Yorùbá is a Niger–Congo language spoken in West Africa by approximately 20 million speakers. The native tongue of the
Yoruba peopleThe Yoruba people are one of the largest ethnic groups in West Africa. The majority of the Yoruba speak the Yoruba language...
, it is spoken, among other languages, in
NigeriaNigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
,
BeninBenin , officially the Republic of Benin, is a country in West Africa. It borders Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east and Burkina Faso and Niger to the north. Its small southern coastline on the Bight of Benin is where a majority of the population is located...
, and
TogoTogo, officially the Togolese Republic , is a country in West Africa bordered by Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. It extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, on which the capital Lomé is located. Togo covers an area of approximately with a population of approximately...
and in communities in other parts of Africa, Europe and the Americas. It is most closely related to the
Itsekiri languageThe Itsekiri language is a major branch of the Yoruboid group of languages, which as a group, is a key member of the Volta–Niger sub-family of the Niger–Congo family of African Languages. Itsekiri is spoken by nearly 900,000 people in Nigeria as a first language and by many others as an additional...
spoken in the Niger-Delta and
IgalaIgala are an ethnic group of Nigeria. Igala practice a number of different religions, including animism, Christianity, and Islam.The home of the Igala people is situated east of the river Niger and Benue confluence and astride the Niger in Lokoja, Kogi state of Nigeria...
spoken in central Nigeria. It is more widely related to other Nigerian Niger–Congo languages including Edo, Igbo and Nupe.
History
The ancestor of the Yoruba speakers is, according to their oral traditions,
OduduwaOduduwa Omoluabi, Olofin Adimula, Emperor of the Yoruba, phonetically written by his people as Odùduwà and sometimes contracted as Odudua or Oòdua, is generally held among the Yoruba to be the reigning ancestor of the crowned Yoruba kings....
. Although they share a common history, it is only since thee second half of the nineteenth century that the
children of Oduduwa share one name. At some stage the term
Yariba or
Yoruba came into use, first confined to the Ọyọ Kingdom; the term was used among the Hausa (as it is today) but its origins are unclear. In part due to the development of a written standard, the term
Yoruba was extended to include all speakers of the language.
Linguistic means — including, for example, historical-comparative linguistics,
glottochronologyGlottochronology is that part of lexicostatistics dealing with the chronological relationship between languages....
, and dialectology — used along with both traditional (oral) historical sources and archaeological finds, have shed some light on the history of the Yorubas and their language before this point. The North-West Yoruba dialects, for example, show more linguistic innovations. According to some, this, combined with the fact that Southeast and Central Yoruba areas generally have older settlements, suggests a later date of immigration for Northwest Yoruba.
Varieties
The Yoruba dialect continuum itself consists of several dialects. The various Yoruba dialects in the Yorubaland of Nigeria can be classified into three major dialect areas: Northwest, Central, and Southeast. Of course, clear boundaries can never be drawn and peripheral areas of dialectal regions often have some similarities to adjoining dialects.
- North-West Yoruba (NWY).
- Abẹokuta
Abeokuta is the largest city and capital of Ogun State in southwest Nigeria and is situated at , on the Ogun River; 64 miles north of Lagos by railway, or 81 miles by water. As of 2005, Abeokuta and the surrounding area had a population of 593,140....
, IbadanIbadan is the capital city of Oyo State and the third largest metropolitan area in Nigeria, after Lagos and Kano, with a population of 1,338,659 according to the 2006 census. Ibadan is also the largest metropolitan geographical area...
, ỌyọOyo is a city in Oyo State, Nigeria, founded as the capital of the Oyo Kingdom in the 1830s and known to its people as 'New Oyo' to distinguish it from the former capital to the north, 'Old Oyo' ) which had been deserted as a result of rumors of war. Its inhabitants are mostly of the Yoruba people...
, OgunOgun State is a state in South-western Nigeria. It borders Lagos State to the South, Oyo and Osun states to the North, Ondo State to the east and the republic of Benin to the west. Abeokuta is the capital and largest city in the state...
and Lagos Lagos is a port and the most populous conurbation in Nigeria. With a population of 7,937,932, it is currently the third most populous city in Africa after Cairo and Kinshasa, and currently estimated to be the second fastest growing city in Africa...
(Eko) areas
- Central Yoruba (CY)
- Igbomina
The Ìgbómìnà are a tribe of the Yoruba people occupying the north-central portion of the Yoruba region of southwestern Nigeria....
, YagbaYagba West is a Local Government Area in Kogi State, Nigeria, in the west of the state adjoining Kwara State. Its headquarters are in the town of Odo Ere.It has an area of 1,276 km² and a population of 149,023 at the 2006 census....
, IlésàIlesa is a city located in the south west of Nigeria; it is also the name of a historic state centered around that city. The state was ruled by a monarch bearing the title of Owa Obokun Adimula of Ijesaland...
, IfẹIfe is an ancient Yoruba city in south-western Nigeria. Evidence of inhabitation at the site has been discovered to date back to roughly 560 BC...
, Ekiti, AkurẹAkure is a city in the southwestern region of Nigeria, and is the largest city and capital of Ondo State. The city has a population of approximately 387,087...
, ẸfọnEfon is a Local Government Area of Ekiti State, Nigeria. Its headquarters are in the town of Effon-Alaiye.It has an area of 232 km² and a population of 86,941 at the 2006 census.The postal code of the area is 362....
, and Ijẹbu areas.
- South-East Yoruba (SEY)
- Okitipupa
Okitipupa is a Local Government Area in Ondo State, Nigeria. Its headquarters are in the town of Okitipupa, with a university that will commence academy in year 2010/2011 section: Ondo State University of Science and Technology, Okitipupa ....
, IlajeIlaje is a Local Government Area in Ondo State, Nigeria. Its headquarters are in the town of Igbokoda.It has an area of 1,318 km² and a population of 290,615 at the 2006 census.The postal code of the area is 352....
, OndoOndo is the name of:* Ondo , a style of Japanese folk music* Ondo, Hiroshima, a town in Japan* Ondo City in Nigeria* Ondo State in Nigeria* Ondo Phone in Europe...
, Ọwọ, IkarẹIkare is a town in Ondo State, Nigeria.Ikare-Akoko , city in southwestern Nigeria, located in Ondo state. Ikare is about 100 km from Akure, the Ondo State capital. The city was the divisional headquarters of the old Akoko Division, comprising Oka-Akoko, Isua-Akoko, Okeagbe-Akoko etc...
, ṢagamuatSagamu or Shagamu is a city and the headquarters of the Local Government Area of the same name in southwestern Nigeria located in Ogun State near the Ibu River.The LGA has an area of 614 km² and a population of 253,412 at the 2006 census....
, and parts of Ijẹbu.
North-West Yoruba is historically a part of the
ỌyọThe Oyo Empire was a Yoruba empire of what is today southwestern Nigeria. The empire was established before the 14th century and grew to become one of the largest West African states encountered by European explorers. It rose to preeminence through its possession of a powerful cavalry and wealth...
empire. In NWY dialects, Proto-Yoruba /gh/ (the velar fricative [ɣ]) and /gw/ have merged into /w/; the upper vowels /i ̣/ and /ụ/ were raised and merged with /i/ and /u/, just as their nasal counterparts, resulting in a vowel system with seven oral and three nasal vowels. Ethnographically, traditional government is based on a division of power between civil and war chiefs; lineage and descent are unilineal and agnatic.
South-East Yoruba was probably associated with the expansion of the
Benin EmpireThe Benin Empire was a pre-colonial African state in what is now modern Nigeria. It is not to be confused with the modern-day country called Benin, formerly called Dahomey.-Origin:...
after c. 1450 AD. In contrast to NWY, lineage and descent are largely
multilinealA lineal descendant, in legal usage, refers to a blood relative in the direct line of descent. The children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, etc...
and
cognaticCognatic kinship is a mode of descent calculated from an ancestor or ancestress counted through any combination of male and female links, or a system of bilateral kinship where relations are traced through both a father and mother....
, and the division of titles into war and civil is unknown. Linguistically, SEY has retained the /gh/ and /gw/ contrast, while it has lowered the nasal vowels /ịn/ and /ụn/ to /ẹn/ and /ọn/, respectively. SEY has collapsed the second and third person plural pronominal forms; thus,
àn án wá can mean either 'you (pl.) came' or 'they came' in SEY dialects, whereas NWY for example has
ẹ wá 'you (pl.) came' and
wọ́n wá 'they came', respectively. The emergence of a plural of respect may have prevented coalescence of the two in NWY dialects.
Central Yoruba forms a transitional area in that the lexicon has much in common with NWY, whereas it shares many ethnographical features with SEY. Its vowel system is the least innovating (most stable) of the three dialect groups, having retained nine oral-vowel contrasts and six or seven nasal vowels, and an extensive vowel harmony system.
Literary Yoruba
Literary Yoruba, also known as
Standard Yoruba,
Yoruba koiné, and
common Yoruba, is a separate member of the dialect cluster. It is the written form of the language, the standard variety learnt at school and that spoken by newsreaders on the radio. Standard Yoruba has its origin in the 1850s, when Samuel A. Crowther, the first African Bishop, published a Yoruba grammar and started his translation of the Bible. Though for a large part based on the Ọyọ and Ibadan dialects, Standard Yoruba incorporates several features from other dialects. It also has some features peculiar to itself, for example the simplified
vowel harmonyVowel harmony is a type of long-distance assimilatory phonological process involving vowels that occurs in some languages. In languages with vowel harmony, there are constraints on which vowels may be found near each other....
system, as well as foreign structures, such as
calqueIn linguistics, a calque or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal, word-for-word or root-for-root translation.-Calque:...
s from English which originated in early translations of religious works.
Because the use of Standard Yoruba did not result from some deliberate linguistic policy, much controversy exists as to what constitutes 'genuine Yoruba', with some writers holding the opinion that the Ọyọ dialect is the most "pure" form, and others stating that there is no such thing as genuine Yoruba at all. Standard Yoruba, the variety learnt at school and used in the media, has nonetheless been a powerful consolidating factor in the emergence of a common Yoruba identity.
Writing system
In the 17th century Yoruba was written in the
Ajami scriptThe term Ajami , or Ajamiyya , which comes from the Arabic root for "foreign" or "stranger," has been applied to Arabic alphabets used for writing African languages....
, a form of Arabic. Modern Yoruba orthography originated in the early work of
CMSThe Church Mission Society, also known as the Church Missionary Society, is a group of evangelistic societies working with the Anglican Communion and Protestant Christians around the world...
missionaries working among the
Aku (Yoruba) of Freetown. One of their
informantsAn informant or consultant in linguistics is a native speaker who acts as a linguistic reference for a language being studied. The informant's role is that of a senior interpreter, who demonstrates native pronunciation, provides grammaticality judgments regarding linguistic well-formedness, and may...
was Crowther, who later would proceed to work on his native language himself. In early grammar primers and translations of portions of the English Bible, Crowther used the Latin alphabet largely without tone markings. The only diacritic used was a dot below certain vowels to signify their
openAn open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue...
variants [ɛ] and [ɔ], viz. ⟨ẹ⟩ and ⟨ọ⟩. Over the years the orthography was revised to represent tone among other things. In 1875 the Church Missionary Society (CMS) organised a conference on Yoruba Orthography; the standard devised there was the basis for the orthography of the steady flow of religious and educational literature over the next seventy years.
The current orthography of Yoruba used in Nigeria derives from a 1966 report of the Yoruba Orthography Committee, along with Ayọ Bamgboṣe's 1965
Yoruba Orthography, a study of the earlier orthographies and an attempt to bring Yoruba orthography in line with actual speech as much as possible. Still largely similar to the older orthography, it employs the
Latin alphabetThe Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
modified by the use of the
digraphA digraph or digram is a pair of characters used to write one phoneme or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined...
⟨gb⟩ and certain
diacriticA diacritic is a glyph added to a letter, or basic glyph. The term derives from the Greek διακριτικός . Diacritic is both an adjective and a noun, whereas diacritical is only an adjective. Some diacritical marks, such as the acute and grave are often called accents...
s, including the traditional vertical line set under the letters ⟨⟩, ⟨⟩, and ⟨⟩. In many publications the line is replaced by a dot ⟨ẹ⟩, ⟨ọ⟩, ⟨ṣ⟩. The vertical line had been used to avoid the mark being fully covered by an
underlineAn underline, also called an underscore, is one or more horizontal lines immediately below a portion of writing. Single, and occasionally double , underlining was originally used in hand-written or typewritten documents to emphasise text...
.
Nigerian alphabet
| 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.
The pronunciation of the letters without diacritics corresponds more or less to their
International Phonetic AlphabetThe International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...
equivalents, except for the
labial-velarLabial–velar consonants are doubly articulated at the velum and the lips. They are sometimes called "labiovelar consonants", a term that can also refer to labialized velars, such as and the approximant ....
stopsIn phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...
[k͡p] (written ⟨p⟩) and [ɡ͡b] (written ⟨gb⟩), in which both consonants are pronounced simultaneously rather than sequentially. The diacritic underneath vowels indicates an
open vowelAn open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue...
, pronounced with the root of the tongue retracted (so ⟨⟩ is pronounced [ɛ̙] and ⟨⟩ is [ɔ̙]). ⟨⟩ represents a
postalveolar consonantPostalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate...
[ʃ] like the English ⟨sh⟩, ⟨y⟩ represents a
palatal approximantThe palatal approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is '...
like English ⟨y⟩, and ⟨j⟩ a
voiced palatal plosiveThe voiced palatal plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨⟩, a barred dotless ⟨j⟩ , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is J\.The sound does not exist as a phoneme in English, but is...
, as is common in many African orthographies.
In addition to the vertical bars, three further diacritics are used on vowels and syllabic
nasal consonantA nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...
s to indicate the language's tones: an
acute accentThe acute accent is a diacritic used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek scripts.-Apex:An early precursor of the acute accent was the apex, used in Latin inscriptions to mark long vowels.-Greek:...
⟨
´⟩ for the high tone, a
grave accentThe grave accent is a diacritical mark used in written Breton, Catalan, Corsican, Dutch, French, Greek , Italian, Mohawk, Norwegian, Occitan, Portuguese, Scottish Gaelic, Vietnamese, Welsh, Romansh, and other languages.-Greek:The grave accent was first used in the polytonic orthography of Ancient...
⟨
`⟩ for the low tone, and an optional
macronA macron, from the Greek , meaning "long", is a diacritic placed above a vowel . It was originally used to mark a long or heavy syllable in Greco-Roman metrics, but now marks a long vowel...
⟨
¯⟩ for the middle tone. These are used in addition to the line in ⟨⟩ and ⟨⟩. When more than one tone is used in one syllable, the vowel can either be written once for each tone (for example, *⟨òó⟩ for a vowel [o] with tone rising from low to high) or, more rarely in current usage, combined into a single accent. In this case, a
caronA caron or háček , also known as a wedge, inverted circumflex, inverted hat, is a diacritic placed over certain letters to indicate present or historical palatalization, iotation, or postalveolar pronunciation in the orthography of some Baltic, Slavic, Finno-Lappic, and other languages.It looks...
⟨ˇ⟩ is used for the rising tone (so the previous example would be written ⟨ǒ⟩) and a
circumflexThe circumflex is a diacritic used in the written forms of many languages, and is also commonly used in various romanization and transcription schemes. It received its English name from Latin circumflexus —a translation of the Greek περισπωμένη...
⟨ˆ⟩ for a the falling tone.
List of characters used in Nigeria
| Á |
À |
Ā |
É |
È |
Ē |
Ẹ / |
Ẹ́ / |
Ẹ̀ / |
/ |
Í |
Ì |
Ī |
Ó |
Ò |
Ō |
Ọ / |
Ọ́/ |
Ọ̀ / |
/ |
Ú |
Ù |
Ū |
/ |
| á |
à |
ā |
é |
è |
ē |
ẹ / |
ẹ́ / |
ẹ̀ / |
/ |
í |
ì |
ī |
ó |
ò |
ō |
ọ / |
ọ́ / |
/ |
/ |
ú |
ù |
ū |
/ |
In Benin, Yoruba uses a different orthography. The Yoruba alphabet was standardized along with other Benin languages in the National Languages Alphabet by the National Language Commission in 1975, and revised in 1980 by the National Center for Applied Linguistics.
Benin alphabet
| A |
B |
D |
E |
Ɛ |
F |
G |
Gb |
H |
I |
J |
K |
KP |
L |
M |
N |
O |
Ɔ |
P |
R |
S |
sh |
T |
U |
W |
Y |
| a |
b |
d |
e |
ɛ |
f |
g |
gb |
h |
i |
j |
k |
kp |
l |
m |
n |
o |
ɔ |
p |
r |
s |
sh |
t |
u |
w |
y |
Modernising the Yoruba Writing System, Attempts
The advent of the use of writing instruments and the European cultural invasion have highlighted key issues in writing for the Yoruba language.
Firstly, Crowther and others used a diacritical marking system to denote the tonalism that is prevalent in Yoruba language. Linguists and software developers have not done enough to transfer these marks into the modern age. Unfortunately, the software widely used in websites, computers, mobile phones and tablets tend not to enable the bottom marks AND the top marks together. In the age of typewriters, editors could go over an article and hand-write the marks before additional copies are published. It is cumbersome or impossible to do this sort of editing with modern electronic systems.
Secondly, the English language is in wide use among the Yoruba, and has brought a range of new alphabetical characters (c, q, x, v and z) into the Yoruba mind-space. Many of these are in words in scientific context and do not have Yoruba direct translations. For example, chemical names like xanthium and calcium, or biological terms such as zygote and virus, or physics concepts such as quantum, cyclone and revolver. Other terms are more mundane such as cake, car, saxophone, video, zoo, quack, and computer.
Thirdly, a whole range of new characters have evolved internationally and been adopted by the Yoruba. These include currency symbols such as the Nigerian Naira (₦) and the Ghana Cedi (Ȼ); abbreviations for copyright (c), registered (r) and trademark (TM), and the web-centric @.
The Yoruba thinker, Remi-NIyi Alaran has proposed an adaptation of the Crowther marking system. The Alaran method involves putting 'both' diacritical marks above the character. Benefits of this method include clearer underlining, less visual clutter, and improved ease of Yoruba language localisation:
|
| À à |
A a |
Á á |
B b |
D d |
È è |
E e |
É é |
Ḕ ḕ |
Ė ė |
Ḗ ḗ |
F f |
G g |
GB gb |
H h |
Ì ì |
| I i |
Í í |
J j |
K k |
L l |
M m |
N n |
Ò ò |
O o |
Ó ó |
Ṑ ṑ |
Ȯ ȯ |
Ṓ ṓ |
P p |
R r |
S s |
| Ṡ ṡ |
T t |
Ù ù |
U u |
Ú ú |
W w |
Y y |
₦ |
C c |
Q q |
V v |
X x |
Z z |
Ȼ |
@ |
© |
Phonology
The three possible syllable structures of Yoruba are consonant+vowel (CV), vowel alone (V), and syllabic nasal (N). Every syllable bears one of the three tones: high ⟨⟩, mid ⟨⟩ (generally left unmarked), and low ⟨⟩. The sentence ''
I didn't go provides examples of the three syllable types: — [ŋ̄] —
I
- ò — [ó] — not (negation)
- lọ — [lɔ] — to go
Vowels
Standard Yoruba has seven oral and five nasal vowels. There are no diphthongs in Yoruba; sequences of vowels are pronounced as separate syllables. Dialects differ in the number of vowels they have; see above.
| |
Oral vowels |
Nasal vowel A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the velum so that air escapes both through nose as well as the mouth. By contrast, oral vowels are ordinary vowels without this nasalisation...
s |
| Front A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also...
|
Back A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark...
|
Front |
Back |
| Close A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the...
|
i |
u |
ĩ |
ũ |
| Close-mid A close-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from a close vowel to a mid vowel...
|
e |
o |
|
|
| Open-mid An open-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of an open-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from an open vowel to a mid vowel...
|
ɛ |
ɔ |
ɛ̃ |
ɔ̃ |
| Open An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue...
|
a |
|
The status of a fifth nasal vowel, [ã], is controversial. Although the sound does occur in speech, several authors have argued it to be not phonemically contrastive; often, it is in free variation with [ɔ̃]. Orthographically, nasal vowels are normally represented by an oral vowel symbol followed by ⟨n⟩ (i.e., ⟨in⟩, ⟨un⟩, ⟨ẹn⟩, ⟨ọn⟩), except in case of the [n] allophone of /l/ (see below) preceding a nasal vowel, i.e.
inú 'inside, belly' is actually pronounced [īnṹ].
Consonants
| |
LabIal Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals...
|
AlveolarAlveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...
|
PostalveolarPostalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate...
/
PalatalPalatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...
|
VelarVelars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....
|
GlottalGlottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider...
|
| plain |
labial |
| Nasal A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...
|
m |
|
|
ŋ ~ ŋ̍ |
|
|
| Plosive |
b |
t d |
ɟ |
k ɡ |
k͡p ɡ͡b |
|
| Fricative Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...
|
f |
s |
ʃ |
|
|
h |
| Approximant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no...
|
|
l ~ n |
j |
|
w |
|
| Rhotic In phonetics, rhotic consonants, also called tremulants or "R-like" sounds, are liquid consonants that are traditionally represented orthographically by symbols derived from the Greek letter rho, including "R, r" from the Roman alphabet and "Р, p" from the Cyrillic alphabet...
|
|
ɾ |
|
|
|
|
The voiceless plosives /t/ and /k/ are slightly aspirated; in some Yoruba varieties, /t/ and /d/ are more dental. The
rhotic consonantIn phonetics, rhotic consonants, also called tremulants or "R-like" sounds, are liquid consonants that are traditionally represented orthographically by symbols derived from the Greek letter rho, including "R, r" from the Roman alphabet and "Р, p" from the Cyrillic alphabet...
is realized as a flap [ɾ], or in some varieties (notably Lagos Yoruba) as the
alveolar approximant [ɹ]. Like many other languages of the region, Yoruba has the
labial-velarLabial–velar consonants are doubly articulated at the velum and the lips. They are sometimes called "labiovelar consonants", a term that can also refer to labialized velars, such as and the approximant ....
stopIn phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...
s /k͡p/ and /ɡ͡b/, e.g.
pápá [k͡pák͡pá] 'field',
[ɡ͡bɔɡ͡bɔ] 'all'. Notably, it lacks the common
voiceless bilabial plosiveThe voiceless bilabial plosive is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is p...
/p/, which is why /k͡p/ is written as ⟨p⟩. It also lacks a
phonemeIn a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
/n/; though the letter ⟨n⟩ is used for the sound in the orthography, it strictly speaking refers to an
allophoneIn phonology, an allophone is one of a set of multiple possible spoken sounds used to pronounce a single phoneme. For example, and are allophones for the phoneme in the English language...
of /l/ which immediately precedes a nasal vowel.
There is also a syllabic nasal which forms a syllable nucleus by itself. When it precedes a vowel it is a velar nasal [ŋ], e.g.
n ò lọ [ŋ ò lɔ] 'I didn't go'. In other cases its place of articulation is homorganic with the following consonant, for example
ó ń lọ [ó ń lɔ] 'he is going',
ó ń fò [ó ḿ fò] 'he is jumping'.
Tone
Yoruba is a tonal language with three level tones: high, low, and mid (the default tone.) Every syllable must have at least one tone; a syllable containing a long vowel can have two tones. Contour tones (i.e. rising or falling tone melodies) are usually analysed as separate tones occurring on adjacent tone bearing units (
moraeMora is a unit in phonology that determines syllable weight, which in some languages determines stress or timing. As with many technical linguistic terms, the definition of a mora varies. Perhaps the most succinct working definition was provided by the American linguist James D...
) and thus have no phonemic status. Tones are marked by use of the acute accent for high tone (⟨á⟩, ⟨ń⟩), the grave accent for low tone (⟨à⟩, ⟨ǹ⟩); Mid is unmarked, except on syllabic nasals where it is indicated using a macron (⟨a⟩, ⟨n̄⟩); see below). Examples:
- H: ó bẹ́ 'he jumped'; síbí 'spoon'
- M: ó bẹ 'he is forward'; ara 'body'
- L: ó bẹ̀ 'he asks for pardon'; ọ̀kọ̀ 'spear'.
Assimilation and elision
When a word precedes another word beginning with a vowel, assimilation or deletion ('
elisionElision is the omission of one or more sounds in a word or phrase, producing a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce...
') of one of the vowels often takes place. In fact, since syllables in Yoruba normally end in a vowel, and most nouns start with one, this is a very common phenomenon, and indeed only is absent in very slow, unnatural speech. The orthography here follows speech in that word divisions are normally not indicated in words that are contracted as a result of assimilation or elision:
ra ẹja →
rẹja 'buy fish'. Sometimes however, authors may choose to use an inverted comma to indicate an elided vowel as in
ní ilé →
n’ílé 'in the house'.
Long vowels within words usually signal that a consonant has been elided word-internally. In such cases, the tone of the elided vowel is retained, e.g.
àdìrò →
ààrò 'hearth';
koríko →
koóko 'grass';
òtító →
òótó 'truth'.
Grammar
Yoruba is a highly
isolating languageAn isolating language is a type of language with a low morpheme-per-word ratio — in the extreme case of an isolating language words are composed of a single morpheme...
, with an index of synthesis of 1.09. Its basic constituent order is subject–verb–object (SVO), as in
ó nà Adé 'he beat Adé'. The bare verb stem denotes a completed action (often called perfect); tense and aspect are marked by preverbal particles such as
ń 'imperfect/present continuous',
ti 'past'. Negation is expressed by a preverbal particle
kò.
Serial verb constructionThe serial verb construction, also known as serialization, is a syntactic phenomenon common to many African, Asian and New Guinean languages...
s are common, as in many other languages of West Africa.
Although Yoruba has no
grammatical genderGrammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
, it does have a distinction between human and non-human nouns; probably a remainder of the noun class system of proto-Niger–Congo, the distinction is only apparent in the fact that the two groups require different interrogative particles:
tani for human nouns (‘who?’) and
kini for non-human nouns (‘what?’). The associative construction (covering
possessivePossessive may be:* Possessive case* Possessive adjective* Possessive pronoun* Possessive suffix* Possessive construction, pattern among words indicating possession * For possessive behavior in a relationship, see Attachment in adults...
/genitive and related notions) consists of juxtaposing nouns in the order modified-modifier as in
inú àpótí {inside box} 'the inside of the box',
fìlà Àkàndé 'Akande’s cap' or
àpótí aṣọ 'box for clothes' (Bamgboṣe 1966:110, Rowlands 1969:45-6). More than two nouns can be juxtaposed:
rélùweè abẹ́ ilẹ̀ (railway under ground) ‘underground railway’,
inú àpótí aṣọ 'the inside of the clothes box'. In the rare case where this results in two possible readings, disambiguation is left to the context. Plural nouns are indicated by a plural word.
There are two ‘prepositions’:
ní ‘on, at, in’ and
sí ‘onto, towards’. The former indicates location and absence of movement, the latter encodes location/direction with movement (Sachnine 1997:19). Position and direction are expressed by these prepositions in combination with spatial relational nouns like
orí ‘top’,
apá ‘side’,
inú ‘inside’,
etí ‘edge’,
abẹ́ ‘under’,
ilẹ̀ ‘down’, etc. Many of these spatial relational terms are historically related to body-part terms.
Background
In his works such as Islam in Africa - West African in Particular, and Missionary and Colonization in Africa, Sheikh Dr. Abu-Abdullah Adelabu used assertions like these to argue that Islam had reached Sub-Sahara Africa, including the Yoruba Lands in West Africa, as early as the first century of Hijrah through Muslim traders and expeditions during the reign of the Arab conquror,
Uqba ibn al Nafia (622–683)Uqba ibn Nafi was an Arab hero and general who was serving the Umayyad dynasty, in Amir Muavia and Yazid periods, who began the Islamic conquest of the Maghreb, including present-day Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Morocco in North Africa. He was the nephew of 'Amr ibn al-'As. Uqba is often surnamed...
whose Islamic conquests under the
UmayyadThe Umayyad Caliphate was the second of the four major Arab caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. It was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty, whose name derives from Umayya ibn Abd Shams, the great-grandfather of the first Umayyad caliph. Although the Umayyad family originally came from the...
dynasty, in Amir Muavia and Yazid periods, spread all Northern Africa or the
Maghrib Al-ArabiThe Maghreb is the region of Northwest Africa, west of Egypt. It includes five countries: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Mauritania and the disputed territory of Western Sahara...
, including present-day
AlgeriaAlgeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
,
TunisiaTunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...
,
LibyaLibya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
and
MoroccoMorocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
.
The wide adoption of imported religions and civilizations such as Islam and Christianity has managed to lay impacts both on written and spoken Yoruba. In his Arabic-English Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Quran and Sunnah, the Nigerian Muslim academic Sheikh Dr. Adelabu argued Islam has enriched African languages by providing them with technical and cultural augmentations with
Ki-SwahiliSwahili or Kiswahili is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Mozambique Channel coastline from northern Kenya to northern Mozambique, including the Comoro Islands. It is also spoken by ethnic minority groups in Somalia...
and
Af-SomaaliThe Somali language is a member of the East Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Its nearest relatives are Afar and Oromo. Somali is the best documented of the Cushitic languages, with academic studies beginning before 1900....
in East Africa and
Turanci HausaHausa is the Chadic language with the largest number of speakers, spoken as a first language by about 25 million people, and as a second language by about 18 million more, an approximate total of 43 million people...
and
Fula-NyamiWolof is a language spoken in Senegal, The Gambia, and Mauritania, and is the native language of the Wolof people. Like the neighbouring languages Serer and Fula, it belongs to the Atlantic branch of the Niger–Congo language family...
in West Africa the most beneficiaries. Sheikh Adelabu, a Ph D graduate from Damascus cited - among many other common usages - the following words to be Yoruba's derivatives of Arabic vocabularies:
Some Loan Words
- Alaafia i.e. Good, Fine Or Health(y) from derivative Al-Aafiah (Ar. العافية)
- Sanma i.e. heaven or sky adopted for Samaa` (Ar. السماء)
- Alubarika i.e. blessing used as Al-Barakah (Ar. البركة)
- Wakati i.e. hour or time formed from Waqt (Ar. وقت)
- Alubosa i.e. onion as Al-Basal (Ar. االبصل)
- Adua or Adura i.e. prayer or supplication from Ad-du'a (Ar. الدعاء)
- Asiri i.e. Secret or Hidden derivative of As-Sirr (Ar. السرّ)
Meanwhile, among commonly Arabic words used in Yoruba Language are names of the days such as Atalata (Ar. Ath-Thulatha الثلاثاء) for Tuesday, Alaruba (Ar. Al-Arbi'a الأربعاء) for Wednesday, Alamisi (Ar. Al-Khamis الخميس) for Thursday, and Jimoh (Ar. Al-Jum'ah الجمعة) for Friday. By far Ojo Jimoh is the most favourably used. It's usually preferred to the unpleasant word for Friday, Eti, which means failure, laziness or abandonment.
Written literature
- Wande Abimbola
Wande Abimbola, is a Nigerian academician, a professor of Yoruba language and literature and former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ife , and has also served as the Majority Leader of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria...
- Fayemi Fatunde Fakayode, Aare Agbefaga of Yorubaland
- Adebisi Aromolaran, king of Ijesaland
- Daniel Olorunfemi Fagunwa
- Adebayo Faleti
Adebayo Faleti is a Nigerian poet, writer and actor. He has attended the University of Dakar in Dakar, Senegal, the University of Ibadan, in Ibadan, Nigeria, and the Radio Netherlands Training center in Hilversum, Netherlands. Among the movies he has appeared in are Saworo-Ide,Agogo-Eewo, and...
- Akinwunmi Isola
Professor Akinwunmi Isola is a Nigerian playwright, actor, dramatist, culture activist and scholar. He is known for his writing in, and his work in promoting, the Yoruba language....
- Obo Aba Hisanjani
Obo Aba Hisanjani is a Nigerian poet.He was born in the small village of Ajah, now a bustling marketplace. He has campaigned against the development and exploitation of the surrounding areas for purely commercial purposes...
- Duro Ladipo
Duro Ladipo was one of the best known and critically acclaimed Yoruba dramatists that emerged from postcolonial Africa. Writing solely in the Yoruba language, he captivated the symbolic spirit of Yoruba mythologies in his plays which were later adapted to other medium such as Photography,...
- J.F. Odunjo
- Afolabi Olabimtan
Afolabi Olabimtan was a Nigerian politician, writer, and academic. He was born in Ogun State and was later the senator for Ogun West from 1999 to 2003. He died in a motor accident in August 2003....
- Sobowole Sowande
- Wole Soyinka
Akinwande Oluwole "Wole" Soyinka is a Nigerian writer, poet and playwright. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, where he was recognised as a man "who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence", and became the first African in Africa and...
, winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize in LiteratureSince 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...
- Amos Tutuola
Amos Tutuola was a Nigerian writer famous for his books based in part on Yoruba folk-tales.- Early history :Tutuola was born in Abeokuta, Nigeria, in 1920, where his parents Charles and Esther were Yoruba Christian cocoa farmers. When about 7 years old, he became a servant for F.O...
External links