Talk:Yoruba people

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Seems the document is a mixture of both Yorùbá and Yorùbáland. Shall we seperate the two?

I agree. This is the same thing I'm looking at in the mixture of Lagos and Lagos State entries. Unfortunately, if we separate them as they are now there will be very little information on either page. I'll try to set aside some time in the next month to put together better pages for both topics. It seems to me that there should ideally be at least two Yoruba pages, one for the language, one giving a general description of Yoruba history. Then a separate Yorubaland page talking about the historical area. Or perhaps Yorubaland should remain a section of the general Yoruba entry until there's enough information there to justify a separate entry. Rjhatl 01:50, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Samuel Ajayi Crowther should be linked in somewhere since he was the fisrt person to write down the language--nixie 01:44, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Actually the Yorubaland history is very well documented, and that article alone, after more time is spent, will generate enough content that in time will be need to be sub-divided even further. Until then I would say that we should seperate the articles as the content grows and demands it.

Contents

[edit] Small Merry making tribe

Please, lets take the racist caricatures of Africans out of wikipedia. There are over 25 million people, hardly a small tribe. There are more of them in Africa than there are in Australia or Portugal. And the Yorub are far more sophisticated than being a merry-making tribe.

Posted by 208.254.174.242 (talk · contribs) some time ago. I'm not sure what you're talking about. — mark ✎ 13:26, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Crowther and the rise of a common Yoruba identity

Mention needs to be made of the importance of Crowther's work for the rise of a common Yoruba identity. The people that consider themselves Yoruba today lacked a common name before the 1840's, although they shared their history. Don't yell {{sofixit}} at me, this is as much a suggestion for other editors as a reminder to myself to come back here. — mark ✎ 10:58, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Yoruba religion

Recently a lot of content on Yoruba religion has been added. I propose to move this to Yoruba religion or Yoruba (religion). Both the ethnic group and the religion deserve their own articles. — mark ✎ 06:59, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Ah, I forgot Yoruba mythology, which seems to be the main place for stuff on Yoruba religion. — mark ✎ 11:57, 18 October 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Odùduwà

Why is Odùduwà mentioned as the first item in this list about Yoruba?

[edit] Yoruba population and %

Yoruba population is above 40 million . My reason is base of govt figures. Please visit http://www.nigpost.com to see villages, town and cities in Nigeria. Please Note that that yoruba fall into 9 state. Count the number of villages, town and cities in nigeria and compare this with the yoruba figure of Oyo, ogun, ondo, ekiti, osun, lagos, kwara, Part of Kogi, and part of edo state. You would see that the yoruba have about 40% of the settlement in Nigeria. And when you compare comparison statictics from the office of statictics from radiom sample. The yoruba are 30% of the poulation but because of Hausa/fualni Military govt, who have alter the census to favour themself. Please Also download a copy of google earth satellite image and see the satellite image of Nigeria. which show clear that their are more setttlement in Yoruba land than any other part.


remember more people live in/migrate to the west (especially Lagos).c'mon i have been livin' in lag all my life n i aint yoruba.abeg no yarn bout census,lets wait 4 d results of d new 1.btw,no1 really cares whos d largest.so as my mum wud say - wetin concern agbero wit ovaload.--Adaobi 04:02, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

you do not need to wait.. check google earth, download it, it solve your problem.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nigeriamajor (talk • contribs)

Anyway, the problem with the satellite pictures has had enough coverage on Talk:Nigeria, so let's leave it there. — mark ✎ 18:39, 8 July 2006 (UTC)


MArk we dont leave that way, what you are doing my cause war in Nigeria.. You have place a minority ethnics group over a majority ethnics group, which show clearly on google earth that Yorubas are the majority. Mark, if you know anything about geography. You show see from google earth, that the yoruba make up about 35% of the population of nigeria.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nigeriamajor (talk • contribs)

I only said that it's better to keep the discussion in one place, namely there were it started: Talk:Nigeria. As for the statistics, are you aware that the Hausa and Fulani are taken together? That's probably because they all speak Hausa. Together, Hausa and (ethnic) Fulani are certainly larger than the Yoruba. If taken separately, it might be close, but as far as I know we have to reliable sources to go on. (And no, satellite pictures are not reliable sources. — mark ✎ 13:16, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I am not particularly troubled by this, but the population figures do seem to be inaccurate. If Yorubas are 30% of the Nigerian population, then that should yield more than 30 million people in Nigeria alone since the CIA World Factbook's conservative estimates pin the population at 131 million (https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ni.html). Coupled with populations in West Africa that stretch from Republic of Benin through Togo and Ghana to Cote D' Ivoire (these are small, but numerically significant nonetheless), I'm not sure how the writer arrived at the 30 million figure. Again, I don't consider it particularly important but it does seem to be a glaring contradiction.

Osomalo 04:12, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

It's not that I want that number to be as low as possible. I would support giving a higher figure of say "approx. 35 million" or "upward of 35 million". However, we have to cite a source for that, and combining two sources (the CIA for the total and another one for the percentage) of course will not do. That is why I have put the number at that given by the most recent printed source I came across. — mark ✎ 06:04, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pulled out pending verification

I've pulled out the following paragraph:

The Yoruba were one of the most urbanized sub-saharan Africans in the pre-colonial era, and have a history of town-dwelling that goes back to 500 A.D. The wealth of the Yoruba came from controlling the important trade routes between the coast and the hinterland. Trade caravans exchanged the agricultural products of the forest economies, including kolanuts and yam with textiles, metalwork, leatherwork and other goods imported through the Saharan trade.

Surely some of this needs to go back into the article in some way (the bit about trade, for starters), but especially the first few lines need citation. Where does the date of 500 AD come from? 'One of the most urbanized' - how does one measure that? Reverend Johnson did great work in recording the oral traditions of the Ọyọ Yoruba, but we'll need more solid sources to base our account of Yoruba history on. We also need the broader West-African context in order to assess the the merit of statements like the ones I pulled out.

In Sources of Yoruba History (S.O. Biabaku, Oxford University Press 1973) I couldn't find anything supporting the date and the statement about urbanization. The reason probably is that there is no solid evidence to make such statements. — mark ✎ 18:00, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

OK, I'm getting somewhere: Oyelaran 1998 ('Early settlement and archaeological sequence of Northeast Yorubaland') reports the results of archaeological research at the confluence of the Niger and Benue rivers. According to him, excavations at the sites Itaakpa, Oluwaju, and Adda indicate that human settlement there dates back to "the ceramic phase of the West African Late Stone Age" and that rock shelters in the area have been occupied from at least 300 BC. The consensus seems to be that the Northeastern Yorubas are autochthonous to the area, though Oyelaran notes a competing theory which supposes influence from Old Oyo and Ile-Ife.
  • Oyelaran, Philip A. (1998) 'Early settlement and archaeological sequence of Northeast Yorubaland', African Archaeological Review, 15, 1, 65-79.
— mark ✎ 14:00, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Mark--I believe the cited date comes from archaeological work done on Ife, which was originally a cluster of 13 or so villages that fused into a larger town/city around that time. I can't think of an exact source, but perhaps you would be able to verify the number based on that info. I do know that the naturalistic bronze and terra cotta work that Ife is famous for has been conclusively dated to the 12th-14th centuries, so that might be of some help also.

[edit] Pulled out pending verification

I had inserted a sentence stating that the Yoruba are largest single ethno-lingusitic group or ethnic nation in Nigeria and the largest in Africa, but another Wikipedian changed this to "second-largest" in Africa.

It will be great to know which is the largest single African ethno-lingusitic group or ethnic nation. I thought it is a well-known fact that the Yoruba are the largest single African ethnic nation. The Arabs may be the lingusitic group but not when talking of "ethno-lingusitic groups or ethnic nations." I am changing this back to the "largest single ethnic nation", except the changer supplies the name of the alternative "largest single ethnic nation". —Preceding unsigned comment added by HRH (talk • contribs)

Good idea to take it to talk first. I'm never such a fan of rankings like that, but in any case, either side will have to cite sources for their estimates. Concerning the number of 40 million ethnic Yoruba given in the article, I'm not entirely sure where it comes from. What I find in most ethnolinguistic sources are numbers like 22 or 25 million speakers of the language in West Africa (25 million according to Sachnine 1997:9, 19 million in 1993 according to the Ethnologue). Give or take a million or two, but I see no easy way to get up to 40 million.
I can see a few problematic cases. First, close to Yoruba, take Hausa. Looking at the native speakers is it somewhat larger than Yoruba (Newman 2000:1 gives upwards 35 million; Jaggar 2001:1 gives 30 million or more). Now, many Hausa speakers are in fact historically ethnic Fulani who shifted to Hausa following the Fulani Jihad — so one might make a case for their being (at least historically) not 'as' ethnic Hausa as ethnic Hausa, if you know what I mean.
Oromo comes to mind as a good candidate. About 24 million native speakers according to the 1998 census. That's clearly in the same range as Yoruba, so it is going to be very difficult to find out which is the largest, Yoruba or Oromo. I suspect it might even be impossible to decide because there are so many different sources presenting different numbers; that's why I won't make a choice. I think that whoever wants to argue either way has to provide sources for both Oromo and Yoruba. Ah, and Somali might need to be added to the pile, 13-25 million (2004 WCD). — mark ✎ 07:32, 16 March 2006 (UTC)


Thanks Mark. I am figuring out the Wikipedia tools, but only slowly. I hope I sign this correctly. Perhaps United Nations figures are the most reliable for Oromo and Yoruba population estimates. I believe the total ethnic Yoruba indigenous to Togo, Benin Republic and Nigeria are about 40 million - Nigeria has about 35 million Yoruba - but perhaps this weekend's census in Nigeria will provide more reliable figures. His Royal Highness 09:12, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Are the results of this census known already? — mark ✎ 17:38, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

At the moment, the first sentence of the article reads (thanks to an edit of Ajileso): The Yoruba (native name Yorùbá) form a large ethno-linguistic group or ethnic nation in West Africa. I think that nicely avoids the pitfalls of wordings like 'single largest' etc., which are magnets for POV edits. What do others think? — mark ✎ 17:44, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Yoruba twins

Recently, an extensive section was added on Yoruba twins. Although the information looks bona fide to me, it is a big problem for our verifiability that no sources are provided (see WP:CITE). I have tagged the section with {{unreferenced}} and warned the editor who added this on his talk page. I hope we will be able to cite sources, otherwise I'm going to move it to the talk page "pending verification".

On a sidenote, the section is quite big, so if kept, most of it will probably need to be split off into a new article Yoruba twins. — mark ✎ 17:04, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

It has been moved in its entirety to Yoruba twins by RickRdgrs. — mark ✎ 07:10, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cuba and Yoruba

Ethnologue gives NO speakers of Yoruba in either Cuba or Brazil. Moreover, despite the existence of several dozen common loanwords from Yoruba in Cuban Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese, prirmarily in matters related to santería, candomblé and other religious matters, I've never read any account of existing languages in Cuba or Brazil that mention Yoruba. Therefore, I'm removing these two countries from the "Regions with significant populations." If anyone has evidence that Yoruba has "significant populations" of speakers in either country, please restore the the name of the country AND give a reference to a reliable supporting source. Interlingua 22:46, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

A little late, but I agree with this point. — mark ✎ 14:02, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Yoruba Art

Obalufon II Mask, 11th-12th century., Copper. Third king of Ifè, successor of Oduduwa the creator of the world

http://benue.com/ife_mask_head.jpg http://benue.com/Ife_Testa.sized.jpg http://benue.com/Ife_particolare_di_Testa_di_un_Oni.sized.jpg http://benue.com/Ife_Particolare_maschera_dell_Obi_Obalufon.sized.jpg http://benue.com/1115196.jpg http://benue.com/yoruba0.jpg http://benue.com/Ife_Figura_femminile_seduta.sized.jpg http://benue.com/kko_g.gif http://benue.com/kks_g.gif http://benue.com/Ife_Particolare_di_testa_coronata_di_Oni.sized.jpg http://benue.com/Ife_parte_superiore_della_figura_di_un_Oni.sized.jpg

Tada Seated Figure, ca. late 13–14th century., Copper.

http://benue.com/Tada%20Seated%20Figure%20ca.%20late%2013%20to%2014th%20century.jpg http://benue.com/Tada%20Seated%20Figure%20ca.%20late%2013%20to%2014th%20century.jpg

Yoruba Royalty 12-14th century., Terracotta

http://benue.com/YorubaKingTerracotta.jpg http://benue.com/YorubaMask.jpg http://benue.com/Ife_Testa_coronata.jpg

[edit] Category "Muslim communities"

This article was placed in Category:Muslim communities by User:Tigeroo. I disagree with this categorization, because it implies that the Yoruba are a Muslim community (despite Tigeroo's insistence that it doesn't imply that). The Yoruba people do not form a monolithic unit which as a whole can be placed in the category of Muslim communities. Yes, everyone knows that a sizable portion of Yorubas adheres to a local flavour of Islam. However, the same holds for Christianity, and I would object similarly to placement in the category 'Christian communities'. Thing is, such categories do imply that the community as a whole adheres to belief system X, and that doesn't make sense by any stretch of the imagination. I'm not saying that the role played by Islam in some parts of Yorubaland is irrelevant. I'm saying that the category system is not the right way to adress the multifarious issue of cultural identity. Therefore, I have removed the category. — mark ✎ 07:24, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Mark, Wiki intro to the Category:Muslim communities:

"This category is for articles about communities of Muslims that are also defined by ethnic, linguistic or regional identities. See also Category:Islam by country."

What I see the Category:Muslim communities as being is to allowing readers to see where different Muslim communities can be found. Minority or the majority, denomination or demographic weightage is not relevant to this category but may form the basis for some other category. The Yoruba Muslims qualify because within Muslims they form a seperate community in this category by dint of a distinct ethnic, linguistic or regional identity. Especially in Africa where tribe is the greatest distinguishing ethnic charecteristic of all. Coming to this page they can then see what the demographics are. It is of particular interest to people looking into religious syncretism in Islam and the how geographical diversity and historical experiences have affected muslims globally. Until there is an article that specifically deals with Yoruba Muslims, which would I forsee would also be a sub-section or a fork from this very page at any rate or needs to be stubbed in the religion section, I think this article is the next best thing to allows navigators of this category to find information of which they may not even have been aware.

To reiterate and summarize:

  1. the term community implies a small subsection vs. the category Islam by country.
  2. Within a country there can be seperate communities of muslims, that are of a distinct ethnic, linguistic or regional identity. Example Category:Muslim communities of India or in Nigeria you have Muslim communities of both the Hausa-Fulani and Yoruba among others.
  3. Putting the page in the category Muslim communities does not Categorize the Yoruba as Muslims. In Wikipedia, the purpose of categorys is to perform the function of navigation tools, not of classification, to help people find related information in this case other Muslim communities as defined above.
  4. The article does address religion of the Yoruba even if disproportionately so is relevant.
  5. Any misconceptions that may arise because of point 3 are addressed in the Article leaving no doubts.

--Tigeroo 08:33, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I think you both make very good arguments. But on balance, I think I lean toward Mark's opinion. Wikipedia categories, whether Tigeroo likes it or not, do tend to serve as a form of classification. And if we are to place Category:Muslim communities on any ethnic group that includes Muslim members, the category will be so watered down as to be useless. I mean, should we really put this on French people or German people? Better to reserve it for majority-Muslim groups. -- Amcaja 15:50, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
In this case there is also appears to be a significant if not a majority population. I don't know the Muslim Yoruba, but would like to know about them, which is what brought me to the article in the first place. While people may not like the idea of these kind of Categories, they do exist because there is an interest in them. The infobox provides a great tool to summarily and clearly dismiss the notion of a majority, a curosry look at the article dimissed any such notion for me so I ended up learning about animistic Yoruban beliefs as well and that they are alive and kicking in the region! This is an article descriptive of the people and social groups and I feel therefore other communities should be addressed.--Tigeroo 06:54, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes, they should be adressed, but to my mind, the category system isn't the right way to do so. Right now, I think the article is too light on Islam and Christianity among the Yorubas (it only notes the massive growth of christianity in nineteenth-century Yorubaland due to missionary activities), and on the mutual influence between these 'modern' religions and traditional Yoruba beliefs and practices. Quite a few interesting studies have been published on this, and if I find the time to dive into this subject matter, I will certainly try to expand the article. Adding a category does not adress the issue however, and more importantly, as Brian says, it has the effect of watering down the usefulness of the category itself.
Unfortunately, very few studies offer reliable statistics, but it seems unlikely to me that Muslims constitute a majority among the Yoruba. A sizable portion, certainly (especially in the north, bordering on Hausaland and affected by the Muslim Fulani Jihad), but in somewhat more recent history, Christianity has been much more influential in the area (through missionary practices) than Islam. — mark ✎ 08:00, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Its upto you I was only passing through and thought it was lacking something that would have helped me, a way to have found it earlier. I know nothing of them beyond this page and from the nigeria page and my interest in yoruba or this category too fleeting, but if you do go ahead and expand it at some point I would request you put the category where it may help someone else find them.--Tigeroo 14:09, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notable Yoruba people

The end of the article seems to be turning into a long list of apparently notable Yoruba people. I have never been a fan of lists (I think the category system works fine for this type of thing), so I propose to cut down this list to a few very notable Yoruba people of the stature of, say, Samuel A. Crowther, Fagunwa, and Soyinka. The remaining footballers, thoracic surgeons, engineers, and activists can be removed, or at least moved to a separate article like List of notable Yoruba people. Work on the Yoruba article should focus on improving the historical, demographical and socio-cultural aspects of the article, not on listing as many Yorubas as possible. — mark ✎ 21:30, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I pulled it out of the article because it seems to be a magnet for people thinking "But I know that guy and he's a Yoruba too, so he must be a notable Yoruba". It can be found in the history still. I say: let's do away with it. I think it would be better to mention some of the most important people in the body of the article. So Fagunwa should be mentioned in a section on Yoruba literature, and Crowther in a section on the history or the language, et cetera. No lists, because lists degenerate into popularity contests which are magnets for unverified and unnotable additions. — mark ✎ 11:25, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Months in Yoruba etc.

Recently the following was added to the bottom of the article. I've pulled it out because Wikipedia is not a tourist phrasebook. For individual words etc. we have Wiktionary. — mark ✎ 19:45, 15 October 2006 (UTC)


Days in Yoruba (Awon 195.166.237.42 16:30, 15 October 2006 (UTC)ojo ni yoruba) Sunday (Aiku) Monday (Aje) Tuesday (Isegun) Wednesday (Ojoru) Thursday (Ojobo) Friday (Eti) Saturday (Abameta)


Months in Yoruba (Awon osu ni Yoruba) January (Seere) February (Erele) March (Erena) April (Igbe) May (Obi) June (Okudu) July (Agemo) August (Ogun) September (Owere) October (Owawa) November (Beelu) Decenber (Ope)

[edit] Yoruba population

The 1991 census figure put Yoruba state of lagos at 5.6 million, Oyo state 3.5 million, Ondo state 3.9 million, Osun state at 2.2 million, Kwara state at 1.6 million. Kogi state at 2.1 million. Ogun state at 2.4 million.. Even when satellite picture have show that the fulani/hausa military reduce the population please see google earth links to see the size of the yoruba city of Ibadan said to be 600,000.. While kano said to be 5.6 million.. This show Oyo state would have had over 6 million people.. and also compare Ondo state... which on google you could locate Akure, ondo city, Ado ekiti, and compare it to kano.. If the 1991 census figure claim 24 millions. but satellite picture show may be more than that.. and the 36 million estimate is based upon the 1991 census figure.. then if Nigeria only , the yorubas are more than 40 million.. Please note that Edo state also have yorubas living in the north...

see talk, 1991 census put it 24million inNigeria only,15 years later, 2005 put 36 million in Nigeria only excluding other country... see nigeria 1991census figure, state see how we arrive at figures.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nigeriamajor (talk • contribs)

We've been through this a million times before, both here and at Talk:Nigeria, e.g. this archived discussion. What you are doing here, is original research, and Wikipedia is not the venue to publish your original research. It wasn't last summer, it isn't now, and it will never be. The choice is as follows: or (1) You provide reliable sources so that the population estimate is verifiable, or (2) You don't change the estimate. — mark ✎ 12:22, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "related groups" info removed from infobox

For dedicated editors of this page: The "Related Groups" info was removed from all {{Infobox Ethnic group}} infoboxes. Comments may be left on the Ethnic groups talk page. Ling.Nut 23:43, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


[edit] External links

Please, lets take a less short-sighted look at external links related to the discussions at hand , especially when they promote knowledge of the subject. There are very few websites devoted to discussion of Yoruba knowledge and the few should be nurtured. A link recently posted for the new forum yorubaland.org was deleted for reasons that are not good enough Websesame (talk) 19:34, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

They were removed per WP:EL. Wikipedia is not a link farm. IrishGuy talk 17:31, 22 March 2008 (UTC)