The Yoruba language is primarily spoken in Nigeria and some surrounding areas, with tens of millions of speakers. Yoruba is part of the Niger-Congo family of languages, which has its origins over 12k years ago (10,000 BCE). The current Latin-based script that Yoruba uses was invented in the 1960s.
Yoruba is a tonal language with 3 tone levels (high/middle/low), and contour tones through those levels. It was included in the list of languages because it has a unique use of tones and wanted to cover key African languages as well.
Here are the 16 fundamental consonants used when speaking Yoruba.
For a complete list of possible consonants a human voice might make while speaking a natural language, check out the consonants page.
| bilabial | labiodental | dental | alveolar | postalveolar | retroflex | velar | uvular | pharyngeal | glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| voiced nasal | |||||||||||
| quiet plosive | |||||||||||
| voiced plosive | |||||||||||
| voiced palatalized plosive | |||||||||||
| quiet sibilant fricative | |||||||||||
| quiet non-sibilant fricative | |||||||||||
| voiced tap | |||||||||||
| voiced lateral approximant |
These are the 9 base vowels used when speaking Yoruba. Yoruba is one of the languages which uses nasal vowels.
Also, a complete list of possible vowels a human voice might make while speaking can be found here.
| manner | front unrounded | front rounded | front central unrounded | front central rounded | central unrounded | central rounded | back central unrounded | back central rounded | back unrounded | back rounded | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| close | |||||||||||
| close-mid | |||||||||||
| open-mid | |||||||||||
| open-mid nasal | |||||||||||
| open |