11 Facts About Yoruba language

The number of Yoruba speakers is roughly 45 million, plus about 2 million second-language speakers.

Yoruba language group is assumed to have developed out of undifferentiated Volta–Niger populations by the 1st millennium BC.

Settlements of early Yoruba language speakers are assumed to correspond to those found in the wider Niger area from about the 4th century BC, especially at Ife.

The North-West Yoruba language dialects show more linguistic innovation than the Southeast and Central dialects.

South-East Yoruba was probably associated with the expansion of the Benin Empire after c 1450.

Related searches

Peculiar to Central and Eastern Yoruba language, is the ability to begin words with the vowel [?:] which in Western Yoruba language has been changed to [?:].

Standard Yoruba has its origin in the 1850s, when Samuel A Crowther, the first native African Anglican bishop, published a Yoruba grammar and started his translation of the Bible.

Nevertheless, Yoruba language Ajami remained idiosyncratic and not socially diffused, as there was no standardized orthography.

Standard Yoruba language orthography originated in the early work of Church Mission Society missionaries working among the Aku of Freetown.

The Yoruba alphabet was standardized along with other Benin languages in the National Languages Alphabet by the National Language Commission in 1975, and revised in 1990 and 2008 by the National Center for Applied Linguistics.

The Yoruba language talking drum 'Dundun'or 'iya ilu' which accompanies singing during festivals and important ceremonies uses tone.