₦airaland Forum

I have been following the arguments and counter arguments relating to the relationship between Itsekiri and Yoruba languages. Firstly the term Yoruba did not exist as a linguistic or ethnic appellation among precolonial Yorubas but originated from the Hausa word Yarubawa which was the name the Hausas applied to the northern Yorubas of Oyo. It was adopted in the late 19th and 20th century by scholars and extended to all Sub groups that make up current Yorubaland. This term was however not applied to the Itsekiris who already had an established national and political identity of their own as a result of centuries of political and economic dealings with the European nations just like Benin and other Kingdoms and states of the time. Yorubaland was also never a united single political or national entity but had its many different kingdoms and city states that constantly fought each other. The closest it came to unification was with the Oyo empire. But there was never a single Yoruba polity uniting all Yorubas. And all Yoruba sub groups went by their different names and spoke their different dialects as their official languages. It wasn’t until Ajayi Crowther translated the bible from English into Oyo Yoruba that the Oyo dialect assumed the role of written standard language for all Yorubas. All religious and administrative materials were thus translated using that dialect and hence it became the standard for all Yoruba sub groups except the itsekiris who at the time prior to colonisation had existed as a separate centralised nation state of their own for 500 years. Thus Itsekiris in their own kingdom had portions of the bible, prayer books and hymnals translated into their own language as early as the mid 19th century including the Book of Common Prayer. This meant that even though Itsekiri could be considered a Yoruba dialect it had developed into a standard literary language in its own right, used in education and official communication as a fully fledged independent language just like standard Yoruba. So in effect Oyo Yoruba and Itsekiri are the two standardised variants of the Yoruba linguistic group. Other Yoruba dialects eg Ekiti, Owo, Ondo, Ijebu etc etc although still widely spoken (but gradually declining) did not achieve standard language status Because all Yorubas recognise the Oyo dialect as their standard literary language while Itsekiris on their part recognise the Itsekiri variant of Yoruba as their own standard literary language. What this means is that you have two variants of the same language becoming literary standards and recognised as separate languages.

. Itsekiri belongs to the South East Yoruba (SEY) groups of Yoruba languages or dialects which include Ijebu, Owo, Ekiti, Ondo, Ilaje, Ikale, Akure. linguists consider these dialects the oldest surviving form of Yoruba and Itsekiri is 85% plus mutually intelligible to the closest of these dialects Ilaje, IKALE, Owo and Ondo. It is also 72% mutually intelligible to Standard Yoruba which makes Itsekiri a Yoruboid language in just the same way the Romance languages of Spanish and Portuguese are 80% mutually intelligble but considered separate languages for political and historical reasons. Please note that on a wider scale linguists classify Yoruba, Itsekiri and Igala as Yoruboid languages because they all have a common origin and were once a single language and are still closely related. Itsekiri is just as separate from standard Yoruba as any other SEY Yoruba dialect because common sense will tell us that SEY Yoruba dialects are closer to each other than to standard Yoruba because they share a common origin and lexicon and are highly mutually intelligible to each other and less so to the North West Yoruba (NWY) dialects of Oyo, Ife, etc. This is just simple logic.

Please also note that the reason why Igbo, Yoruba, Itsekiri, Edo, Igala, Urhobo-Isoko, Idoma, Ebira, Nupe and Gwari have many words and sounds in common is because they are closely related languages that belong to the same linguistic family. This group of languages is referred to as Niger-Volta by linguists and they share a common ancestral language from which they split 2,000 years ago. These languages are split into sub groups called Yoruboid, Igboid, Nupoid, Idomoid, Edoid. The Ijaw and Kalabari languages are linguistic isolates and are not related in any way to the Niger-Volta languages. Tiv, Effik and Ibibio are also not closely related to Niger Volta and are Bantu languages similar to the languages spoken in Central Africa. Although we are all more widely related to each other as black African languages as we spring from the same source. Hausa is not a black African language but an Afro-Asiatic language related to Arabic and Somali. On the other hand Fulani or Fufulde is a black African language originating in Senegal and Guinea. On a separate note, if for example the Itsekiris opted to join the Oduduwa rRepublic then there will be two recognised indigenous official languages - Yoruba and Itsekiri. Other Yoruba dialects will continue to remain dialects as all Yorubas have a standard literary language which will be used by the groups for all official and administrative purposes. The Itsekiri on the other hand will continue to use their own standard language in their own area as standard Yoruba is not generally spoken or understood there. This is how linguistic policy works.