Yoruba people

== Language ==
{{Main|Yoruba language}}
[[File:Degree of Presence of The Yoruba and 'Yoruba derived' groups in Nigeria, Benin and Togo at Subnational levels.jpg|center|650px|thumb|Degree of Presence of The Yoruba and derived' ''Ede'' 
groups<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://www.afrikanistik-aegyptologie-online.de/archiv/2007/1328//|title=A synchronic lexical study of the Ede language continuum of West Africa|journal=Afrikanistik Online|date=April 2008|volume=2007|issue=4|last1=Kluge|first1=Angela}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://international.ipums.org/international-action/variables/group/ethnic//|title=Ethnicity clusters of Benin data set, Yoruba group - IPUMS Census Data}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334522095|title=Ethnocultural study of agriculture in Northern Benin, Alibori department 12% Mokole Yoruba, INSAE 2013|date=28 September 2021}}</ref> in Nigeria, Benin & Togo at Subnational levels<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.peoplegroups.org/explore/ClusterDetails.aspx?rop2=C0233#topmenu/|title=People groups: Yoruba language cluster|date=1 September 2021}}</ref>]]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 is estimated at 30 million in 2010.<ref>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 [[demographics of Nigeria|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.</ref> Yoruba is classified within the [[Edekiri languages]], and together with the isolate [[Igala language|Igala]], form the [[Yoruboid languages|Yoruboid]] group of languages within what we now have as [[West Africa]]. Igala and Yoruba have important historical and cultural relationships. The languages of the two ethnic groups bear such a close resemblance that researchers such as Forde (1951) and Westermann and Bryan (1952) regarded Igala as a dialect of Yoruba.

The [[Yoruboid languages]] are assumed to have developed out of an undifferentiated [[Volta-Niger]] group by the first millennium BCE. There are three major dialect areas: [[Yoruba language#Varieties|Northwest]], [[Yoruba language#Varieties|Central]], and [[Yoruba language#Varieties|Southeast]].<ref>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'', {{ProQuest|288034744}}. See also {{cite book |last=Adetugbọ |chapter=The Yoruba Language in Yoruba History |title=Sources of Yoruba History |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/sourcesofyorubah0000biob |chapter-url-access=registration |editor-first=Saburi O. |editor-last=Biobaku |location=Oxford |publisher=Clarendon Press |year=1973 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/sourcesofyorubah0000biob/page/183 183–193] |isbn=0-19-821669-6 |url=https://archive.org/details/sourcesofyorubah0000biob/page/183}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Harvnb|Adetugbọ|1973|pp=192–3}}. (See also the section [[#Dialects|Dialects]].)</ref> 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.<ref>{{Harvnb|Adetugbọ|1973|p=185}}</ref> Central Yoruba forms a transitional area in that the lexicon has much in common with NWY, whereas it shares many ethnographical features with SEY.

[[Standard Yoruba|Literary Yoruba]] is the standard variety taught in schools and spoken by newsreaders on the radio. It is mostly entirely based on northwestern Yoruba dialects of the Oyos and the [[Egba people|Egbas]], and has its origins in two sources; The work of Yoruba Christian missionaries based mostly in the Egba hinterland at [[Abeokuta]], and the Yoruba grammar compiled in the 1850s by Bishop [[Samuel Ajayi Crowther|Crowther]], who himself was a [[Freetown#Province of Freedom (1787–1789)|Sierra Leonean]] Recaptive of Oyo origin. This was exemplified by the following remark by Adetugbọ (1967), as cited in Fagborun (1994): "While the orthography agreed upon by the missionaries represented to a very large degree the phonemes of the Abẹokuta dialect, the [[morpho-syntax]] reflected the Ọyọ-Ibadan dialects"