Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 31. Chapters: Oduduwa, Orisha, Yoruba
language, Ifá, Yoruba medicine, Yoruba religion, Ibeji, Babalawo,
Yoruba music, Death and the King's Horseman, Yoruba literature,
Egungun, Oríkì, Ayagunna, Adire, Yoruba name, Ayoayo, Itan, Yoruba
traditional art, The Yoruba Academy, Abiku, Aláàrìnjó, Itutu,
Obaala. Excerpt: Yorùbá (native name èdè Yorùbá, 'the Yorùbá
language') is a Niger-Congo language spoken in West Africa by
approximately 20 million speakers. The native tongue of the Yoruba
people, it is spoken, among other languages, in Nigeria, Benin, and
Togo and in communities in other parts of Africa, Europe and the
Americas. It is most closely related to the Itsekiri language
spoken in the Niger-Delta and Igala spoken in central Nigeria. It
is more widely related to other Nigerian Niger-Congo languages
including Edo, Igbo and Nupe. The ancestor of the Yoruba speakers
is, according to their oral traditions, Oduduwa. Although they
share a common history, it is only since the 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 ¿y¿ 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, glottochronology, 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. 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. Central Yoruba (CY) South-East
Yoruba (SEY) North-Wes
