Re: Yoruba Affairs - Re: MAY WE NOT BE AN AKOGBATUGBAKA

[JFAKI...@aol.com]

Dear Prof. Ogundeji,

It took me a while to figure out the meaning of Akokatugbaka. When at last, I was able to decode the word, I burst out laughing.

 

I commend your passion and those of others who have expressed strong opinions About Yoruba orthography. First, your contribution and those of others enabled me to know how much our forebears must have invested in the subject matter. The conclusions they arrived at could not be one that anyone should even attempt to challenge, much less, dismantle. The Yoruba orthography is so very well entrenched that it will be foolhardy for anyone to even want to do this. If however, there is any feeling that this is my intention, I have done a poor job at making myself understood. This is my fault.

 

I must say that this passionate discourse on a subject matter that we all care about is the real reason why there is AYOG. It is for those that do not know to be educated by those who do. Judging from the response to my article, I can say that AYOG is doing exactly what it is supposed to be doing. I appreciate its existence.

 

Now that I think that I have disabused the notion of wanting to dismantle the very edifice on which the Yoruba language stands, I wish I could make my point more succinctly. If I still cannot, then shame on me.

 

First, like any other language, the Yoruba language along with the way it is written, will continue to evolve. There is really very little we can do about this. If, for example, we were to take the English language, we know that the way it was written during the time of Chaucer is quite different from the way it is written today. Even within a few years new idioms come into the Yoruba language that were not there before. If we were to take the example of the sentence O le ku, which in actuality is an abbreviation of the sentence O le ku, Ija Ore, one would see that this came into common usage during the Nigerian Civil War. Today, it is a saying that has broad acceptance within the Yoruba community. Moreover, many words and idioms that are prevalent in the Ifa poems are no longer of common usage today. Many of the communities that are mentioned in it are even not around any more. That was what prompted the whole discussion about signs in the first place. It was suggested that the poem that was recited should have had accents accompanying them. If this had happened, you and I would have had the benefit of enjoying it more than we did. In all honesty, I could not understand the poem BECAUSE OF THE LACK OFACCENTS.

 

Secondly, the Yoruba language, like many superior languages of this world, has the ability to be used to communicate any subject matter we want. This, to me, is the main reason why I like to know the language more. It is the APPLICATION of Yoruba language to propagate other areas of knowledge that interests me. But really, I have spelt this out many times before.

 

Now, let us look at the way the English language handles this area of use. In past years, a lady secretary would have to learn to write SHORTHAND in order to take dictations from her manager. This was a quick way of the manager to communicate his wishes in English to the secretary.

 

If a patient were to visit a medical practitioner, he probably would be given a prescription written in a way that the patient would not understand, but which the pharmacist could decode and with it, fill the prescribed medication. Definitely, the language written would still be considered as English.

 

A scientist, particularly, a chemist, has very strange ways of writing things we common people would really not understand or even care to understand. He is said to be writing English but in a scientific way.

 

Of course, a Jamaican, speaking a barely comprehensible patois, would still claim that he is speaking English.

 

This is the case in all developed languages of the world. And of course, this is the case with the Yoruba language. The Yoruba language is the language of Ifa poetry, Ofo, Afose, Ogede, Iwi, Ijala, etc. It has so many dialects within it that some are barely comprehensible by one of the other. Moreover, Yoruba language, because of the influence of other languages on it, is written in so many different ways around the world that are barely comprehensible by one of the other. This is really the nature of a Superior language. For example, the Yoruba word, ORISA can be written as it is or as OCHA, ORIXA, ORICHA, etc. In spite of the spellings, there is really no ambiguity as to the meaning of the word being communicated.

 

Now, going back to the word, Akogbatugbaka, I am sure that in spite of its lack of accents, it is meant to be understood by anyone worth his salt in the Yoruba language. If one were to really dissect this word, one could find ten or more meanings to it. Nevertheless, within the context of what is being discussed and the mood of the writer, I could within a short time, decode the meaning of the word. That in essence, is what I am talking about.

 

When in the Bible, it is written, “Ni atetekose, Olorun da orun oun aye…”if one were to rigorously dissect this clause, one can find many meanings to it. Nevertheless, I would be shocked if there is any Yoruba person anywhere holding a Bible who will not know this as “In the beginning, God created heaven and earth…” I would be amply surprised if anyone were to think this verse meant that God broke His neck and something else.

 

Moreover, if someone were to ask me where I come from, and I were to write Ibadan, Ondo, Ogbomosho, Ilesha, Ilorin, Akure, or any of the many prominent cities in Yoruba land, I would like to think that an average Yoruba person would understand what I write. As a matter of fact, this is exactly what we do when we write on the internet. This is not because, the person writing is lazy or does not want to follow the correct way of writing, but because we know that the person to whom we are writing understands what we write in spite of the fact that we have not put the signs.

 

I personally do not consider myself a lazy Yoruba writer. In all of my Yoruba books, I have painstakingly put the signs on every word as best as I could. However, if I am writing a quick article in Yoruba to members of AYOG, I probably would not bother to append signs on every syllable, knowing fully well that every member of AYOG understands the issue I am discussing and would read the text in that context.

 

Lastly, I strongly believe in the spirit with which AYOG was formed. I do believe that some people will make many hare brained suggestions as long as the Group is in existence but this comes with the territory. And I do pray that this will be a long time indeed.

 

Best Regards

Fakinlede

[Antonia Y. Schleicher]

Dear All,

As someone who has been trying to promote the learning and teaching of Yoruba language and culture in the US and other parts of the world for the past 24 years, I feel it is time to say something about this topic on Yoruba orthography.  I am glad to know that we are not trying to ignore previous efforts on Yoruba orthography.  However, I still have two quick points to make here:

1.  Yoruba is now an international language so when we write it, we are not writing for native speakers only.  We are also writing for those who are learning Yoruba as a second language and as a foreign language.  If we do not mark tones and dots, we will do a great disservice to these constituents. 

As a Yoruba learner, teacher, scholar, researcher and author, I still find it VERY cumbersome to read an unfamiliar Yoruba text when tones and dots are not marked.  Sometimes, I delete messages from Tiwantiwa listserve because I feel I am wasting my time trying to figure out what the writer is saying for lack of tones and dots in the Yoruba messages posted.

We native speakers may be able to recognize the first verse of Genesis 1:1 without tones and dots.  This is because that is a familiar text that many Yoruba Christians can quote off memory even without looking at the text.  What happens when the topic you are writing about is an unfamiliar topic, then it becomes very cumbersome to try to figure out what you are saying.

Spontaneous texts written by native speakers, either in an email or letters, can be a useful tool in language pedagogy.  But those of us in Yoruba language pedagogy are denied this important teaching tool because when Yoruba native speakers write one another, they assume that they do not need to mark tones and dots on the assumption that whoever they are writing should be able to figure out what they are saying.  Yoruba language pedagogists are denied the opportunity to use texts such as these as a teaching tool for foreigners who cannot figure out what these native speakers are writing without the tones and dots.  I love to use Yoruba newspapers to teach my Yoruba students about authentic texts in Yoruba language, but unfortunately because tones and dots are not marked in most of these articles, it becomes difficult for my students to even begin to understand what the text is saying.  In most cases, I have to rewrite these newspaper articles with the correct tones and dots before I can use them in class.  And sometimes, if the topic is very unfamiliar, it takes me a longer time to understand the texts without tones and dots. The time spent to rewrite these articles could have been spent doing something more worthwhile if the original texts have been written correctly.

If tones and dots are not important in writing Yoruba by native speakers, why do teachers in primary and secondary schools spend so much time trying to teach Yoruba learners in Nigeria how to write Yoruba with appropriate tones and dots?  If Yoruba native speakers need to be taught from an early age how to mark tones and dots, how much more do we have to teach foreigners how to mark tones and dots.  Even with the context, a foreign learner of the language still needs the dots and tones to understand what they are reading.

Native speakers of English may be able to figure out an English sentence if we take out all the vowels in the sentence, but what good will an English sentence written with no vowels do for a foreign learner of English.

Yoruba is no longer a language for native speakers only.  If we want Yoruba to continue to be an international language then we want to make the written language accessible to foreigners that are learning this language as well as native speakers who are still trying to learn the language.

2.  As someone who has also done a lot in developing Yoruba multimedia material, I believe I can also say something about the problem of Yoruba orthography with regards to accessibility technologically.  In instructional technology, we say, "Do not ask for what existing technology can do for you. Ask for technology that can do what you want".  The point here is that we do not need to change Yoruba orthography just to accommodate existing technology.  The question we need to be asking is, "what technology can help us to write Yoruba the way Arabic, Russian, Thai, Hindi speakers can write these languages on any platform?"  These people did not change their orthography to accommodate existing technology.  They looked for a technology that could meet their multimedia need.  That is what we should do.

Thanks,

Antonia Schleicher

 
  At 08:13 PM 11/4/2006, you wrote:

Dear Prof. Ogundeji,

It took me a while to figure out the meaning of Akokatugbaka. When at last, I was able to decode the word, I burst out laughing.

 

I commend your passion and those of others who have expressed strong opinions About Yoruba orthography. First, your contribution and those of others enabled me to know how much our forebears must have invested in the subject matter. The conclusions they arrived at could not be one that anyone should even attempt to challenge, much less, dismantle. The Yoruba orthography is so very well entrenched that it will be foolhardy for anyone to even want to do this. If however, there is any feeling that this is my intention, I have done a poor job at making myself understood. This is my fault.

 

I must say that this passionate discourse on a subject matter that we all care about is the real reason why there is AYOG. It is for those that do not know to be educated by those who do. Judging from the response to my article, I can say that AYOG is doing exactly what it is supposed to be doing. I appreciate its existence.

 

Now that I think that I have disabused the notion of wanting to dismantle the very edifice on which the Yoruba language stands, I wish I could make my point more succinctly. If I still cannot, then shame on me.

 

First, like any other language, the Yoruba language along with the way it is written, will continue to evolve. There is really very little we can do about this. If, for example, we were to take the English language, we know that the way it was written during the time of Chaucer is quite different from the way it is written today. Even within a few years new idioms come into the Yoruba language that were not there before. If we were to take the example of the sentence O le ku, which in actuality is an abbreviation of the sentence O le ku, Ija Ore, one would see that this came into common usage during the Nigerian Civil War. Today, it is a saying that has broad acceptance within the Yoruba community. Moreover, many words and idioms that are prevalent in the Ifa poems are no longer of common usage today. Many of the communities that are mentioned in it are even not around any more. That was what prompted the whole discussion about signs in the first place. It was suggested that the poem that was recited should have had accents accompanying them. If this had happened, you and I would have had the benefit of enjoying it more than we did. In all honesty, I could not understand the poem BECAUSE OF THE LACK OFACCENTS.

 

Secondly, the Yoruba language, like many superior languages of this world, has the ability to be used to communicate any subject matter we want. This, to me, is the main reason why I like to know the language more. It is the APPLICATION of Yoruba language to propagate other areas of knowledge that interests me. But really, I have spelt this out many times before.

 

Now, let us look at the way the English language handles this area of use. In past years, a lady secretary would have to learn to write SHORTHAND in order to take dictations from her manager. This was a quick way of the manager to communicate his wishes in English to the secretary.

 

If a patient were to visit a medical practitioner, he probably would be given a prescription written in a way that the patient would not understand, but which the pharmacist could decode and with it, fill the prescribed medication. Definitely, the language written would still be considered as English.

 

A scientist, particularly, a chemist, has very strange ways of writing things we common people would really not understand or even care to understand. He is said to be writing English but in a scientific way.

 

Of course, a Jamaican, speaking a barely comprehensible patois, would still claim that he is speaking English.

 

This is the case in all developed languages of the world. And of course, this is the case with the Yoruba language. The Yoruba language is the language of Ifa poetry, Ofo, Afose, Ogede, Iwi, Ijala, etc. It has so many dialects within it that some are barely comprehensible by one of the other. Moreover, Yoruba language, because of the influence of other languages on it, is written in so many different ways around the world that are barely comprehensible by one of the other. This is really the nature of a Superior language. For example, the Yoruba word, ORISA can be written as it is or as OCHA, ORIXA, ORICHA, etc. In spite of the spellings, there is really no ambiguity as to the meaning of the word being communicated.

 

Now, going back to the word, Akogbatugbaka, I am sure that in spite of its lack of accents, it is meant to be understood by anyone worth his salt in the Yoruba language. If one were to really dissect this word, one could find ten or more meanings to it. Nevertheless, within the context of what is being discussed and the mood of the writer, I could within a short time, decode the meaning of the word. That in essence, is what I am talking about.

 

When in the Bible, it is written, “Ni atetekose, Olorun da orun oun aye…†if one were to rigorously dissect this clause, one can find many meanings to it. Nevertheless, I would be shocked if there is any Yoruba person anywhere holding a Bible who will not know this as “In the beginning, God created heaven and earth…†I would be amply surprised if anyone were to think this verse meant that God broke His neck and something else.

 

Moreover, if someone were to ask me where I come from, and I were to write Ibadan, Ondo, Ogbomosho, Ilesha, Ilorin, Akure, or any of the many prominent cities in Yoruba land, I would like to think that an average Yoruba person would understand what I write. As a matter of fact, this is exactly what we do when we write on the internet. This is not because, the person writing is lazy or does not want to follow the correct way of writing, but because we know that the person to whom we are writing understands what we write in spite of the fact that we have not put the signs.

 

I personally do not consider myself a lazy Yoruba writer. In all of my Yoruba books, I have painstakingly put the signs on every word as best as I could. However, if I am writing a quick article in Yoruba to members of AYOG, I probably would not bother to append signs on every syllable, knowing fully well that every member of AYOG understands the issue I am discussing and would read the text in that context.

 

Lastly, I strongly believe in the spirit with which AYOG was formed. I do believe that some people will make many hare brained suggestions as long as the Group is in existence but this comes with the territory. And I do pray that this will be a long time indeed.

 

Best Regards

Fakinlede

Antonia Folarin Schleicher
Professor and Chair, Department of African Languages and Literature
Director, National African Language Resource Center (NALRC)
Executive Director, NCOLCTL and ALTA
4231 The Humanities Building
455 N.Park Street.
Madison, WI 53706
phone: 608-265-7905 or 608-262-2487
fax: 608-265-7904
http://lang.nalrc.wisc.edu/nalrc
http://lang.nalrc.wisc.edu/nalrc/yoruba

"Wise people seek solutions; and the ignorant only casts blame":  TAO 79

"A true Hero is someone who helps others to win."

"To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong."
                                -Joseph Chiton Pearce 

[PHILIP OGUNDEJI]

Dr. Fakinlede 

Sir, 

I am sorry if I have offended you in any way whatsoever, that is not my intention.  I used the collective pronoun we in the title of the mail; they do not refer to you as a person. I thought  all will know the meaning of Akogbatugbaka (with rrrmrm). There is a  folkstory about it which I may not be able to tell now. But it simply means the person who made 200 heaps and with his own hand dismantled them. Eni ti o ko igba ebe ti osi tu u ka. You are yet to make very serious impact inYoruba studies that I know of i. e.you have not made much heaps yet in Yoruba. So you as a person can not be the proverbial akogbtugbaka. I am clearly refering to all of us, if you like the Yoruba race as a whole not you as a person. Pleas do not over read me. I have no intention of insulting or abusing you or anybody. The title of my mail is a prayer. That all inluding mysely should say amen to. Ieven include myself in the collective pronoun, which I used. All the same I wish to say that I am sorry again that you have seen it in that lught. I do not intend it to generate laughter too, rather I want it to induce sober reflections. It is to me not atrivial matter 

 

I have not said and I am not saying that you should not  critisize previous scholarship in Yoruba. Please re read my mail very well. All I am saying is that you should first of all try and study and understand what has been done and why it has been  done so  that you can make meaningful contributions. It was I who commended your proposals on numerals mind you. I am an expert in the language and I am a mother tongue speaker. If you have not done well now I think it is my responsibility to say it too. I do not know you as a person apart from  via this medium.

 

You are correct about O le ku, but sir, not on the use of accent for Yoruba instead of tone. I'm reluctantly  ready to give in on the use of the slightly derogative name Yoruba Igba lode as the adaptative translation of applied Yoruba but not on something as fundamental as accent instead of tones. You know I made my view known on the Yoruba translation of the adopted name of the grou, though rather late. Nobody responded to it and I kept quiet. But on this I can not keep quiet. Iam the president of the highest Academic association on Yoruba Studies in Nigeria today. I will be shacking in my responsibilities not to respond to your proposal on things as fundamental as Orthography. If we are going to make any progress we have to understand thiat YORUBA IS A TONAL LANGUAGE, AND NOT AN ACCENTED LANGUAGE. This is something that can be easily crosschecked from dictionaries of Language and Linguistics. We were all taught in our primary school days that it is accent but scientific knowlege of  language disproves this and we have been teaching the correct thing in classrooms here in Nigeria even at Primary and Secondary levels of our education. Is it such a thing  you want us to go back to; refering to Yoruba as as an accented language? IS THAT WHAT YOU ARE TEACHING OUR CHILDREN DAISPORA? If these are the type of things you have wrtten in your books that youreferred to, then si, you are mieducating our young ones. Again I say prodly that Iam not just a first language speaker of Yoruba, Iam ascholar of Yoruba. I should Know better than you here. I remain to be challenged by you on the actual issues  raised in my former  mail: concerning the fact that Yoruba Orthograpyhy as it is now is scientifically better than English orthography, that your sugeestions will be tantamount to  falsifying the languae; writing what we do not pronounce, that they will creat inconsitecies and bring in incongruities and that Partial tonemarking or no tone marking can not help learning of the language ( which is inherently tonal). Please Have a second look at my submissions. Thank you. 

 

 

English at the Shakespearen era is different from English now. Yes, I  am a student of literature.  Just as  written Yoruba,  during the time of Ajayi Crowther differs from what we write now. But your  proposed rules on Yoruba and the examples you draw to support them are going to  draw us back to Ajayi Crowther days. Eligsh language that you referred to would not 'develop' backwards to the Elizabethan or Medieval period, why should Yoruba go back to what it has dropped 100 years ago? Please let us reason together. Is that not a draw back? Yoruba or any laguage  for that matter is  not inherently  inferior to any other,  including English. This is  a  statment of scientific fact that can be crosschecked. I have suggested submissions on the what we can do to raise the standard of Yoruba and make it cope with new challenges. This as ireferred to have been done before. The language has coping mechanisms for develoing new vocabularies. Yoruba is in  that sense,I  want to submit not inferior to other world languages. English too is up till today developing new vocabularies. 

 

I  agree that I'm passionate about this matter. It is  because that is what I have put all my life to study. You also must have been studying some other good and important subject.You are just waking up to the reality that we must do someting about our language and heritage. If you in deed want to make useful contributions now I challenge you to go and study first what has been done. It is  a most sincere advice. It is only the tortiose that will think he only is wise.

 

To give the impression that Yoruba is not more than a language of Ifa, ofo, ijala, iwi etc. is incorrect. The use of language in these oral literary genres are special usages, just as the symbolic language and jargons of any discipline, including chemistry are. To give the impression that many dialects of Yoruba are not mutually inteligible to one another is not true. Besides, the Standard Yoruba is common to all and is used in Schools and on the media.

 I have not been able to write fully in Yoruba on the internet because I  have no acess to  fonts that  will  function well on the internet. I  do not intentionally want to make the  meaning of akogbatugbaka difficult for you or any one to dicipher. Even what you yourself tried to write out properly with tone marks did not come out perfectly. They are not readable. This is why my challenge to our scientist oand engineers should be taken seriously

 

I wish to end that I refuse to comment on your  last paragraph. It runs couter of what Yoruba race stands for.

All I know is that the Yoruba concept of Omoluabi recommends that, HUMILITY IS THE ZENITH OF LEARNING, (IRELE NII PEKUN EKO). IT WILL BE DIFFICULT TO LEARN ANY NEW THING IF WE HAVE NO RESPECT FOR EACH OTHERS VIEWS. REMEMBER THAT I WAS ONE OF THOSE THAT COMMENDED YOUR PROPOSAL ON NUMERALS. If these ones on orthography are good, I will also say it. But they are not, I'm sorry.

 

I' d be glad if you and other good members of AYOG will comment and react to isues and suggestions that I raised earlier. Agba ki i wa loja kori omo tuntun owo o. Let us all rise to the situastion and speak out now. May the Lord God help us.

I remain, sincerely yours in the service of our culture and language.

P. A. Ogundeji

PLEASE FIND BELOW MY ORIGINAL MAIL TO WHICH Dr Fakinlede replied.

MAY WE NOT BE AN AKOGBATUGBAKA

 

Greetings to you all,

 

 Yoruba Orthography as it is written and officially accepted in Nigeria today  is one of the best orthographies in the world today. We have taken a very long route to arrive at this scientific orthography for Yoruba; right from the time of Ajayi Crowther to that of Adeboye Babalola, Ayo Bamgbose, and Oladele Awobuluyi and others. I strongly disagree with Fakinlede's observation that the use of tone marking and reading of documents well written in officially accepted Yoruba orthogrraphy is hard and cumbersome. ("You are a slave to what you believe"). This is the type of attitude that some students have for mathematics and other science subjects and they are never able to conqure them.  Insted of that type of negative approach and voice of discouragement to our learners of the language ,especially in diaspora. Anybody that is finding it difficult, because he or she has left the study of his mother tongue unattended to at the right time or any other reason for that matter, should be encouraged to take it as a challenge and learn it. The tortorsian proverb says kiko ni mimo (practice makes perfect) .

 

I am sad that we are being drawn back on this matter by 100 years. Yoruba has been for over 100 years scietifcally studied at different levels.Though one may be a Yoruba mothertongue speaker, that does not necessarily make one a specialist in the language.One must as a matter of international academic etiquette and especially Yoruba standard of omoluabi acknowlege those who have put in the totality of there lives, not necesarilly through eulogy but by actually reviewing previous literatures. One is free to contribute but before anyone can make any serious and meaningful contribution to any aspect of Yoruba language let the person first and formost go and study previous works. There are criteria for good orthographies. (See Bamgbose 1966) The suggestions Fakinlede is advocating run foul of them.

 

Let me quickly correct that Yoruba is a tonal language and the marks we put on the words are therefore tone marks and not accents please. Accent is different from tones.

 

Through the suggestions Fakinlede is making, I humbly wish to say that he is about to start dismantling one of the strongest areas, if not the srongest, in which Yoruba language exceles far above other languages, including English. I wish to say again, it is a long, long journey since before 1875. I hope we shall not be drawn into becoming the proverbial akogbatugbaka on this matter.

 

The so called rules that Fakinlede is proposing will bring  the problems of incosistency and incongruity that had been resolved, back into Yoruba orthography; writing down sounds or words the way they are actually not pronouced eg. li nwon enia aiye anwon enyin peipeiye etc.thereby destroying the scientific basis of the orthography. 

 

As far as tones are cocerned they form an integral part of the syllable  (and  the word) in Yoruba. They are not ornamental or cosmetic. Tones are of the same status as consonants and vowels in the language. Tones, it should be noted cannot be separated from spoken Yoruba, why do we want to remove   it from or reduce it in written Yoruba. This is tantamount to falsifying the language. We should not falsify the language by writing one thing and pronoucing another thing. It will further confuse new learners of the language and will not help even our young mother toungue learners. Tone is a reality in the language that we can not run way from. We should face that squarely and should not run away from that reality. There are whites who have lerant it and they know it and are not complaining about it. Karin Barber is a modern day example. It was not hard or cumbersom to learn for her and others like her.

 

Yoruba does not have double consonants and consonannt clusters the use of two consonants for a single sound is therefore discouraged in the mordern Yoruba orthography.To use 'sh'  will be misleading. We do not have to ape other languages senselesly.  'gb' is allowed becuse the consonants combines the use of the double articulators involved in pronouncing those two consonants i.e. 'g' and 'b'. Generally speaking the suggestions by Fakinlede will re-introduce confussions.   

 

It will be stupid of us not to learn from the othographical errors of languages that have been written long before Yoruba. How many of such orthographies of the world have those pontificating and saying works of donkey years by thinkres should be jettisoned. Those before us have not done this. Why should we be the ones to take  back the proverbial four steps after those befor us had taken two good steps forward.

 

I am of the opinion that we should move forward rather than going backward(which AYOG is actually about to commence, if care is not taken); destroying what earlier scholars and students of the language have done. I suggest among other things the following ways forward:

1) Let our scientists be ready to collaborate with experts in Yoruba language and linguistics to find permanent solutions to using mordern Yoruba Orthography (with tones and all diacritics) on the computer and the internet. They should not try to draw us 100 years back to serve there individual purposes. I rcognise and acknowlge Dr. Adegbola, Dr Olamijulo, Prof Schleicher, Dr. Mosadomi and others who have been working tirelessly in this and related, area but there is still room for perfection.

2)We should challenge our educators to look for mordern easy methodologies of teaching the language and its orthograhy to our children (including tones on all syllables) in diaspora and at home.

3)We should identify areas of life, study and profession where adequate metalanguages have not been carried out and evolve new terminologies for discussion in such areas and institute adequate mechanisims of popularising such terminologies. Works of this type have been done in Nigeria and we still have a lot of grounds to cover.

 

I sincerely pray that AYOG will not defeat its purpose of advancing Yoruba. But if it will not have a serious look at what has been done (history) and consider how and why before it acts, then I do not have to be a prophet to fortell that  it in deed will. This is my half-penny word, aabo oro. O tan lenu, o ku sikun.

 

Prof Philip Adedotun Ogundeji.

President Yoruba Studies association of Nigeria (YSAN)

Egbe Onimo Yoruba (ni Naijiria).

Linguistics & African Languages U. I. Ibadan, Nigeria.

Correct e-mail add: <dotog...@yahoo.com>,<pa.og...@mail.ui.edu.ng>,<pa.og...@ibadanculturalstudies.org>

234-802-346-9894

 

Dear Prof. Ogundeji,It took me a while to figure out the meaning of Akokatugbaka. When at last, I was able to decode the word, I burst out laughing

I commend your passion and those of others who have expressed strong opinions About Yoruba orthography. First, your contribution and those of others enabled me to know how much our forebears must have invested in the subject matter. The conclusions they arrived at could not be one that anyone should even attempt to challenge, much less, dismantle. The Yoruba orthography is so very well entrenched that it will be foolhardy for anyone to even want to do this. If however, there is any feeling that this is my intention, I have done a poor job at making myself understood. This is my fault.

 

I must say that this passionate discourse on a subject matter that we all care about is the real reason why there is AYOG. It is for those that do not know to be educated by those who do. Judging from the response to my article, I can say that AYOG is doing exactly what it is supposed to be doing. I appreciate its existence.

 

Now that I think that I have disabused the notion of wanting to dismantle the very edifice on which the Yoruba language stands, I wish I could make my point more succinctly. If I still cannot, then shame on me.

 

First, like any other language, the Yoruba language along with the way it is written, will continue to evolve. There is really very little we can do about this. If, for example, we were to take the English language, we know that the way it was written during the time of Chaucer is quite different from the way it is written today. Even within a few years new idioms come into the Yoruba language that were not there before. If we were to take the example of the sentence O le ku, which in actuality is an abbreviation of the sentence O le ku, Ija Ore, one would see that this came into common usage during the Nigerian Civil War. Today, it is a saying that has broad acceptance within the Yoruba community. Moreover, many words and idioms that are prevalent in the Ifa poems are no longer of common usage today. Many of the communities that are mentioned in it are even not around any more. That was what prompted the whole discussion about signs in the first place. It was suggested that the poem that was recited should have had accents accompanying them. If this had happened, you and I would have had the benefit of enjoying it more than we did. In all honesty, I could not understand the poem BECAUSE OF THE LACK OFACCENTS.

 

Secondly, the Yoruba language, like many superior languages of this world, has the ability to be used to communicate any subject matter we want. This, to me, is the main reason why I like to know the language more. It is the APPLICATION of Yoruba language to propagate other areas of knowledge that interests me. But really, I have spelt this out many times before.

 

Now, let us look at the way the English language handles this area of use. In past years, a lady secretary would have to learn to write SHORTHAND in order to take dictations from her manager. This was a quick way of the manager to communicate his wishes in English to the secretary.

 

If a patient were to visit a medical practitioner, he probably would be given a prescription written in a way that the patient would not understand, but which the pharmacist could decode and with it, fill the prescribed medication. Definitely, the language written would still be considered as English.

 

A scientist, particularly, a chemist, has very strange ways of writing things we common people would really not understand or even care to understand. He is said to be writing English but in a scientific way.

 

Of course, a Jamaican, speaking a barely comprehensible patois, would still claim that he is speaking English.

 

This is the case in all developed languages of the world. And of course, this is the case with the Yoruba language. The Yoruba language is the language of Ifa poetry, Ofo, Afose, Ogede, Iwi, Ijala, etc. It has so many dialects within it that some are barely comprehensible by one of the other. Moreover, Yoruba language, because of the influence of other languages on it, is written in so many different ways around the world that are barely comprehensible by one of the other. This is really the nature of a Superior language. For example, the Yoruba word, ORISA can be written as it is or as OCHA, ORIXA, ORICHA, etc. In spite of the spellings, there is really no ambiguity as to the meaning of the word being communicated.

 

Now, going back to the word, Akogbatugbaka, I am sure that in spite of its lack of accents, it is meant to be understood by anyone worth his salt in the Yoruba language. If one were to really dissect this word, one could find ten or more meanings to it. Nevertheless, within the context of what is being discussed and the mood of the writer, I could within a short time, decode the meaning of the word. That in essence, is what I am talking about.

 

When in the Bible, it is written, “Ni atetekose, Olorun da orun oun aye…†if one were to rigorously dissect this clause, one can find many meanings to it. Nevertheless, I would be shocked if there is any Yoruba person anywhere holding a Bible who will not know this as “In the beginning, God created heaven and earth…†I would be amply surprised if anyone were to think this verse meant that God broke His neck and something else.

 

Moreover, if someone were to ask me where I come from, and I were to write Ibadan, Ondo, Ogbomosho, Ilesha, Ilorin, Akure, or any of the many prominent cities in Yoruba land, I would like to think that an average Yoruba person would understand what I write. As a matter of fact, this is exactly what we do when we write on the internet. This is not because, the person writing is lazy or does not want to follow the correct way of writing, but because we know that the person to whom we are writing understands what we write in spite of the fact that we have not put the signs.

 

I personally do not consider myself a lazy Yoruba writer. In all of my Yoruba books, I have painstakingly put the signs on every word as best as I could. However, if I am writing a quick article in Yoruba to members of AYOG, I probably would not bother to append signs on every syllable, knowing fully well that every member of AYOG understands the issue I am discussing and would read the text in that context.

 

Lastly, I strongly believe in the spirit with which AYOG was formed. I do believe that some people will make many hare brained suggestions as long as the Group is in existence but this comes with the territory. And I do pray that this will be a long time indeed.

 

Best Regards

Fakinlede

---

Cheap Talk? Check out Yahoo! Messenger's low PC-to-Phone call rates.

[PHILIP OGUNDEJI]

Dear all.

 

Thanks a lot to Prof Antonia Y Shcicher, for speaking out on this matter. I hope she will read the totality of our communuications and still talk more on it. I especially want her judgement on whether Yoruba is a tonal language or an accent languae. All experts should speak up now that we may not mislead our young ones.This is important because Fakinleded is insisting on this matter. Despite the fact that he has been corrected he continued to refer to accents on Yoruba; and writing same in bold and caps. I'm worried about this because he's at the forefront now. Yoruba should not be misrepresnted.  

 

But it is clear that Prof Schleicher does not support eradicating tones. She has just conffirmed my earlier submisssion tha written Yoruba without tones will not help learners of Yoruba. 

and she wants us to be tone marking all our written Yoruba even on the internet, so that she can use them as illustrations.    

 

I as a person is still looking for programmes tha will funtion wellon the internet. I wish Professor Schlecher to note tha Professor Adeboye Babalola had some months ago sent some documents from your end to me, protesting vigoriusly that as YSAN president I should draw attention to your wrong spellings of Yoruba words. But on looking closely at the materials I discovered that it was caused rather by the fact that the printer or computer could not decipher properly the codes ussed in tone marking and inserting the sub dots.Prof Bamgbose was also aware of the story. We assured Prof Babalola that it was a technological problem and not your fault. The Big Question is how can we get over the problem. That is why some of us have not been writing in Yoruba on the internet. I will soon put some of my recent public lectures written in Yoruba on Pdf at www.ibadanculturalstudiesgroup,org. I hope you will find them useful.

 

Dotun Ogundeji

---

Check out the New Yahoo! Mail - Fire up a more powerful email and get things done faster.

[akin...@rci.rutgers.edu]

Dear all,

Professor Adedotun Ogundeji has appealed to specialists to help clarify
issues. Therefore I am only going to comment on the terms "tone" and
"accent", because I am a phonologist, and then I will shut up.

Let me also say that I will only clarify tone and accent as they refer to
"pitch", and not to other uses such as "regional accents", etc.

In modern phonology, the term "tone" refers to pitch that is used to make
"lexical" contrast in words. That is, wether a syllable is said on a high
or a low pitch, makes meaning difference (keeping everything else
constant). For example, Yoruba makes use of pitch in this way:

kO "build"
kO "sing/ crow"
kO "reject"

Yoruba is therefore a tone / tonal language. So is Chinese, as the
following examples illustrate.

ma "mother"
ma "hemp"
ma "horse"
ma "scold"

The MAJORITY of the 7000 languages spoken in the world today are tonal. In
fact, only a couple of Nigeria's 500 languages (including Fulfulde / Fula)
have been shown convincingly not to be tone languages.

Moving on now to "accent" or "pitch accent". An accentual language makes
use of pitch, like a tone language. However, in an accentual language,
ONLY ONE SYLLABLE in the word marks where pitch falls or rises. That is,
in such a language only one syllable is "accented" in a word, and this is
the syllable that needs to be marked with the accent. It does not matter
how many syllables are in the word. Japanese is such a language. Examples
of Japanese (I have used * after the syllable that is accented):

Three syllable words:
ka*buto "helmet"
ino*ci "life"
atama* "head"

Two syllable words:
a*ki "autumn"
ame* "rain"

It is clear that in Japanese pitch can fall on the first, second, third,
or any syllable, unpredictably. Many West African languages are in fact
accentual languages, including Mende, Kukuya, etc.

Therefore, the correct way to refer to Yoruba is to call it a tone or
tonal language.

Sincerely,

Akinbiyi AKINLABI
Former Chair of Linguistics
Rutgers University.

[akin...@rci.rutgers.edu]

Dear all,

Sincerely,

Akinbiyi Akinlabi

Former Chair of Linguistics
Rutgers University.

> Dear all.

[Adeniran Adeboye]

Dear Professor Akinlabi,

Many thanks for your careful analysis. I hope that this would settle
some of the technicality. Whether we call them accents or a tone
marks in English , we need them in Yoruba where they have only one
group name---ami (or amin). Just out of curiosity, can we continue to
call French an accent language given that the three syllable word
"theoreme" is written with an acute accent on the first "e" and a
grave accent on the second? Or is this one of the rare exceptions to
a general rule?

Best regards,

Adeniran Adeboye

[Antonia Y. Schleicher]

Dear All,

Sorry, I did not respond to the issue of tones being referred to as accents because I thought the difference between tones and accents is such a basic knowledge that we do not need to waste our time on the topic.  But I later realized that this knowledge might be basic in linguistics but not in general.  Sorry about that.  Thanks to Professor Akinbiyi Akinlabi who has now explained the difference between tones and accents to us.

Just as no one would refer to Japanese as a tone language, we should not refer to Yoruba as an accentual language.  Both Chinese and Yoruba are tone languages.  And tones behave differently from accents.

That is that.

With regards to fonts to write Yoruba on the internet, I have some fonts that I have used for the past 12 years on email, internet, CD-ROMs, compatible on MAC and PC.  If you have the font on your computer, you can access any Yoruba text that I write with the tones and the dots.  If Dotun wants to try this font, I can make it available to him.  Many publishers use these fonts for publishing Yoruba materials and you can post Yoruba texts on the internet using this font.

But of course, it would be better if we can develop a UNICODE version.  But in the mean time, the fonts some of us use in the US for writing Yoruba seem to be working well for now.

Thanks,

Antonia Schleicher

At 01:32 PM 11/5/2006, you wrote:

Dear all.
 
Thanks a lot to Prof Antonia Y Shcicher, for speaking out on this matter. I hope she will read the totality of our communuications and still talk more on it. I especially want her judgement on whether Yoruba is a tonal language or an accent languae. All experts should speak up now that we may not mislead our young ones.This is important because Fakinleded is insisting on this matter. Despite the fact that he has been corrected he continued to refer to accents on Yoruba; and writing same in bold and caps. I'm worried about this because he's at the forefront now. Yoruba should not be misrepresnted. 
 
But it is clear that Prof Schleicher does not support eradicating tones. She has just conffirmed my earlier submisssion tha written Yoruba without tones will not help learners of Yoruba.
and she wants us to be tone marking all our written Yoruba even on the internet, so that she can use them as illustrations.   
 

I as a person is still looking for programmes tha will funtion wellon the internet. I wish Professor Schlecher to note tha Professor Adeboye Babalola had some months ago sent some documents from your end to me, protesting vigoriusly that as YSAN president I should draw attention to your wrong spellings of Yoruba words. But on looking closely at the materials I discovered that it was caused rather by the fact that the printer or computer could not decipher properly the codes ussed in tone marking and inserting the sub dots.Prof Bamgbose was also aware of the story. We assured Prof Babalola that it was a technological problem and not your fault. The Big Question is how can we get over the problem. That is why some of us have not been writing in Yoruba on the internet. I will soon put some of my recent public lectures written in Yoruba on Pdf at www.ibadanculturalstudiesgroup,org. I hope you will find them useful.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 

Dotun Ogundeji
 

Antonia Folarin Schleicher
Professor and Chair, Department of African Languages and Literature
Director, National African Language Resource Center (NALRC)
Executive Director, NCOLCTL

[PHILIP OGUNDEJI]

 

 

 

 

 

Sir,

ami (dd) means signs or marks. The issue realy at stake is ohun (rd) and how we indicate it will be ami ohun. God bless you we are all students you may romorrow have something to teach me too. I nfact have learnt from Akinbiyi and Yetunde that the correct drscriptive is accentual and not accented as I have been writing all along. i thank them both.

Dotun

Adeniran Adeboye <aade...@mac.com> wrote:

---

Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail.

[Tola Mosadomi]

Dear All:

I do not believe that we can do without tones in our Yoruba written
expressions. What accentual marks are to Romance languages (French, Spanish,
Italian, etc) is what tonal marks are to Yoruba language. They distinguish
meaning and help resolve cases of ambiguity and confusion, among other
things, that would otherwise leave a student frustrated.

There are two scenarios I will like to address briefly: one is about Yoruba
native speakers' knowledge of Yoruba; and the other is about teaching Yoruba
to learners of Yoruba as a second language.

Native speakers who have been schooled at any level on tones or have taken
courses in Yoruba, have an advantage over those who have not. Those who have
not could have problems reading certain texts in Yoruba. Native speakers
may not have problem reading, for example, bill boards /signs with short
phrases, or just simple words. We should note, however, that even native
speakers, who have formal knowledge of the language, can still have problems
reading Yoruba (in terms of meaning) without tone marks. Some native
speakers may argue that they do not have to be formally taught Yoruba to be
able to read it or write it. There could be limitations to reading or
writing if not formally taught.

My argument is geared more to the teaching of Yoruba as a second language.
It will be most cumbersome for learners of Yoruba as a second language if
tones are not taught to them. This is based on my students' recent
experience in the classroom when some of them were correcting others in
terms of tones. Most of these students, who are non native speakers,
realize that not marking the tones is 'disastrous'. Therefore tone marking
is crucial to the understanding of the language. How will students figure
out if owo implies 'money' or 'trade' if the tones are not marked?
Depending on their level of language acquisition, it could be difficult for
beginners, or students at intermediate level, to decode meanings
contextually without tones.

As a phonologist, I argue in favor of tonal markings in Yoruba language at
all levels and in all domains of usage-grammar texts, online texts, etc. We
speak Yoruba using tones. That cannot be changed as an L1(first language).
So, why reduce the tones in writing? Can we separate the four language
skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing? If we speak it with
tones, can we read it or write it without tones?

Accents in French have been preserved for meanings and pronunciation, in
spite of the evolution of the French language. L'Academie Francaise(The
French Academy, in charge of French language preservation and
purification)has done a good job preserving the accents so as not to cause
readers/speakers any confusions. Many Yoruba speakers have learned French
using accent grave, accent aigue, accent circonflexe, etc without problems.
I used all these accents from secondary school through doctoral program
without any problem. I think the Yoruba Academy( if there is one), or all
of us, should try to preserve the use of tones for the sakes of meaning and
pronunciation, and for all users of the language, including the non native
speakers who will some day become teachers/professors, or users of the
language for whatever reasons. I agree with Professors Akinlabi, Ogundeji,
and Schleicher who argue that Yoruba is a tonal language, not an accentual
one.

Dr. Fehintola Mosadomi
The University of Texas at Austin

[fehintola mosadomi]

Dear All:

 

I do not believe that we can do without tones in Yoruba language. What accentual marks are to Romance languages (French, Spanish, Italian, etc) is what tonal marks are to Yoruba language. They distinguish meaning and help resolve cases of ambiguity and confusion, among other things, that would otherwise leave a student frustrated.

 

There are two scenarios I will like to address briefly: one is about Yoruba native speakers’ knowledge of Yoruba; and the other is about teaching Yoruba to learners of Yoruba as a second language.

 

Native speakers who have been schooled at any level on tones or have taken courses in Yoruba, have an advantage over those who have not. Those who have not could have problems reading certain texts in Yoruba.  Native speakers may not have problem reading, for example, bill boards /signs with short phrases, or just simple words. We should note, however, that even native speakers, who have formal knowledge of the language, can still have problems reading Yoruba (in terms of meaning) without tone marks.  Some native speakers may argue that they do not have to be formally taught Yoruba to be able to read it or write it. There could be limitations to reading or writing if not formally taught.

  

My argument is geared more to the teaching of Yoruba as a second language.  It will be most cumbersome for learners of Yoruba as a second language if tones are not taught to them. This is based on my students’ recent experience in the classroom when some of them were correcting others in terms of tones.  Most of these students, who are non native speakers, realize that not marking the tones is ‘disastrous’.  Therefore tone marking is crucial to the understanding of the language. How will students figure out if owo implies ‘money’ or ‘trade’ if the tones are not marked?  Depending on their level of language acquisition, it could be difficult for beginners, or students at intermediate level, to decode meanings contextually without tones.

 

As a phonologist, I argue in favor of tonal markings in Yoruba language at all levels and in all domains of usage—grammar texts, online texts, etc.  We speak Yoruba using tones. That cannot be changed as an L1(first language).  So, why reduce the tones in writing? Can we separate the four language skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing? If we speak Yoruba with tones, can we read it or write it without tones?

 

Accents in French have been preserved for meanings and pronunciation, in spite of the evolution of the French language. L’Academie Francaise(The French Academy, in charge of French language preservation and purification)has done a good job preserving the accents so as not to cause readers/speakers any confusions. Many Yoruba speakers have learned French using accent grave, accent aigue, accent circonflexe, etc without problems. I used all these accents from secondary school through doctoral program without any problem.  

 

I think the Yoruba Academy( if there is one), or all of us, should try to preserve the use of tones for the sakes of meaning and pronunciation, and for all users of the language, including the non native speakers who will some day become teachers/professors, or users of the language for whatever reasons. We should keep in mind international users of the language who are not native speakers.

 

I agree with Professors Akinlabi, Ogundeji, and Schleicher who argue that Yoruba is a tonal language, not an accentual one.

 

 

Dr. Fehintola Mosadomi

The University of Texas at Austin

 

 

 

akin...@rci.rutgers.edu wrote:

[Felix Ayoh'OMIDIRE]

Dear respected All,

 

I am particularly glad that this issue is coming up again, I remember that, about 2 year ago, this whole idea of whether it would not be better to supress the àmìn ohùn (by the way, I always try to insist on the full term, instead of using just "àmìn" in order to let my  Brazilian students of Yoruba realise that it does not serve the same purpose as the accents in romance languages). I quite remember my calling attention to the fact that, apart from the indispensability of the tone marks for what I call phonetic and semantic accuracy, the combination of tone marks and the dotted vowels in yoruba are elements of the originality and beauty of our language that must be preserved. Those of us who teach yoruba in foreign institutions have found out that part of the special appeal of our language are this extra-alphabetical elements.  

It is good that more and more of our elders and experts are now speaking up against proposals to remove the tone marks, in the same way, I do hope, that we should also resist any unnecessary move to condemn our numeral system in the name of  "making our language less cumbersome". My own fear, as a specialist in cultural, ethnic and identity studies is that, if we are not careful, the wave of "globalization" and its attendant tools will simply wipe out all the original elements that make our language and culture a respected patrimony of humanity.

I believe our people should stop reasoning like Walter J.Ong who make such  absurd claims like the one about the African talking drum which he called a fraud, affirming that there is no drum that can talk like humans do, and saying that, in fact, it takes at least eight time more words to reproduce on drums anything  near human speech. It is not good for our collective ego as Yorubas when some of our own people make near verbatim repetition of such claims in respect of the use of numbers in Yoruba language.

I hope more of our experts will speak out on this issue.

 

yours,

 

Dr. Félix Ayoh'OMIDIRE
Department of Foreign Languages,

O.A.U. Ile-Ife.

---

Découvrez une nouvelle façon d'obtenir des réponses à toutes vos questions ! Profitez des connaissances, des opinions et des expériences des internautes sur Yahoo! Questions/Réponses.

[jare Ajayi]

E ku ikale, eyin eniyan wa gbogbo.
Iwuri lo je pe Yoruba di ohun ti opo eniyan fi n
yangan bayii ti a si n wa ona ati mu idagbasoke ba
kaakiri agbaye. Oluwa a fun wa se, ami.
Mo woye pe oro fifi ami si ori awon oro Yoruba tabi
aifi ami si won ti di fanfa (d r d) lenu ojo meta yii.
Aba kan ti emi fe da lori oro yii ni pe bi a ba n ko
ede Yoruba, ki a fi ami si ori awon oro kookan nigba
akoko ti oro naa ba koko jeyo. Paapaa julo awon oro to
ba takoko - ti pipe won ati itumo won le ruju bi ami
ko ba si nibe. Lehin eyi a le sa i fi ami si won moo
paapaa bi o ba je pe irufe oro naa waye pupo ninu iwe
ti a n ko naa.
E se aforiji fun mi pe mi o fi ami si ori ati abe
iimeeli mi yii. Iso onisowo inntaneeti (cybercafe -
saibakafe) ni mo ti fi iwe yii sowo.
Mo tun fe pe akiyesi wa si nnkankan. Eyi ni bi a se n
ko 'ami'. Nibi Yoruba ode oni, a ki i fi 'n' si ehin
'i' mo bi o ba tele 'm'. Idi abajo ni pe awon onimo
nipa ede so pe leta 'm' aranmupe ni. Leta 'n' aranmupe
ni oun naa. Bi a ba ti fi 'i' si 'm', o ti gbodo han
gbangba pe 'ami' ni a n wi. E je ki a pe 'ami' ati
'ominrin' wo - koko ohun ti mo n so yoo fi ara han.
Ire o
I'm saying that where a writer of a Yoruba script is
in a hurry, words can be can be given tone marks the
first times they appear and let them be in their
subsequent appearances. Especially, tricky words whose
pronounciation and meaning could be misconstrued
without the accents.
More anon
Regards to everyone
Jare Ajayi

=== message truncated ===

____________________________________________________________________________________
Sponsored Link

Try Netflix today! With plans starting at only $5.99 a month what are you waiting for?
http://www.netflix.com/Signup?mqso=80010030

[Tunde Adegbola]

Dear Dr. Félix Ayoh'OMIDIRE,

As an aside to our discussions in this group, I think Walter Ong and his disciples should be encouraged to watch the film Saworoide by mainframe. 

I report a quantitative study of the Yoruba talking drum at the following URL.  It might make an interesting reading.  http://www.alt-i.org/ProbabilisticallySpeaking.pdf.  Unfortunately it suffers form the Yoruba typography problem. 

Tunde

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tunde Adegbola (Ph.D.)

Executive Director

African Languages Technology Initiative

(Alt-I ... Inserting African issues into the agenda of the knowledge age)

www.alt-i.org

 

President

Tiwa Systems Ltd.

 

11 Oluyole Way, New Bodija Ibadan, Nigeria.

+234 8034019398

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

---

From: Felix Ayoh'OMIDIRE <fomi...@yahoo.fr>
Reply-To: yoruba...@googlegroups.com
To: yoruba...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Yoruba Affairs - RE : Yoruba Affairs - Re: Yoruba, an international language
Date: Mon, 6 Nov 2006 15:42:11 +0100 (CET)

[University of Kansas]

Eyin Ojogbon,

        Mo ki yin o.

Just to add my little bit to this discussion on Yoruba amin-ohun.  Although I am not a trained linguist, I have found it extremely instructive in teaching movements in not only Yoruba dance but most African dances. I use the tonal emphasis of Yoruba language to illustrate movement stresses, accentuations, ellipses and stills/silences. This helps to explain the rhythm-centred basis of most African dances instead of the counting-structure of Western dances. I tell them ‘I cannot count.’  However, I create different sentences using words with the same  spellings but with different tonal emphasis, and of course with the resulting different meanings. Using the tonal markings, we turn the sentences (sometimes not making much sense) into simple musical forms and move along with the stresses and emphasis. Works like magic – you can see the students eyes light up as they move “effortlessly” (at least relative to my very poor attempt at counting) to the sentences and improvised rhythms.

By the way, although a native Yoruba speaker can generally make sense of a Yoruba text without the amin-ohun, it becomes more difficult in complicated texts, or as they say, texts in ijinle Yoruba.

E seun o.

--
Omofolabo Ajayi-Soyinka,
213 Bailey Hall,
1440 Jayhawk Blvd.,
University of Kansas,
Lawrence, KS 66045.
-----------------
Theatre/Film Department 785-864-2691
Women's Studies Program 785-864-2312

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cheap Talk? Check out Yahoo! Messenger's low PC-to-Phone call rates. <http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail_us/taglines/postman8/*http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=39663/*http://voice.yahoo.com>  

---

Découvrez une nouvelle façon d'obtenir des réponses à toutes vos questions ! Profitez des connaissances, des opinions et des expériences des internautes sur Yahoo! Questions/Réponses <http://fr.rd.yahoo.com/evt=42054/*http://fr.answers.yahoo.com> .

[Ayobami Subair]

You can type perfectly tone-marked Yorùbá words on your computer (Laptop + Desktop, Win XP and above) without any external keyboard and its UNICODE based!Sample text typed with TruWORD:

Inú mí dùn pópọ̀pópọ̀ láti jẹ́ kí ẹmò wípé Yorùbá sọ́fútiwà (TruWORD Multilingual Word Processing Software) tiwà tí a pilèkọ l'áti ọwọ́ àwọn ọmọ Nìàjíríà. Èyí tó ń s'isẹ́ bóseyẹ (bíi ká f'àmìsí sórí ọ̀rọ̀, pírííntìì, fọ́máàtì, àti bẹ́ẹ̀bẹ́ẹ̀lọ) t'ósìtún le s'àtúnse lórí fíàlì tí àwọn sọ́fútiwà míràn tí kòle f'àmì ohùn sírí ọ̀rò. Ìrànlọ́wọ́ ńlá gbáà ni eléyìí yíò jẹ́ fún ìgbélórí sókè àti ìpolongo èdè Nàìjíríà bíi Yorùbá, Hausa àti Igbo bẹ́nì owó rírà rẹ̀ kòsì kanni nípá. 

Wo ẹ̀rọ ayélujàra wa fún àlàyé kíkú: www.truwordnetwork.com tàbí kío pe +2348032322276.