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Yoruba (native title Yorúbà ) occurs as dialect continuum of sub-Saharan Africa. A native tongue of the Yoruba people, it is spoken, among more languages, inside Nigeria, Benin, and Togo and traces of it are uncovered among communities inside Brazil and Cuba (where these are known as Nago). It belongs to the Benue-Congo branch of the Niger-Congo language family, & has concluded 22 million speakers. Yoruba is an isolating, tonal language with SVO syntax. Apart from either on to a idiom bunch & its speakers as a whole, the term Yoruba is utilized for the standard, written form of the language.
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History
A ascendant of the Yoruba speakers is, based on data from their unwritten traditions, Oduduwa, son of Olúdùmarè, a supreme god of the Yoruba. Although it part a most common history, these are just since the 2nd half nineteenth century that the children of OduduwaPart of these title. Prior to a abolishment of the slave trade, a few Yoruba groups were known among Europeans when Akú, a title from either the 1st words of Yoruba salutation like Ẹ kú à árá»?Ì€ ‘good morning’ & Ẹ kú alẹÌ? ‘good evening’.At a few stage a term Yariba or even Yoruba inherit utilise, 1st confined to the Ọyá»? Kingdom. Under a influence of Samuel Crowther and subsequent missionaries, and for a big the portion due to the development of a written version of the language, the term Yoruba was touch include tons speakers of related accent.
Dialects
A Yoruba accent continuum consists of concluded 15 varieties which may be classified into trine major idiom areas: Northwest, Exchange, & Southeast.*Northwest Yoruba.
Abẹokuta, Ibadan, Ọyá»?, & Ọṣun areas
Central Yoruba
Ekiti, Akurẹ, Ẹfá»?n, & Ijẹṣthe areas.
Southeast Yoruba
Okitipupa, Ondo, Ọw�, Ṣagamu, & area of Ijẹbu.
Standard Yoruba
Standard Yoruba (also referred to as literary Yoruba, a Yoruba koiné, most common Yoruba & typically only when Yoruba) occurs as separate member of the accent clustering. These are a written form of a language, the standard kind accepted by virtually all of the idiom speakers. Standard Yoruba has its origin in the 1850's, after Samuel The. Crowther, native Yorubthe & a number one African Bishop, promulgated a Yoruba grammar & began his translation of the Bible. Though for a big section according to the Ọy� & Ibadan accent, Standard Yoruba incorporates many features from either more accent. In addition, it hwhen a few features peculiar to itself simply, e.g. a simplified vowel harmony rules, likewise as foreign structures, like calques from English which originated around early translations of religious works.
Notably, a utilise of Standard Yoruba did non symptom from either a select few studied linguistic policy & following, great deal argument is when to what is 'echt Yoruba'. Standard Yorubthe has even so been the mighty consolidating factor the emergence of a most common Yoruba identity.
Phonology
A troika conceivable syllable structures of Yoruba come consonant+vowel (C5), vowel alone (V), & syllabic rhinal (North). Each syllable bears one of a ternary tones: high Ì?, mid ' ''I personally didn't last will bring examples of the trine syllable types:
— I
ò — — non (negation)
lọ — — to go
Vowels
A vowel phonemes of Yoruba come:
! rowspan=Two |
! colspan=Two | Oral vowels
! colspan=Deuce | Nasal vowels
|-
! Front
! Back
! Front
! Back
|-
! Close
| align=center | | align=center | | align=center | | align=center | |-
! Close-mid
| align=center | | align=center | |
|
|-
! Open-mid
| align=center | | align=center | | align=center | | align=center | |-
! Open
| align=center colspan=Deuce | | colspan=Two |
|}
the status of a fifth rhinal vowel, Ortographically, rhinal vowels come represented by anorth unwritten vowel symbol followed by n, we.e. around, unorth, ẹn, ọn.
Consonants
!
!Bilabial
!Labiodental
!Alveolar
!Postalveolar
!Palatal
!Velar
!Labial-velar
!Glottal
|-
|Plosive
| align=center | |
| align=center | |
| align=center | | align=center | | align=center | |
|-
|Nasal
| align=center | |
| align=center | ()
|
|
|
|
|
|-
|Fricative
|
| align=center | | align=center | | align=center | |
|
|
| align=center | |-
|Approximant
|
|
| align=center| |
| align=center| |
| align=center| |
|-
|Lateral approximant
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| align=center | |
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There exists likewise the syllabic nasal, which forms a syllable nucleus by itself. After it precedes the vowel these are the velar rhinal . Around more events its place of articulation is homorganic with a ensuing consonant.
| Prior to:
| Pronounced:
|-
| | align=center | |-
| | align=center | |-
| | align=center | |-
| | align=center | |-
| , vowel
| align=center | |-
| | align=center | |}
Tone
A tonemes of Yoruba are:
! Tone
| align=center | Every bit written ended a
| align=center | Every bit written across syllabic n''
|-
| High
| align=center | á
| align=center | |-
| Mid
| align=center | a
| align=center | |-
| Low
| align=center | Ã
| align=center | |}
Writing system
Yoruba writing system originated in the early act of Crowther. Within early translations of portions of a English Bible, Crowther utilized the Latin alphabet forswearing tone markings. the exclusively diacritical mark utilized was a dot in the image below certain vowels to signify their open variants , viz. ẹ & �. Above a years a writing system was revised to require care of tone marking among more items. Within 1875 a Church Missionary Society (CMS) organised a conference in Yoruba writing system; a standard devised there was a basis for the orthography of the steadily flow of religious & training literature above the next lxx years.
A todays writing system of Yoruba derives from either Ayọ Bamgboṣe's 1965 Yoruba Orthography, the major reform of the earliest writing system. It employs a Latin alphabet modified by the apply of the digraph gb and certain diacritics, including a traditional vertical line placed under the letters . Within several publications the line is replaced by a dot (Ẹ/ẹ, Ọ/ọ, Ṣ/ṣ).
A Latin letters c,Letter q, v, x, z are non utilized.
A pronunciation of the letters forgoing diacritical mark corresponds or so to their International Phonetic Alphabet equivalents, except for the labial-velar stops like a English sh, <y> is the palatal approximant like English y, as is park within numerous African writing system.
Tone markings
Additionally to the vertical blocks, terniin farther diacritical mark come utilized on vowels & syllabic nasal consonants to indicate a language's tones: an acute accent for the high tone, a grave accent for the low tone, & an optional macron for the middle tone. Which are actually utilized additionally to the line inside sustaining tone rising from either online to high) or even, thomas more seldom around todays usage, combined into one accent. Therein out break, the caron is used for a rising tone (thus the last case would become written Ç’) & the tilde for other possibilities.
Notes and references
Notes
Fagborun 1994:13.
This widely followed classification is according to Adetugbá»?’s (1982) dialectological learn — a classification originated inside his 1967 PhD thesis A Yoruba Language around American Nigeria: Its Major Dialect Areas.
Cf. for instance a every bit a result remark by Adetugb� (1967, as cited inside Fagborun 1994:25): "While the orthography agreed upon by the missionaries represented to a very large degree the phonemes of the Abẹokuta dialect, the morpho-syntax reflected the Ọy�-Ibadan dialects".
Notably, AyoŃ BamgbosŃe (1966:8).
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