Yorúlish as a Yorùbá Dialect

            It is no more news to say that Yoruba is being spoken beyond the boundaries of Nigeria.  We have Yoruba speakers in Benin and Sierra Leone and the language is used in religious activities in Cuba and Bahia in Brazil.  We also have Yorùbá revivalists in Oyotunji Village in America. A Ph.D. student recently defended his thesis on Mofoli, a Yoruba dialect spoken in Benin Republic[1] and Oyelaran (1982) has written on Yoruba speakers in Sierra Leone and the influence of Yoruba on the religious activities of the African Americans in North Carolina.  Abimbola (1977) also worked on the Yoruba traditional religion in Brazil.  An excerpt from what he brought back from Brazil goes thus:

 

Ìbà Èṣù                                   I pay homage to Èṣù

            Ẹ̀sù Láàlú,                              Èṣù, nicknamed Láàlú.

            Èṣù dènà,                               Èṣù kinsman of Dènà

            Èsù Nàná,                           Èsù, kinsman of Nàná,

5          Mo júbà,                                I salute you,

            O dàbọ,                                  I say goodbye to you.

            Ilé bábá tìrẹ,              I pay homage to your ancestors,

            Mo júbà,                                I salute and pay homage to them,

            O dàbọ,                                  I say goodbye to them.

10        Ọbalúayé,                              I say Obáluayé,

            Mo júbà,                                I salute and pay homage to you,

            O dàbọ̀,                                  I say goodbye.

            Ẹ̀yin Ọ̀sányìn,                       You, Ọ̀sanyìn,

            Ẹlẹ́ṣẹ̀ kan,                              With one leg,

15        Ẹlẹ́sẹ̀ méjì,                             And those with two legs,

            Mo júbà,                                I salute and pay homage to you,

            Ó dàbọ̀,                                  I say goodbye.

Ṣàngó; Káwòó, kábíèsílẹ̀,    Sàngó whose salute is kawoo, the king whose greeting is Kábíyèsílè.

Àkáká yẹrí yẹrì.                    The hard man of the blazing fire.

20        Mo júbà,                                I salute and pay homage to you.

            Ó dàbọ̀,                                  I say goodbye.

            Ọmọ́ Bàbálàwó,                    This son of babaláwo

            Ọmọ́ Ifá, Ogún,                     Son of Ifa and Ògún,

            Ẹlẹ́dàá rẹ̀,                               I like to find out the ẹlẹ́dá

25        Ọ̀mọ́ Ògún,                            Of this son of Ògún.

            Oore yèyé o.                          I salute Ọṣun, Oore yèyé.

            Mo júbà,                                I salute you.

            Ó dàbọ̀, - - -                           I also say goodbye.

                                                                                                (Abimbọla 1977:9-10)

What we will notice is that this excerpt is just like a typical Yoruba dialect.  Here I would like to remind us that our major interest in this paper is not about this so called dialect per se but its users.  These users of this Yoruba in diaspora are interested in learning the so-called real Yoruba (our own type of Yoruba in Nigeria) not only in their own country but they are also interested in coming over to Nigeria to learn the language.  I know some people will be surprised to hear that Yoruba is one of the minority languages in the United States of America and that the Universities where Yoruba is being studied in the United States are more than the Universities where the language is being studied in Nigeria.  Whereas there are about ten Universities in Nigeria where Yoruba is being studied, there are over twenty Universities in the United States where the language is being studied.  Some of these Universities are Yale University, University of Wisconsin, University of Florida and Ohio State University.  The language is also studied at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London and the University of Birmingham, both in Britain.  Since 1993, the Department of Education in the United States of America has been sending students to Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ifẹ̀, Nigeria for a course of eight weeks.  The most recent of such were those who left for the US on August 8, 2005. 

 

The question is, what can we do to reciprocate the good investments of these foreign countries on our language? We need not only to nationalize the use of Yorùbá in education but to globalize it. As things would have it, the speakers of these foreign languages are also interested in studying our language. We should try as much as possible to write books that will be useful to them. To do this, we need to know where their problems as foreign learners of the language lie. The following is an excerpt from some Yorùbá sentences written by some foreign students. Let us examine some of the problems of some of these sentences that the students had with Yoruba.

 

(1)       Mo kò kọrin ṣùgbọ́n mo jó, pupọ

            I did not sing but I danced a lot

The problem with this sentence is that the first person pronoun in the subject position, ‘mo’, should not be used before the negator, ‘kò’. Its variant, n , should be used..

(2)       Mo rántí ń fetí sí rédíò pẹ̀lú màmá mi ní ilé rẹ̀

            I remembered listening to the radio with my mother in her house.

            The correct Yoruba version of (2) is (3):

(3)       Mo rántí pé mo máa ń fetí sí rédíò pèlú màmá mi ní ilé rẹ̀[2]

The nominalizer, pé ‘that’, has been omitted from the student’s example. He also omitted the second pronoun, mo.

(4)       Mo kọ lẹ́tà ní ilé màmá mi ní tábìlì pẹ̀lú péńsùlù[3]

            I wrote letters in my mother’s house on the table with a pencil.

The problem with this sentence is the use of the Yoruba ní, for the English  on instead of ní orí.

(5)       Mo tẹ́ bẹ́ẹ̀dì àti ya irun[4]

            I make my bed and comb my hair

Yoruba does not join two verbs or two verb phrases together with àti ‘and’ as this student has done but English allows it. It is quite unfortunate to note that the majority of our broadcasters, these days, are also making this mistake.

(6)       Mo wọ bọ́ọ̀sì sí ọjà[5]

I take the bus to the market.

The verb lọ‘to go’ that should precede the preposition sí ‘to’ in Yoruba has been left out because it is not in the English translation.

(7)       Mo lọ ilé ọ̀rẹ́ mi sì ṣeré bọọlu[6]

            I go to my friend’s house to play ball

The problem with this sentence is that sì, the preverb, has been mistaken for the preposition sí ‘to’. Thus, instead of translating “to play” as “làti ṣeré or láti gbá”, he translated it as “sì ṣeré”. There is also a problem with the conjunction which we shall touch upon later.

(8)       Ó ni onírẹ̀lẹ̀ àti òṣìṣẹ́ gan-an ni[7]

            She is humble and a very hard worker

Instead of using ‘jẹ́’ the student used ‘ni’ following the structure of such sentences as “Olú ni Olùkọ́ wa” (Olú is our teacher) where ni is translated as ‘is’. We should note herehowever, that even if we replace ni with jẹ́ in the sentence, the problem with the conjunction will still be there.

(9)       Mo ṣeré bọ́ọ̀lù ní ibẹ̀ àti jẹ oúnjẹ dáradára ní ibẹ̀[8]

            I play ball there and eat good food there.

The problems here are the use of ṣeré for ‘play’ instead of gbá and the use of àti ‘and’ to join two sentences together.

(10)     Àwá fẹ́ ọ̀jọ̀gbọ́n wa Yorùbá[9]

            We like our Yoruba professor

The pronoun qualifier that should occur after ‘Yorùbá’ has been placed before it. Fẹ́ràn should also have been used instead of fẹ́.

(11)     N kò fẹ́ jẹ́ adájọ́. Wọ́n ṣiṣẹ́ púpọ̀[10]

            I do not want to be a judge. They work a lot.

The habitual marker máa ń or ń which is obligatory in the second sentence in Yoruba has been left out.

This type of error analysis which should precede the writing of any textbook for a second language learner is not often done. To me, they are not errors. Just as we have Chinglish for Chinese language speakers, I think we should now be thinking of Yorulish for Yorùbá language learners who are English.

Conclusion

            What I have touched upon here is a challenge for each of us. A textbook for non-speakers of a language should be organised along the lines of a linguistic grammar of speech. In doing this, however, one should not lose sight of the pedagogic implications of such a linguistic description.

 

References

Abimbola, Wande (1977), “The Yoruba Traditional Religion in Brazil: Problems and Prospects”, Seminar Series No1, Vol.1, edited by O.O.Oyelaran, pp. 1-63. Ife: Department of African Languages and Literatures, OAU, Ife.

Fabunmi, F.A. (2009), Itupale Girama Mofoli (A Grammatical Analysis of Yoruba Mofoli). Cape Town: CASAS.

Oyelaran, O.O. (1982), “Orisa in Aku Culture: Revalorization or Folkorization”, in Proceedings of the First World Conference on Orisa Tradition and Culture, 1-7 June, 1981, Ile-Ife, edited by Wande Abimbola, pp. 384-406. (Preliminary Publication).

Wilkins, D.A. (1975), Linguistics in Language Teaching. London: Edward Arnold

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[1] This has now been published as Fabunmi (2009).

[2] Or better still, ‘Mo rántí pé èmi àti mama mi máa jọ ń fetí sí rédíò nínú ilé rẹ̀’.

[3] The correction version should be ‘Mo kọ lẹ́tà ní ilé màmá mi pẹ̀lú pẹ́ńsùlù’. A monolingual Yorùbá speaker would say ‘Mo fi pẹ́ńsùlù kọ lẹ́tà ní orí tábìlì ní ilé mọ̀mọ́ mi’.

[4] The correct version will be ‘Mo tẹ́ bẹ́ẹ̀dì mo sì ya irun’.

[5] This should be ‘Mo wọ bọ́ọ̀sì lọ sí ọjà’.

[6] This should be ‘Mo lọ sí ilé ọ̀rẹ́ mi láti gbá bọ́ọ̀lù’.

[7] This should be ‘Ó jẹ́ onírẹ̀lẹ̀ a sì máa ṣiṣẹ́ gan-an ni’.

[8] This should be ‘Mo gbá bọ́ọ̀lù ní ibẹ̀ mo sì jẹun ní ibẹ̀’.

[9] This should be ‘Àwá fẹ́ràn Ọ̀jọ̀gbọ́n Yorùbá wa’.

[10] This should be ‘N kò fẹ́ jẹ́ adájọ́. Wọ́n ń ṣiṣẹ́ púpọ̀’. A monolingual Yorùbá speaker would say ‘N kò fẹ́ ṣiṣẹ́ adájọ́ nítorí pé wọ́n máa ń ṣiṣẹ́ púpọ̀’.