MODERN YORUBA WRITTEN FORM!

[e.o.shadare]

Fellow Naijanetarians(esp of Oodua extraction),
Here's just a few lines on the features of modern Yoruba written
form. The written form of the language has undergone several
revisions, and I believe the most recent form was agreed upon
between 1986 - 1990. It is known as the "Akoto Yoruba titun" or
"Akoto" for short. This is a system whereby, Yoruba words,
expressions e.t.c. are written the way they sound or are pronounced
in spoken speech. That is, for each different possible
sound(phoneme) of the language, there must be a unique letter
(alphabetical symbol) othat can be written
down to represent it.
From my own understanding of Yoruba, "Akoto" means,
"the truthful writing down" or "the right/correct writing down".

Yoruba as written today:
=================

1) Consonants: In the modern Yoruba written system, two consonants
cannot appear together consecutively in a word. This means two
consonants are not allowed to follow each other, without a noun
separating them. As an example, take the town of "Otta", as it is
spelt "O-t-t-a". This spelling violates the above stated rule.
Hence, in today's "Akoto", it should be written as "Ota". [Note:
Since people are used to writing "Otta", don't be surprised if
you find people still writing it the old way. Old habits die
hard! ]

2) Nasalised vowels: As most of you will all be aware of by now,
Yoruba has got nasalised and non-nasalised vowels.
Non-nansalised vowels are : "a, e, e, i, o, o, u" pronounced :
['Ah', 'Eh', 'Ear', 'Eee', 'Oh', 'Or', 'Ooh'] respectively. The
nasalised forms are thus "An, En, En, In, On, On, Un" pronounced
['Ahn', 'Ehn', 'Erhn', 'Eehn', 'Ohn', 'Orhn', 'Oohn'] respectively.
Whenever any of the nasalised forms occurs at the end of a word,
that form (though written with two different letters), is regarded
as a single unit within the word. For example the word "Eegun"
which means "masquerade". It is written as the sequence "E-e-g-u-n".
But in actual fact consists of the sequence "E-e-g-un", where the
"un" item, represents the nasalised form of the Yoruba letter "u".
This means, the nasalised forms are only variants of the non
nasalised forms. [Note in standard Yoruba ("Yoruba Ajumolo" or
"Yoruba Gbogboogbo"), a nasalised vowel cannot occur at the
beginning of a word, though it does occur in certain dialects1]. The
significance of this fact can now be illustrated through the use of
an example. Take the word "very" in "Thank you very much". In
Yoruba, this is rendered as "Ese gan", with "gan" denoting the "very
much". In spoken Yoruba however, the "very" is long drawn out sound.
Hence it used to be written down as "gannnnnnnnnn", to denote this
fact. However, Yoruba scholars have come to the conclusion that, the
whole of the nasalised vowel is stretched out, and not just the "n"
part. Hence the properly rendered form is written as
"gan-an-an-an-an-an-an" in the modern Yoruba writing system. Pls
notice, the dashes in between each drawn out occurence of the
terminating nansalised vowel. It is written this way to denote each
drawn out occurence of the vowel. Even without being a drawn out
sound, it is still written as "gan-an" as one utterance, because
the word covers two nasalised vowels.

3)More nasalised vowels : In words like "Sango"(Shango) for
instance,the old spelling is written as it appears above. However, in the
new system, it would be rendered as "Sanngo". This because, the old
spelling represents the sounds "Sh-an-go" which is spelt as
"S-a-n-g-o", with the lexical items "S-an-g-o". But in actual truth,
its pronounciation follows these sounds "Sh-an-ngo" written as,
"S-a-n-n-g-o", with the lexical items "S-an-n-g-o". Hence it is
spelt as "Sanngo". I doubt if this has caught on in general
though!

4) Miscelaneous :
1) Words like:
"Aiye, Eiye,..." should be spelt "Aye, Eiye,...",
"Oshogbo" should be spelt "Osogbo"
"lailai (Forever)" -> "laelae"
"enia (Humans)" -> "Enyan, Eniyan, Eeyan"
"Ehin (Teeth)" -> "Eyin"
"Ehin (Back)" -> "Eyin"
"Orun (Sun)" -> "Oorun"

2) Words like "Oshogbo" should be spelt as Osogbo", with the 'S'
having a little dot "Soki" underneath it.

3)Yoruba pronouns ("Oro-aropo Oruko") should appear nasalised when
appearing after verbs ("Oro-Ise"). e.g "Mu u" ->"take it", should
written as "Mu un", because it has a nasalised sound (though
not so obvious).

4) Words like "Alaanu" (a merciful person) formed from "Oni and
Aanu", should be written as "Alaaanu", to reflect the fact
that the tone and pitch of the last letter of the first word is carried
over to
the the second one as an additional letter, where it becomes identical
with the first letter of the second word. This occurs also
with words like "Looto" ( "In truth" or "truly" ) which is short for
"Ni Ooto", and is hence written as "Loooto" nowadays.
"Laarin" -> "Laaarin"

5) Words like "Sere" ("to play") be written as is, though formed
from a contraction of "Se & Ere" i.e. to play. Instead of
separately like this "Se ere".

6) Phrases like "Mo nlo"("I am going") should be written as "Mo
n lo", where the "n" represents the "ing" of English. The "n2
should be written separately in such words.

7) Words like:

"Nitorinaa (Because of that/this...)" should be written as "Nitori naa"
"Kini (What is ...?)" -> "Ki ni ...?"
"Tani (Who is...?)" -> "Ta ni ...?"
"Jeki (Let ...)" -> "Let ..."
"Wipe (Say that/said that..)" -> "Wi pe....."
"Eniti (The person who...)" -> "Eni ti ......
"Nigbati (When ....)" -> "Nigba ti ...."
" Biotilejepe (Be that as it may..)" -> "Bi o tile je pe....."
"Gegebi (Stand as : represent)" -> "Gege bi ...."
"Lohun (Over there)" -> "Lohun-un"
"Marun (Five)" -> "Marun-un"
"Kini (First)" -> "Kiini/ Kin-in-ni"

5) Where "m" comes before "b", as in "mbo" in "Mo mbo (I'm coming!)", the
actual written form should be "Mo nbo". However for years it has
been written as the previous form. Latter day thinking has now said
the latter form should be adopted in writing it. Also in names such as
"Bimbo", it has been said the spelling should be "Binbo". But I
personally wouldn't agree with that, because "Bimbo" is short
form for "Abimbola" which is "A bi mi, bi ola". "The one who
gives birth to me, gives birth to wealth(riches/prosperity)". As
can be seen, the "m" is part of the whole phrase and is heard,
which is diffrent the case of "nbo", where the "n" sounds like a "m".
Also check out the surname "Ogunronbi" (Bro Sunday, I beg ooo,
shey, I no violate copyright sha ?) , this name fully rendered
is "Ogun ri ohun bi". In the name , the "ri" and the "o" of "ohun"
are contracted to "ro", with the "u" of "ohun" getting dropped.
The final "n" of "ohun" is appended to the "bi", giving
"Ogunronbi". Here the "n" may sound like a "m2, but it is still
written as an "n" which is correct. Contrast this case with that
of "Abimbola".

6) Words which are proceeded by "ni" (at/in) or "ninu". I think(am
not so sure on this one), can be written in a "shortened" form.
E.g "O wa nile (He's at home)" can be rendered as " O wa nle".
"O wa ninu yara (It's in the room) can be rendered as
"O wa nnu yara".

7) Long words(nouns) : These are words that consist of other words,
which are calqued together to form one composite word. The
linguistic term for this process is known as "calqueing". An
example is the Yoruba word for bank(financial institution). This
was formerly rendered as "Ile ifowo pamo si". Breaking it down
gives us the sentence "Ile ifi owo pamo si". This means "The house
of keeping money safe in". I believe the word/phrase is now written as
"Ile-ifowo-pamo-si". This is now the due process, for writing such long
words in current Yoruba.

Blessed Naija pipulus, I hope say una no vex for me oooo. To all
Yoruba reading and writing people, I hope you take note of these
things, and apply them in your writings(Yoruba language) in future.
I'll see if I can put some of this stuff on the web, so God help me.
Feedback would be most welcome. Thanx,
E.O.SHADARE

Pls see below some reference works :

1) Iwe Igbaradi fun Idanwo Asekagba Yoruba
Ile-eko sekondiri Agba
(c) 1990 Evans Bros Publishers(Nigeria),
By: Taiwo Olunlade, Bayo Aderanti & Afolabi Olabimtan.

2) Eko ede Yoruba titun (JSS)
university press limited (c) 1986/89
Ibadan

3) New findings in Yoruba studies.
Edited by : Akinwunmi Isola.
(c) J.F. Odunjo memorial lectures Organising committee 1992
first published 1992.
ISBN-978-30181-4-0.

4) The development of the Yoruba Novel 1930 - 1975.
(c) Bisi Ogunsina 1992