My name is Ayọ̀ (he/him) and I love languages! From Tahitian to Ge'ez to Gungbe, I love them all in their beauty and complexity. My primary focus here are West African languages, in addition to the occasional additions to entries for other languages once in a while.
Orúkọ mi ni Ayọ̀ (ó/òun/rẹ̀), olólùfẹ́ èdè ni mi òòò! Láti èdè Tahiti sí èdè Ge'ez tí wọ́n ti sọ ní Ìtíópíà láyé àtijọ́ sí èdè Ègùn, èdè gbogbo yìí ni mo fẹ́ràn tọkàntọkàn pẹ̀lú ẹwà àti gbogbo ìṣòro ti wọn. Ohun tí mo fọkàn mi sí i jù àwọn ohun mìíràn lọ lórí ẹ̀rọ Wiktionary yìí jẹ́ àwọn èdè láti Ìwọ̀-oòrùn Ilẹ̀ Adúláwọ̀, mo sì fẹ́ràn láti ṣe nǹkan pẹ̀lú àwọn èdè mìíràn nígbà míì.
Yoruba Varieties and Languages Maps/Tables
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I started this project in July 2024 with the aim of documenting the linguistic diversity that exists within the Yoruba dialectal continuum from eastern Togo to Southwestern Nigeria. The initial inspiration for this project comes from the The Linguistic Atlas of French Polynesia by Jean-Michel Charpentier and Alexandre François in an effort to document the linguistic diversity existing within French Polynesia. I came across the project due to having travelled to French Polynesia in 2019 for a month and becoming enamored with the Tahitian language. After returning home, I learnt more Tahitian and became deeply interested in the other Polynesian languages spoken in the islands, but also throughout the region. Thus, with this background, I have been thinking of making something of this sort for a while now. For the last several years, I have been deeply interested in the Ìjẹ̀bú variety of the Yoruba dialectal continuum, in addition to other Southeastern Yoruba varieties and Ìṣẹkírì, a closely related language. Thus, I began to document lexemes in personal spreadsheets and seeking out more sources that focus on specific varieties. My volition to start this project here on Wiktionary was due to coming into contact with the massive Chinese ecosystem on Wiktionary complete with a map and table detailing the Chinese character used in different parts of the Sinosphere for each Chinese language and variety. In watching a lot of Thai shows, where terms from Teochew abound, I found myself coming into increasing contact with this amazing project and wanted one for the Yorùbá dialectal continuum. Thus, through the Wiktionary Discord, with the help of kc kennylau, who is well versed in coding and the innerworkings of the Chinese system, I was able to get this one for Yorùbá started.
Cross-Border Understanding
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Working on this project has been interesting because it has shown me the extreme diversity that exists within the Yoruba dialectal continuum, but also the immense work that needs to be done in seeing this entire linguistic region as one web of related languages, across borders, that need to be documented and preserved. Many Nigerian scholars such as Abíọdún Adétúgbọ̀ in his paper The Yoruba Language in Western Nigeria: Its Major Dialect Areas, have, indeed, studied the Yoruba dialectal continuum at depth. However, there exists a gap between the research happening in Nigeria and that happening in Benin and Togo where Yoruboid languages that also descend from Proto-Yoruba, like the modern standardized variety in Nigeria, also exist. Many Nigerian authors fail to classify them, putting them in a catch-all group, or failing seriously consider how they relate to other varieties in Nigeria. On the other hand, SIL International, has done extensive research on the varieties in Benin and Togo, without seriously taking into consideration the Yoruboid languages spoken in Nigeria. This is particularly glaring with their studies on the languages of Southern Nago, Ohori/Ije, and Cabee, all of which are spoken both sides of the Benin/Nigeria border. These border languages or varieties have been researched by a few Nigerian linguists, but there is much more that needs to be done to ascertain their classification within the Yoruba dialectal continuum. What's more is that SIL International and Wycliffe Benin, have been standardizing these languages without input from Nigerian speakers of these varieties. Much more could be said about this, but the basic idea is that there is a lot of work that needs to be done about the understanding of the Yoruba dialectal continuum from a holistic approach.
The orthographies used in this project correspond to those of the different languages of the Yoruba dialectal continuum. There are several alphabets used across the continuum as a result of SIL International, the Pan-African alphabet adopted in Benin by some languages, and Nigeria's orthography adopted for indigenous languages. Ifè, Mokole, Northern Nago, and Ica use their own alphabets from SIL International with a marker of this being nasalization as it is marked with a tilde in lieu of an -n as in the rest of the languages (see: Ifè ɔ̀gbɛ̃́ (/ɔ̀.ɡ͡bɛ̃́/) vs. Standard Yorùbá ìgbín (/ì.ɡ͡bĩ́/) vs. Ọ̀wọ̀ (Ọ̀ghọ̀) ùgbẹ́n (/ù.ɡ͡bɛ̃́/) meaning snail). In time, I will post all of the alphabets and orthographic rules for each of the languages and varieties here.
A plethora of sources have been used for this project, the vast majority are from academic papers from Nigerian universities, SIL International, published dictionaries such as for Olùkùmi, Owé, and Ife, in addition to much more. Any other information is either coming from online sources or other Wiktionarians such as Oniwe with Èkìtì. Many of the sources below are used for this project, but in the future, I will work on compiling a list of all papers used for the collection of words.
You can find the links to the maps here: Maps.
The links to edit the tables is here: Data Modules/Tables
