The
language of the Yoruba people. It is related to other languages of southern
Nigeria, foremost
Igbo, and has traditionally been classified in the
Kwa family, which includes the main
Akan languages of Ghana to the west. But the Yoruba-Igbo group might in fact belong with the
Benue-Congo family to the east, whose main branch is
Bantu.
Yoruba has eleven vowels. A dot under the letters e and o indicates a mid-low pronunciation (as in bear, saw). An n after a vowel makes it nasalized: there are four nasal vowels an e.n in un.
There are three essential tones, high, mid, and low. High tone is indicated by an acute and low tone by a grave; but tone marks are not normally written. The name of the language is Yorùbá. The name of Lagos is Èkó. The tones also interact with each other phonetically and grammatically.
The letter s. (s with a dot under it) is like English sh: as in Sade and Wole Soyinka. Yoruba also has the common West African labiovelar sounds, KP and GB pronounced simultaneously: with the tongue in the back of the throat for K or G, but with the lips closed for P or B. Yoruba has an ordinary b as well as gb, but it doesn't have an ordinary P, so the KP sound is written p.
Almost all nouns begin with a vowel.
Adjectives generally derive from verbs or nouns. Where there is an adjectival verb, such as ga 'be high', korò 'be bitter', the dependent form is made by (usually) a reduplicative prefix with í: ó korò 'it is bitter', omi kíkorò 'bitter water'.
An adjective can be derived from a noun with ní 'have, with': kókó 'lump', ó ní kókó 'it is lumpy'. This assimilates to a vowel: irun 'hair', ó nírun 'it is hairy'; and with all other vowels the n becomes l: agbára 'strength', ó lágbára 'it is strong'.
Verbal sentences start out easy -- ó nírun jù 'it is too hairy', ó nírun tó 'it is hairy enough', ó nírun púpò. 'it is very hairy' -- but seem to run into a formidable array of aspect and topic marking. I have never managed to stray beyond the first few chapters of Teach Yourself Yoruba.
The second person singular is a familiar tu form: the plural is used for respect, as in European languages.
The numerals are complicated. The basic forms of the numbers one to ten are ení èjì è.ta è.rin àrún è.fà èje è.jo. è.sán è.wá. These are used for counting. A series beginning with m and a change to high first tone are used for totals; another series with a reduplicated initial vowel at mid tone is for counting cowries, the former money, and is still used in set expressions and for teaching. After that it gets complicated.