Yoruba

How to spell yoruba

6 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce yoruba

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does yoruba mean?

1. nounA West African ethnic group of south-western Nigeria and neighbouring countries, or the language that they speak.

Yoruba in a sentence

• The menu printed each dish in both English and yoruba.

• She grew up speaking yoruba at home in Lagos.

Where does yoruba come from?

Language of origin: Other

Yoruba is the name of one of the largest ethnolinguistic groups of West Africa, found chiefly in south-western Nigeria, Benin, and Togo, and of the language they speak. The origin of the name is genuinely uncertain, and scholars are cautious about it. In its earliest recorded uses the term seems to have referred specifically to the people of the Oyo kingdom rather than to the whole modern group, and it may have reached wider use through Hausa and other neighbouring languages before being adopted by Europeans. English took the word up in the nineteenth century, largely through the work of missionaries and colonial administrators who applied it broadly to the related dialects and communities of the region. Because it came into English by ear rather than through a written classical source, the spelling simply transliterates the sounds, which is why it stays the same across British, American, and Canadian usage.

How the word is built

• Yoruba (a single, unanalysable proper name; not built from English prefixes or suffixes)