You have plans to travel to Benin or Nigeria or any other Yoruba speaking country soon. What are the top 25 words you should know to be able to communicate lightly with indigenous citizens? First, let’s delve into a bit of history of the great African language. Yoruba is a language spoken in West Africa. The main language of people of the Oyo Empire and Benin Empire, it was exported to communities along the West African coast as far as Liberia, via trade and military expansion of those two empires (Oyo and Benin). The number of speakers of Yoruba is approaching 30 million according to Wikipedia sources. It is a pluricentric language this means that it is a language with several interacting codified standard versions, often corresponding to different countries. Examples include English, French, Portuguese, German, Korean, Serbo-Croatian, Spanish, Swedish, Armenian and Chinese. A language that has only one formally standardized version is monocentric. Examples include Russian and Japanese.
Yoruba first appeared in writing during the 19th century. The first Yoruba publications were a number of teaching booklets produced by John Raban in 1830. The person who made the biggest contribution to Yoruba literacy was Bishop Ajayi (Samual) Crowther (1806-1891), who studied many of the languages of Nigeria, including Yoruba, wrote and translated in some of them. Crowther was also the first Christian bishop of West African origin. Today, we shall identify and translate 25 words from Yoruba to English.
Yoruba English
- Ló Go
- Jéun̂ Eat
- Bawoni? Hello
- ilè-iwé School
- òlukó Teacher
- ṣibì Spoon
- òruň Sun
- òjá Market
- iwé Book
- àsó Cloth
- bàtá Shoe
- òmị Water
- jádè Out
- wólè In
- jókò Sit
- in̑a Fire
- òbẹ Knife
- ị̇sé Work
- irún Hair
- òjụ Eye
- ịmû Nose
- énụ Mouth
- étị Ear
- ịlù City
- òrilè èdé Country
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