá people in 18 and translate the Holy Bible into Yorùbá in 1884 - Bíbélì Mímọ́. ORTHOLOGYThe Yorùbá language uses Latin characters and has 25 letters.
A B D E Ẹ F G Gb H I J K L M N O Ọ P R S Ṣ T U W Y a b d e ẹ f g gb h i j k l m n o ọ p r s ṣ t u w y The Latin letters ⟨c⟩, ⟨q⟩, ⟨v⟩, ⟨x⟩, ⟨z⟩ are not used. Yorùbá is a phonetic language, meaning once you know the alphabet, what you see is what you get (comparable to Spanish). Without doubt, the letters which cause most difficulty are the plosives...
There are two types of vowels, oral and nasal. I. Oral x 7
II. Nasal x 5
The dot under certain vowels indicate closed vowels or in the case of ‘Ṣ’ indicates ‘sh’. The only nasal consonants are ‘m’ and ‘n’ particularly the latter which is used to mark the present continuous tense (ń). Yorùbá can also be written, and was historically, in an Arabic based script: ajami TONESYorùbá is a highly isolating language meaning a word could be spelt the same but said in a slightly different way and have a completely different meaning, known as homographs, similar to pinyin Chinese. This is very different to English and can be a challenge for learners. There are three tones in Yorùbá, low-mid-high aka Dò-Re-Mí indicated as follows: Low by a ` (grave accent) Mid by nothing or in older texts ¯ (macron) High by a ´ (acute accent) Here are some examples of homographs: Agbára - strength Àgbàrá - flood Ọrùn - neck Ọ̀run - heaven Ara - body Àrá - thunder Ìyá - mother Ìyà - suffering Àṣà - culture Àṣá - hawk Ẹyin - egg Ẹ̀yìn - back One of the most famous pieces of literature in Yorùbá is called ‘Ògbójú Ọdẹ nínú Igbó Irúnmọlẹ̀’ - ‘Forest of A Thousand Daemons’ by D.O. Fágúnwà. Was one of the first novels written in an African language. Linguists have compared the appearance of written Yorùbá to the title of this famous work. INTERESTING GRAMMATICAL RULESYorùbá words don't have consonant clusters and always end in a vowel or a nasal vowel (ending in -n). Even loan words from English are changed to follow this rule. Another major contributor to the Yorùbá language is Arabic via Hausa due to the long standing exchange with Arabia. Examples of loanwords: Bátírì - Battery Dókítà - Doctor Tábílì - Table Àlùbó̩sà - Basila بصلة (onion) Àlùbáríkà - Barika بركة (blessing) Àdúrà - Duea' دعاء (prayer) Nouns - can be identified by usually starting with a vowel and being longer than verbs. Yorùbá is an incredibly efficient language and uses prefixes to nominalise verbs as in the given example: Ì - a prefix that nominalises some verbs ì + jókòó (to sit) = ìjókòó (chair) ì + jà (to fight) = ìjà (a fight) ì + mọ (to know) = ìmọ̀ (knowledge) ì + gbàgbọ́ (to believe) = ìgbàgbọ́ (belief) With vowels in Yorùbá there is no conjugation or alteration in different tenses, so one less thing to worry about for learners. GREETING CULTURE In Yorùbá there are greetings for almost every situation for example: Ẹ kúùjókòó (a greeting to people sitting down) Ẹ kúùsinmi ( a greeting on Sundays) Ẹ kú ọyẹ́ (a greeting for the Harmattan season) Ẹ kú ewu ọmọ (a greeting for a mother who have just given birth). Greetings are formed as follows: Ẹ kú (for when the greeting is directed at someone older than you/ more than one person) Kú (for when the greeting is directed at someone younger than you) A kú (for when the greeting includes you in what is being celebrated) Ẹ kú/ Kú/ A kú + the thing that is being acknowledged/ celebrated The Yorùbá are a highly respectful and cordial people. In fact they are nicknamed the “kaaro-oo-jire-bi” people which means people who greet good morning and rise with joy. Respect is given with a strict hierarchy according to age. This even exists with twins born minutes apart. There are two subject pronouns for ‘you’:
In normal speech, one replaces the other while with the imperative, the honorific version retains the pronoun whereas the informal does not.
The only time when this is different is when saying thank you
Yorùbá tends to focus on age more than gender as he/she/it are all ‘ó’, if he/she/it is older the plural is used ‘wọ́n’. Another area where Yorùbá uses age over gender is siblings, Yorùbá uses ẹ̀gbọ́n (older sibling) and àbúrò (younger sibling) rather than brother and sister which is based on gender. Also Yorùbá words are genderless. NAMING AND POP CULTURENaming is an incredibly important part of Yorùbá culture with an official naming ceremony on the 8th day of life. Names are often a poetic sentence describing the situation or circumstances around the birth or the destiny of the child. There are five categories of names, here are some common examples: Bàbátúndé - Father has returned Yétúndé - Mother has returned Táíwò (or Táíyé/Táyé) - Taste the world. Have a taste of life (first born twin) Kẹ́hìndé - One who comes second (second born twin) Ìdòwú - A child born after a set of twins Adéwálé - The crown has come home Ayọ̀mídé - My joy has come Ọláolú - The wealth of God Akíntáyọ̀ - Bravery equates to joy Olúwalóṣèyífúnmikìíṣènìyàn - It is the Lord that has done this for me, not any man. There is no limit to the length of a word (akin to German) ORÍKÌAnother interesting aspect in the Yorùbá naming culture is the ‘oríkì’. This is a cultural phenomenon to Yorùbá and has no translation in English. Literally translating to ‘head greet’ it is an unofficial, honorific, praise poetry given by parents and describes the circumstances of birth and they are gender specific for example: Òjó is the name for a boy born with the umbilical cord tied around the neck, this name is an àmútọ̀runwá ‘brought from heaven’, (a name already pre-determined due to the unique nature of their birth). Here’s an excerpt from the oríkì of this name… Òjó ò sí nlé, ọmọ adìẹ d'àgbà t'ó bá wà ńlé, á ti pà Ìyà è je.... When Ojo is not home, the chick grows to become a hen, if he was at home, he would have made soup of it" Famous Yorùbá people include:
The Yorùbá have featured in video games such as Smite and Crusader Kings and are thought to be the inspiration behind much of the culture of Wakanda, from Black Panther with the attire, scarification and emphasis on greetings. Yorùbá is also a very major language in popular African music genres such as Afrobeats where you will hear Yorùbá often woven into lyrics. Yorùbá is also the sacred language in new world religions such as Candomblé and Santría where both Yorùbá religion and language have been preserved and passed down. Learn how to recognise a Yorùbá name and what all these names above mean here, and here PROVERBSThe use of proverbs traditionally is a signature of Yorùbá speech. They illustrate points using easily observable truths and for any given situation Yorùbá has a proverb: ‘Adíẹ̀ fúnfún kò mọ ara rẹ̀ l’àgbà’ - ‘the white chicken doesn’t know it’s old’ ‘Àgbò tó tàdí mẹ́yìn agbára ló lọ mú wá’ - ‘The ram that reverses, power is what he went to bring’ Apart from the use of proverbs to convey messages, Yorùbá in general is a very descriptive language, here are examples of the literal meanings of some Yorùbá words: Ilé ayé - the home of life, the world Ẹ̀rọ ayára bí àṣá - the machine as fast as a hawk, computer Ẹyinjú - the egg of the eye, eyeball Ọrùn ọwọ́ - the neck of the hand, wrist Ojú ọ̀run - the face of heaven, the sky Ọ̀pá ẹ̀yìn - the staff of the back, the spine Ọkọ̀ ojú irin - the vehicle of the face of iron, train Inú dídùn - inside sweetness, happiness WHERE TO LEARN MOREAs much as Yorùbá is a fascinating language with an immense history and cultural impact on the world, you may be shocked to learn that the language has been predicted to face extinction before the turn of the century. This is the preventable fate of all Nigerian languages (apart from Hausa) and is well recognised by academics and institutions including UNESCO. This is a direct result of lack of intergenerational transmission. Due to the colonialist’s introduction of English, the Yorùbá have since turned to the West with English as a lingua franca and have abandoned their language, indigenous religion and associated customs. There is a misconception that there is no longer economic, cultural or spiritual benefit from passing on native languages (of Nigeria). Consequently, in the diaspora many Yorùbá people (especially the younger generations) struggle to communicate in Yorùbá and mix it with English, such people may also not be strong in writing and reading Yorùbá because of its orthology despite the simplicity of the grammar. In addition, speaking native languages in schools was admonished by corporal punishment in colonial times. Since independence, native language instruction has never been widespread in Nigeria or any other country where Yorùbá is an official language, neither is there any incentive from the Government or the people to change the status quo. However, attitudes especially in the diaspora are changing. How can you be a part of the change...
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from བསུ་བ། བྱོན་ཞུ། གདོང་ལེན། ཕེབས་བསུ། https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/comments/j1ozi3/ẹ_káàbọ_this_weeks_language_of_the_week_yorùbá/
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