The Yoruba people ( ;Laurie Bauer, 2007, The Linguistics Student's Handbook, Edinburgh , , ) are a West African ethnic group who inhabit parts of Nigeria, Benin, and Togo, a region collectively called Yorubaland. The Yoruba constitute more than 50 million people in Africa and over a million outside the continent, and bear further representation among the African diaspora in countries like Brazil and Cuba, and in the Caribbean. The vast majority of Yoruba live in Nigeria where they make up 20.7% of the country's population according to Ethnologue estimates, making them one of the largest ethnic groups in Africa. Most Yoruba people speak the Yoruba language, which is the Niger–Congo language with the largest number of native or L1 speakers.
Etymology The oldest known textual reference to the name Yoruba is found in an essay (titled – Mi'rāj al-Ṣu'ūd) from a manuscript written by the Berber jurist Ahmed Baba in the year 1614. The original manuscript is preserved in the Ahmed Baba Institute of the Mamma Haidara Library in Timbuktu while a digital copy is at the World Digital Library. Mi'rāj al-Ṣu'ūd provides one of the earliest known ideas about the ethnic composition of the West African interior. The relevant section of the essay which lists the Yoruba group alongside nine others in the region as translated by John Hunwick and Fatima Harrak for the Institute of African Studies Rabat, reads:
We will add another rule for you, that is that whoever now comes to you from among the group called Mossi, or Gurma, or Bussa, or Borgu, or Dagomba, or Kotokoli, or Yoruba, or Tombo, or Bobo, or K.rmu – all of these are unbelievers remaining in their unbelief until now. Similarly Kumbe except for a few people of Hombori
This early 1600s reference implies that the name Yoruba was already in popular demotic use as far back as at least the 1500s. Regarding the source and derivation of this name, guesses were posited by various foreign sociologists of external sources. These include; Ya'rub (son of Canaanite, Joktan) by Caliph Muhammed Bello of Sokoto, Goru Ba by T.J Bowen, or Yolla Ba (Mande word for the Niger river) etc. Reprint: . These guesses suffer a lack of support by many locals for being alien to (and unfounded in) the traditions of the Yorubas themselves. In his work Abeokuta and the Camaroons Mountains c.1863 the English ethnologist Richard F. Burton reports of an account in 1861, noting that the name "Yoruba" derives from Ori Obba, i.e. -The Head King.
Names The name Yoruba is the most well known ethnonym for the group of people that trace a common origin to Ife, but synonymous terms have been recorded in history such as Nago/Anago, Lucumi/Olukumi and Aku/Oku.
Some Exonyms the Yoruba are known by across West Africa include; Alata in southern Ghana, Eyagi in Nupe which produced descendant terms such as Ayagi (the pre-modern Hausa word for the Yoruba people) and Iyaji in Igala.
The Yoruba people also refer to themselves by the epithet "Ọmọ Káàárọ̀-oòjíire", literally meaning, "The People who ask 'Good morning, did you wake up well?". This is in reference to the mode of greeting associated with Yoruba culture. Through parts of coastal West Africa where Yorubas can be found, they have carried the culture of lauding one another with greetings applicable in different situations along with them. Another epithet used is, "Ọmọ Oòduà", meaning "The Children of Oduduwa", referencing the semi-legendary Yoruba king.
History
The Yoruba people emerged largely in situ, from the earlier Mesolithic Volta-Niger populations, by the 1st millennium BCE. By the 5th century BCE, a powerful city-state existed in Ile-Ife, one of the earliest in what is now Nigeria. This city's oral traditions link to figures such as Oduduwa and Obatala, and it would become the heart of the Ife Empire, the first empire in Yoruba history. The Ife Empire flourished between 1200 and 1420 CE, had influence across much of what is now southwestern Nigeria, eastern Benin and Togo.
Oral history recorded under the Oyo Empire derives the Yoruba as an ethnic group from the population of the City State of Ile-Ife. Ile-Ife, as the capital of the former empire, held a prominent position in Yoruba history. The Yoruba were the dominant cultural force in southwestern and west-central Nigeria as far back as the 11th century.
The Yoruba people were historically one of the most urban ethnic groups in Africa. They usually settled in a concentric nuclear pattern. Before colonialism, the Yoruba existed as a series of structured large kingdoms and states with an urban capital core (Olú Ìlú) sharing filial relations with one another. These urban capitals were built to encapsulate the palace of the Oba (king) and most of the kingdom's central institutions such as the premier market (Ọjà Ọba) and several temples. Many of these city-states had extensive defence structures such as moats and trenches (Iyàrà) such as those of the Ife Empire and the better known Eredo Sungbo that completely surrounded the nascent Ijebu Kingdom, while others had tall walls and ramparts such as Oyo ile, capital of the Oyo empire, which reportedly had an outer wall over 20 feet high with 10 gates. These cities were some of the most populated in Africa. Archaeological findings indicate that Òyó-Ilé or Katunga, capital of the Oyo empire (fl. between the 16th and 19th centuries CE), had more than 100,000 inhabitants. For a long time, the largest city Ibadan expanded rapidly in the 1800s. Today, Lagos () has become the largest Yoruba city and the largest on the continent, displacing Ibadan to second place with a populace of over 20 million.
Archaeologically, the settlement of Ile-Ife showed features of urbanism in the 12th–14th-century era. This period coincided with the peak of the Ife Empire, when Ile-Ife grew into one of West Africa's largest cities. Around 1300 CE, glass bead production reached industrial scale and floors were paved with potsherds and stones. Artists at Ile-Ife developed a refined and naturalistic sculptural tradition in terracotta, stone, brass and bronze. Many of those traditions appear to have been created under the patronage of King Obalufon II, who today is identified as the Yoruba patron deity of brass casting, weaving and regalia. The Yoruba regard Ile-Ife as the place of origin of human civilization. Its urban phase represented a peak of political centralization in the 14th century, and is commonly called a "golden age" of Ife. Ife is still considered the Yoruba spiritual homeland. Its dynasty remains intact today. The oba or ruler of Ile-Ife is called the Ooni of Ife.
Oyo, Ile-Ife and Lagos
In the 15th century, the Oyo Empire surpassed Ile-Ife as the dominant military and political power in Yorubaland.Oyo Empire at Britannica.com
In the 18th century, the Empire under the oba Alaafin of Oyo, indirectly participated in the African slave trade. The Yoruba often raided neighbouring populations and practiced a system locally known as Ìwòfà, the Yoruba version of indentured servitude.
Most of the city states were controlled by obas (kings with various titles) and councils. The councils were made up of oloye, recognized leaders of royal, noble and, often, even common descent, who joined them in ruling through guilds and cults. The power of the king versus the councils differed between states. Oyo's kings had almost total control, but were nevertheless constantly checked by the Oyo Mesi led by the Basọrun, while the Ijebu city-states had senatorial councils with more influence than the Ọba, here called the Awujale of Ijebuland.
In recent decades, Lagos rose as the most prominent city of the Yoruba people, a Yoruba cultural and economic power. Noteworthy among the developments of Lagos were uniquely styled architecture introduced by returning Yoruba communities from Brazil and Cuba, known in Yoruba as Amaros/Agudas.
Yoruba settlements are often described as primarily one or more of the main social groupings called "generations":
The "first generation" includes towns and cities known as original capitals of founding Yoruba kingdoms or states. The "second generation" consists of settlements created by conquest. The "third generation" consists of villages and municipalities that emerged after the internecine wars of the 19th century.
Geography
In Africa, the Yoruba are bordered to the southeast by the Itsekiri, a distinct Yoruboid-speaking people of the western Niger Delta; by the Bariba to the northwest in Benin and Nigeria; by the Nupe to the north; and by the Ebira to the northeast in Central Nigeria. To the east are the Edo, Ẹsan, and Afemai groups in Mid-Western Nigeria. To the northeast and adjacent to the Ebira and Northern Edo, groups are the related Igala people on the left bank of the Niger River. To the south are the Gbe-speaking Mahi, Gun, Fon, and Ewe who border Yoruba communities in Benin and Togo, to the west they are bordered by the Kwa-speaking Akebu, Kposo of Togo, and to the northwest, by the Kwa-speaking Anii, and the Gur speaking Kabiye, Yom-Lokpa and Tem people of Togo. Significantly Yoruba populations in other West African countries can also be found in Ghana, Benin, Ivory Coast, and Sierra Leone.
Outside Africa, the Yoruba diaspora consists of two main groupings; the first being that of the Yorubas taken as slaves to the New World between the 16th and 19th centuries, notably to the Caribbean (especially in Cuba) and Brazil, and the second consisting of a wave of relatively recent migrants, the majority of whom began to migrate to the United Kingdom and the United States following some of the major economic and political changes encountered in Africa in the 1960s till date.
Language
The Yoruba culture was originally an oral tradition, and the majority of Yoruba people are native speakers of the Yoruba language. The number of speakers was estimated to be about 30 million as of 2010.The number of speakers of Yoruba was estimated at 20 million people in the 1990s. No reliable estimate of more recent date is known. Metzler Lexikon Sprache (4th ed. 2010) estimates 30 million based on population growth figures during the 1990s and 2000s. The population of Nigeria (where the majority of Yoruba live) has grown by 44% between 1995 and 2010, so that the Metzler estimate for 2010 appears plausible. Yoruba is classified within the Edekiri languages, a branch of the Yoruboid languages within the Volta-Niger language family.
There are three major dialect areas: Northwest, Central, and Southeast.This widely followed classification is based on Adetugbọ's (1982) dialectological study – the classification originated in his 1967 PhD thesis The Yoruba Language in Western Nigeria: Its Major Dialect Areas, . See also As the North-West Yoruba dialects show more linguistic innovation, combined with the fact that Southeast and Central Yoruba areas generally have older settlements, suggests a later date of immigration into Northwestern Yoruba territory.. (See also the section Dialects.) The area where North-West Yoruba (NWY) is spoken corresponds to the historical Oyo Empire. South-East Yoruba (SEY) was closely associated with the expansion of the Benin Empire after c. 1450. Central Yoruba forms a transitional area in that the lexicon has much in common with NWY, whereas it shares many ethnographical features with SEY.