The yoruba language is a nigercongo language spoken in west africa. These are the rainy season apriloctober and the dry season novembermarch temperatures ranges between 21. The number of speakers of yoruba was estimated at around 20 million in the 1990s. Pdf linguistic landscape of religious signboards in ado.
The native tongue of the yoruba people is spoken, among other languages, in nigeria, benin, and togo and in communities in other parts of africa, europe and the americas. In addition to these areas they also inhabit the southeastern part of the republic of beninformer dahomey. The people of ekiti are culturally homogenous and speak a unique central yoruba cy dialect of yoruba language known as ekiti. The progress scale is derived from people group values for percent evangelical and percent christian adherent. Despite its comparatively large geographical spread, ekiti remains relatively uniform within the areas where it is spoken. Reader seyi adebayo wrote me an interesting email and explained that adding an r would be a typical habit of ekiti dialect speakers. The homogeneous nature of ekiti confers on the state some uniqueness among the states of the federation.
Ekiti dialect is one of the dialects of the central yoruba cy dialect group. But actuallly, yoruba is not a dialect of igala and igala is not a dialect of yoruba. Igala and yoruba have important historical and cultural relationships. It attempts to answer the clarion call of awobuluyi 1988.
The homogenous nature of ekiti confers on the state some uniqueness among the state of the. The state enjoys tropical climate with two distinct seasons. However, the occurrence of this process differs in the language and its dialects. It is a pluricentric language spoken principally in nigeria and benin, with communities in sierra leone, liberia, other parts of africa, the americas, and europe. The three major nigerian languages igbo, yoruba and hausa are. Majority of the speakers of the lan guage reside in the southwestern part of nigeria but aside from nigeria, the language is also spoken in countries like re. The yoruba language yoruba is one of the three major nigerian languages the other two being hausa and igbo spoken majorly in south western nigeria. The woman in yoruba culture the yoruba people predominantly belong to the oyo, ogun, ondo, osun, ekiti and lagos states. It was to find out the features that distinguish ilorin yoruba accent from the received pronunciation. Land tenure system in ekiti state, nigeria 7607 felix ajibade nigeria.
An account utilizing alignment constraints pulleyblank 1996 succeeds in capturing the crossdialectal patterns of tongueroot harmony in all four dialects of yoruba, however it relies on the formulation. This is paper is on ondo dialect, one of the varieties of the standard yoruba. It is a pluricentric language spoken principally in nigeria and benin, with communities in sierra leone, liberia, other parts of africa, the americas, and. This paper investigates the pronouns of ode dialect, a sub ekiti dialect of yoruba, and points out the areas in which it differs from other subdialects of ekiti and yoruba language.
Ekiti people are called ekitis and the language is generally yoruba but the native dialect is ekiti. Ileife, others migrated from outsidemaybe even beyond nigerian territories to mix with the people and create new cultural consciousness ekiti is only referred to as yoruba today because most ekiti kete speak oyo language. The dialect generally transients into ijesha speech towards the west beyond the effon ridge. It is spoken by about twenty million people mosadomi, 2009. Language attitudes research studies on language attitudes to foreign languages and nigerian languages show that educated nigerians have a disposition to english. Slight differences are noticeable in the ekiti dialect of the yoruba language spoken by the people. The language commonly spoken by the ekiti people is a distinct yoruba dialect also named ekiti. These works include the comparison between the focus construction in yoruba language and the. The implications for its teaching as a second language by o. This paper takes a look at the morphosyntactic and sociocultural characteristics of the pronouns in ondo dialect speaking areas with the ultimate aim of enriching our knowledge on their forms. The languages of the two ethnic groups bear such a close resemblance that researchers such as forde 1951 and westermann and bryan 1952 regarded igala as a dialect of yoruba. Praises in ekiti dialect of yoruba language youtube.
According to yoruba mythology, some of oduduwa sons were in search of new land to develop and they found their way to present day ekiti. Abstract the ethnography of communication, particularly of greetings, among speakers of some yoruba dialects is the major concern of this paper. The joshua project progress scale is an estimate of the progress of church planting among a people group, people cluster, country or language. Department of linguistics and nigerian languages, ekiti state university, adoekiti, nigeria 1,2email address. Ife, ekiti, igbomina yoruba speaking communities in nigeria. It also claims that interrogative marker is not completely absent in the dialects of yoruba.
Ekitis are culturally homogenous and they speak a dialect of yoruba language known as ekiti. States with the highest number of professors in nigeria. Topics yoruba language collection opensource language english. The number of speakers of yoruba is estimated between 30 and 40 million, primarily by the ethnic yoruba people. It is also used widely as a second language in this area. Ekiti state is located in the south west geopolitical zone of the country. Prior to the british coming to nigeria in the 19th century, ekiti was an independent state. The yoruba make up one of the major ethnic groups in modern nigeria where they occupy the whole of ogun, ondo, oyo, osun, ekiti, and lagos states and a substantial part of kwara and edo states. The standard yoruba is a blend of two closely related dialects, oyo and lagos. Taxation of the informal sector of ekiti state nigeria. The other yoruboid languages include igala and itsekiri.
It is limited to only these varieties as they are the main focus of. This is evident in the point that a significant percentage of the. This paper contributes to the few works on the pronouns in the dialects of yoruba. Nairaland forum nairaland general culture list of yoruba dialects 72349 views the dialects of ibibio and where they are spoken the various dialects of the urhobo language and where they are spoken a list of igbo dialects and where their speakers are found. This paper shows that the hts usually gets deleted in ekiti dialects. Many yoruba scholars such as awobuluyi 1978, yusuf 1989, ajiboye 2006, akintoye 2015, awoyale 1985 that have worked on focus construction in yoruba language and its dialects affirm the two types of focus construction exist in yoruba language. The impact of yoruba language on the spoken english of students indigenes of ilorin township abstract this study has set out to find the influence of yoruba language on the sound system of spoken english language among the indigenous ilorin yoruba undergraduate students.
The name yoruba wasis specifically in reference to oyo back in the days, ileoodua as it was called consisted of many independent nations most of whom migrated from. Ekiti dialect is spoken mainly in ekiti state as well as in some parts of ondo state of nigeria. Reconsidering the influence of islam on yoruba cultural. This is a work on dialectal variation focusing on a comparative study between ikere and ijebu of the yoruba language, as spoken by the people of ekiti and ogun state respectively, with a view to determining the linguistic status of both varieties. The people of ekiti form one of the largest ethnic groups in the yoruba nation. Five have a considerable influence of islam on yoruba culture historically. The question of their origin is debatableand in the.
Ekitis are culturally homogeneous and the speak a dialect of yoruba language known as ekiti. Abstract the paper focuses on regional or local variations in english in nigeria with particular reference to spoken english in which the variations are most noticeable. Its loan words are mostly from arabic, english, hausa and igbo languages. During the praise night of lagos province 33 in march 2017, one of its area choir presented songs using the ekiti dialect of yoruba language.
This central yoruba cy dialect of yoruba language belongs to the larger nigercongo language family. The number of speakers of yoruba is around 40 million. The nonvernacular remains of the language in the caribbean, lucumi, is the liturgical language. Theyequally formparts of edo, kwara and kogi states. It is spoken as a first language in oyo, ogun, ondo, osun, ekiti, lagos and parts of kwara, kogi and edo states arokoyo, 2010. Ekiti state university, adoekiti, nigeria a,bemail address. In some regions there is diglossia between standard yoruba, considered as a high variety, and the low variety dialects.
Apart from identifying the various markers of tense and aspect in the language, it examines their distributions in negative constructions particularly as they differ from the standard yoruba. It is an honor due, in part, to the sociopolitical importance and sheer number of its speakers. Yoruba language, one of a small group of languages that comprise the yoruboid cluster of the defoid subbranch of the benuecongo branch of the nigercongo language family. Since 1983 it is an official language of the national assembly of benin. Yoruba has about twenty dialects plus a standard form that is close to the. Yoruba is spoken by more than 20 million people in southwestern nigeria and parts of benin and togo. This is affected by their partial locations, especially the border communities to other states ekiti state government bulletin, 2011.
There is no doubt that in any culture or civilization, language is basic, and wherever you find a similar language being spoken, there is no doubt that there must be some historical connection. Deconstructing the philosophical and sociopolitical. The high tone syllable occurs between the subject and the verb in central yoruba dialects. Electoral behavior and politics of stomach infrastructure. Reconsidering the influence of islam on yoruba cultural heritage, 19301987 akeem abiodun oladiti, phd. The homogenous nature of ekiti confers on the state some uniqueness among the states of the federation.
759 1167 1212 441 177 681 1401 712 1379 655 1063 378 1189 612 602 1335 1129 1124 235 1222 617 1031 494 1131 804 1387 1279 356 253 1115 1062 287 1232 861 272 1138 1415 981 1248 784 532 241 1281 1313 1173