Yoruboid is a language family composed of the

Igala Igala or IGALA may refer to: * IGALA, the International Gender and Language Association, an interdisciplinary academic organization * Igala Kingdom, a pre-colonial West African state * Igala language, a Volta–Niger language * Igala people ...

group of dialects spoken in south central

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

, and the

Edekiri languages The Edekiri languages are spoken in a band across Togo, Benin and Nigeria. The group includes: *the Ede dialect cluster, including Ife; *Itsekiri (Nigeria, up to 1 million speakers); *the Yoruboid languages Ulukwumi and Mokole; * Yoruba, by f ...

subdivided into the Ede group (which includes Yoruba) spoken in a band across

Togo Togo, officially the Togolese Republic, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Ghana to Ghana–Togo border, the west, Benin to Benin–Togo border, the east and Burkina Faso to Burkina Faso–Togo border, the north. It is one of the le ...

Ghana Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It is situated along the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, and shares borders with Côte d’Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, and Togo to t ...

Benin Benin, officially the Republic of Benin, is a country in West Africa. It was formerly known as Dahomey. It is bordered by Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east, Burkina Faso to the north-west, and Niger to the north-east. The majority of its po ...

and southern

, and the Itsekiri group of the Warri Kingdom in the northwestern Niger-Delta.

Name

The name ''Yoruboid'' derived from its most widely spoken member, Yoruba, which has around 55 million primary and secondary speakers. Another well-known Yoruboid language is

Itsekiri The Itsekiri (also called the Isekiri, ''iJekri'', ''Itsekri'', ''Ishekiri'', or Itsekhiri) are an ethnic group who mainly inhabit Nigeria's Niger Delta area. They speak a Yoruboid languages, Yoruboid language and can be found in Ondo State, Ondo ...

(about 1,000,000 speakers). The Yoruboid group is a branch of

Defoid The Defoid languages are a proposed branch of the Benue–Congo language family. The name of the group derives from the fact that nearly all of the ethnic groups who speak member languages refer to the city of Ile Ife, Ilé Ifè as their place of ...

, which also includes the

Akoko The Akoko are a large Yoruba cultural sub-group in the Northeastern part of Yorubaland. The area spans from Ondo State to Edo State in southwest Nigeria. The Akokos as a subgroup make up 20.3% of the population of Ondo State, and 5.7% of th ...

and Ayere-Ahan languages. The term ''Defoid'' itself is a derivative combination using the elements ''ede'' (meaning 'language' in most lects within the grouping), "Ife", a city of profound cultural significance to speakers of the diverse lects, and ''-oid'', a suffix meaning 'to be like' or 'in the same manner as'. The ''Defoid'' group itself is a branch of the Benue–Congo subfamily of the wider Niger–Congo family of languages. All Yoruboid languages are tonal, with most of them having three level tones. Grammatically, they are isolating with a subject–verb–object basic word order and share significant degrees of both structural and lexical similarities.

Languages

is a key Yoruboid language, spoken by 1.6 million people in the Niger-Benue confluence of central Nigeria; it is excised from the main body of Yoruboid languages to the west by

Ebira The Ebira people are an ethnic-linguistic group of North central Nigeria. Most Ebira people are from Kogi State and Nasarawa State. Their language is usually classified as Nupoid and within the Benue-Congo branch of the Niger-Congo language fami ...

and the northern

Edoid languages The Edoid languages are a few dozen languages spoken in southern Nigeria. Edoid-speaking Ethnicity, ethnic groups are predominantly located in the States of Edo State, Edo and Delta State, Delta however, smaller Edoid-speaking communities are als ...

. Igala is closely related to both Yoruba and Itsekiri languages. The Itsekiris are a riverine Yoruboid people who live in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. They maintain a distinct identity separate from other Yoruboid people but speak a very closely related language. Their neighbouring languages are the

Urhobo Urhobo may refer to: *Urhobo people, of Nigeria *Urhobo language Urhobo is a South-Western Edoid language spoken by the Urhobo people of southern Nigeria. It is from the Delta State, Delta and Bayelsa State, Bayelsa States. Phonology Urhobo has ...

, the

Okpe Okpe is a kingdom in Delta State, Nigeria. Today, it is also the name of a local government area. It is one of the many kingdoms that make up Urhobo nation. Its capital is Orerokpe. The kingdom plays host to the Osubi Airport (also known as Wa ...

, the

Edo Edo (), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the '' de facto'' capital of Japan from 1603 as the seat of the Tokugawa shogu ...

, the Ijo, and the Mahin / Ugbo, Yoruba dialects spoken in neighbouring

Ondo State Ondo () is a States of Nigeria, state in Points of the compass, southwestern Nigeria. It was created on 3 February 1976 from the former Western State (Nigeria), Western State. Ondo borders Ekiti State to the north, Kogi State to the northeast fo ...

Subdivisions

* - All dialects in the Ede cluster share between 85 and 95% lexical similarity and are thus all mutually intelligible without needing different specialized literature to achieve universal understanding.
** - Itsekiri is actually most closely related to SEY (South-Eastern Yoruba), and is a divergent branch thereof, but has a different standard writing orthography.
*** - Some scholars classify Olukumi as separate variant of Nuclear Yoruba, and others as a dialect of SEY.

Names and locations

Below is a list of selected Yoruboid language names, populations, and locations from Blench (2019).

References

External links

Proto-Yoruba-Igala Swadesh list
(N. Aubry, H. Friedman & K. Pozdniakov 2004) {{DEFAULTSORT:Yoruboid Languages Volta–Niger languages