Yoruba | |
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Èdè Yorùbá | |
Pronunciation | IPA: [jōrùbá] |
Native to | Benin · Nigeria · Togo |
Region | Yorubaland |
Ethnicity | Yoruba |
Native speakers | L1: 45 million (2021)[1] L2: 2.0 million (no date)[1] |
Early form | |
Latin (Nigerian Yoruba alphabet, Beninese Yoruba alphabet) Yoruba Braille Arabic script (Ajami) Oduduwa script | |
Official status | |
Official language in | ![]() |
Recognised minority language in | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-1 | yo |
ISO 639-2 | yor |
ISO 639-3 | yor |
Glottolog | yoru1245 |
Linguasphere | 98-AAA-a |
People | Ọmọ Yorùbá |
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Language | Èdè Yorùbá |
Country | Ilẹ̀ Yorùbá |
Yoruba (US: /ˈjɔːrəbə/,[2] UK: /ˈjɒrʊbə/;[3] Yor. Èdè Yorùbá, IPA: [jōrùbá]; Ajami: عِدعِ يوْرُبا) is a language that is spoken in West Africa, primarily in Southwestern and Central Nigeria. It is spoken by the Yoruba people. Yoruba speakers number roughly 47 million, including about 2 million second-language speakers.[1] As a pluricentric language, it is primarily spoken in a dialectal area spanning Nigeria, Benin, and Togo with smaller migrated communities in Côte d'Ivoire, Sierra Leone and The Gambia.
Yoruba vocabulary is also used in African diaspora religions such as the Afro-Brazilian religion of Candomblé, the Caribbean religion of Santería in the form of the liturgical Lucumí language, and various Afro-American religions of North America. Most modern practitioners of these religions in the Americas do not speak or understand Yoruba; instead, they use Yoruba words and phrases in songs they cannot understand. Using a lexicon of Yoruba words and short phrases during ritual is also common, but they have gone through changes because Yoruba is no longer a vernacular for them, and fluency is not required.[4][5][6][7]
As the principal Yoruboid language, Yoruba is most closely related to the languages Itsekiri (spoken in the Niger Delta) and Igala (spoken in central Nigeria).