Why I Don't Speak Yoruba

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I was born into a Yoruba family, a Yoruba home, on a Yoruba street, in a Yoruba society and a western state with a large population of Yorubas yet, I don’t speak Yoruba! What when wrong?

Before I gravitate into the historic conundrum surrounding my childhood, permit me to state emphatically: I UNDERSTAND AND CAN SPEAK YORUBA, I JUST DON’T SPEAK IT.  (Well, maybe because it sounds much better in my mind than with my lips). I’ve had to state that on numerous occasions to the disbelief of many. Having said that, may I have your hands as I lead you back in time?

You see, my non-Yoruba-speaking policy did not arise from an ethno-childhood mutation as others have opined. It was more of a silent code in our home. Pop didn’t want his children speaking Yoruba at a very early age. He believed that this could affect our fluency in other languages especially English and so, he took it sternly with us each time we uttered Yoruba words (which of course sounded like’ Egun’- I like to call it my Yoruba-Spanish). We were known by family members as oyinbo. I boast to say that our English was impeccable and well punctuated with a foreign accent. Our neighbours knew us and tagged us as children who always speak English. Each time we spoke, an ‘ehn?’ immediately followed. You should have heard me speak. I spoke with my nose! I still do that though.
So, I grew up steadily as a westernized Yoruba boy and I reaped my father’s seeds in English class and the A’s and B’s that followed. What I didn’t understand was why some people in primary school were better than me in English. I mean, if you heard them speaking Yoruba, you would be amazed yet, they were fluent English speakers; fluently bi-lingual. They had a secret I hadn’t discovered...

My Yoruba dysfunction aggravated when I started reading John Grisham novels at a very tender age. Then, I fell in love with words. At the point I was about to write SAT, I read somewhere that in order to pass the critical reading section where you have to fill gaps, you may have to write down every word you come across in the past questions and textbook since they repeat some words. Trust me, I didn’t think twice about it. I was then using a Kaplan textbook. I got a small note book and started writing every word I came across with their meanings beside. I wrote and memorized pages of them. However, one thing I didn’t get to do was to oppress people with my grandiloquence but... well, I did worse...

As you should know by now, I spoke and still do speak with my nose. So, each time I’m involved in a conversation with a person fluent in Yoruba and I really do want to end the conversation as soon as possible, I turn on my phonetics radar and begin to speak like an Englishman. In a bid to rescue himself/herself, my victim switches to vernacular- the Nigerian adaptation of English. Once I notice this, I keep a straight face and insist on English as a means of communication. Before long, the person summarises his/her point and end the conversation. No, I’m not cruel. I really don’t do that a lot except you’re bent on telling me a folktale under the scorching heat of the sun.

One more reason I prefer to stick to English language is the attitude of some people. You must use “e” and not “o” when referring to them. “O” as in letter “O” is used for someone of a younger or equal age while “e” as in egg is used for an older person. These highly sensitive pronouns have sparked off heated arguments between people. I just don’t understand the idea behind this. In English, ‘you’ is ‘you’. I’ve always argued that a pronoun doesn’t denote respect. I can keep referring to you as “e” and still disrespect you. I’ve heard people respectfully insulting themselves with adequate respect using “e” and adding curses to cushion the respect. What makes it worse is that some people like me don’t give too much attention to this nitty-gritty and can ignorantly refer to a person a bit older than I am as “o”. Before you say Jack Sparrow, the person already holds a silent grudge against you!

One more thing, when you start arguing in Yoruba, you just cannot stop! The fireworks of a beautiful and flowery language make your tongue roll and roll like an ant playing in a bottle of honey. You relish that sweet comfort than you feel as you fire each phrase at your opponent.

Nevertheless, I’m proud to be a Yoruba chap and I love the language. The proverbs are rich in meaning; the twist and turn of the phrases is just so exciting. Moreover, the language has a wonderful impact in instructions and insults. Remember when your grandma sat you down and adviced you in your native language? Or when you hit the wrong button on a hot afternoon and your mum erupts in tumultuous and sporadic Yoruba phrases? Oh my!!!


To every parent that stops their children from speaking their native languages, please stop. It wouldn’t help to increase their fluency in other languages. If you don’t believe me, ask the likes of Wole Soyinka, the late Chinua Achebe of blessed memory and late Obafemi Awolowo. They’ll tell you how they were able to achieve a good command of the English Language. If you still don’t believe, the statistics and researches carried out by scientists over the last two decades speak volumes. Res ipsa loquitur.