Yoruba orthography: a linguistic appraisal with suggestions for reform

Citation preview

e

e

YORUBA A

LINGUISTIC

ORTHOGRAPHY

APPRAISAL

WITH

SUGGESTIONS

Based on a talk given to the Egbe ljinle

FOR

Yoruba

at Ibadan on March 5, 1964

by AYO

BAMGBOSE,

ph.D. (Edin.)

Department of Linguistics and Nigerian Languages,

University of Ibadan

IBADAN

UNIVERSITY

1965

PRESS

REFORM

\

7/

“If the plural of man is always called men, Why shouldn’t the plural of pan be called pen?” —Anonymous.

© Copyright Ayp Bamgbose 1965

First printed in 1965

Reprinted in 1969

SET IN 10PT. TIMES ROMAN ON 12PT. BODY REPRINTED BY OFFSET LITHOGRAPHY AT THE IBADAN UNIVERSITY PRESS

-

NIGERIA OCTOBER 1969

YORUBA

ORTHOGRAPHY

THERE are two things one would expect of a good orthography: the first is that it should represent all and only the significant sounds in the language; the second is that it should have only one symbol for each significant sound. You may well ask, “What is a significant sound ?” If two sounds

can occur in the same environment, and the substitution of one sound for the other is regularly used to express a contrast in the grammar or

the vocabulary of a language, such sounds may be said to be significant. In Yoruba, we may say that the sounds represented by the Roman letters d and k are significant sounds because the substitution of one for the other yields a different item in the vocabulary. For example, dé

‘‘arrive”

ké ‘“cry” dun *“‘sound” kin “be full” If we examine Yoruba orthography in the light of the two criteria mentioned above, we will have no doubt in saying that it is not a good

orthography because: (i) Not all the significant sounds are represented in writing. For example, the word written ko may be one of three different items in the vocabulary (k¢ “build”, ko “write”,

k¢ “refuse”), because the significant tone marks are usually omitted in writing. (ii) Sounds that are not significant are represented in writing.

For example, the verbal particle which is used in continuous tenses is written 7 before 7 as in 6 7it9 “he is urinating”, but written 72 before b as in 6 rbg

“he is coming”, even

though the different sounds which these two symbols represent are not interchangeable and therefore not significant. (iii) More than one symbol is used for the same significant sound. For example, the sound represented by the letter ¢ in ¢ye “honour” is the same as the sound represented by the

letters ¢i in giye “bird”.

We may conclude that Yoruba orthography is unsatisfactory. But

then, we will have to say the same of most orthographies, especially the older ones. Take English for example. The sounds represented by the spelling “ough™ in “cough”, “rough”, “thought”, “though”, “through”, “plough” are the same respectively as the sounds represented by “off” in “doff”, “uff”” in “cuff”, “or” in “sort”, “o0” in “go”, ““ue” in “true”,

and

“ow” in “now”. The

sound

represented

by “a” in “date” is the same as the sounds represented by “ai”, “ay”, “aigh”, “ey™, “‘eigh™ and “ea”, in“‘wait”, “‘day”, “straight”, “‘grey”, “‘eight” and “‘break™ respectively. Since Yoruba orthography is as unsaiisfactory as many other orthographies, the question then arises, “Why do people talk of

spelling reform in Yoruba ? If the spelling of a language is a convention that has to be learnt by

any person wanting to write the language, one will have no difficulty in accepting this situation, provided the conventions are definite and observed by everybody writing the language. English orthography, chaotic as it is, has a definite set of conventions which arc observed by all writers using the medium. (In this connection onc would have to think of American English and British English as two

distinct varieties having different spelling conventions.) The situation in Yoruba

is such that the spelling conventions still allow

for

some measure of individual variations. Let us consider the two most important aspects of an orthography: Representation of significant sounds and Word division.

In the representation of significant sounds, there is a wide area of agreement between different writers. But all the same, one important differences of convention in the following cases!:

(a)

finds

Double Vowels: Most writers represent them by a singleletter symbol with a tilde on top of it. But some writers use

double-letter symbols. Single-letter tilde are also sometimes found. Examples

orun

) |,

oorin

|

symbols

without

the

sun

1 Examples of the differences cited are taken from Fagunwa:

Ireke Onibudo,

Edinburgh, 1959; Ajibola: Iwe Owe Yoruba, London, 1947; f:olfn‘n, May—June 1960, Ibadan; Irohin Yoruba, Dec. 28—1Jan. 3, 1961, 8Os,

2

dgo

} “clock”

aago

;;;’;"{" } “in the middle” ®)

The Nasalised 3rd Person Singlular Pronoun: Most writers write it using the same symbol as they would use for a nonnasalised vowel. But a few write it with the symbols generally used for nasalised vowels. Examples

(e

ghini

|

ghinin finu

)

Sun un

)

plant it” ‘‘give him”

The sound written as on or an: Most writers observe the

convention of writing what is the same significant sound in these two different ways. But one writer at least writes the sound with only one of these symbols i.e. on. Examples

ibpn itan

“‘gun” “‘story”

ibon

“‘gun”

iton

“‘story”

(@) The open e and o: Some writers mark them with a dot, others put a small vertical line under the letter. Examples

(e

ows

ow¢

}

@

eré eré

} T ‘mud

hand

»

Tone Marks: Writers differ a lot in the number of syllables whose tones are marked.

In general, only very few tone

marks are written. The conventions of word division differ very widely between different writers. For example, you will find the spelling éyi 1/, ibi ¢,

Jé ki in some texts (e.g. Aworgrin) as opposed to éyiti, ibiti, and Jékiin

others (e.g. Ireke Onibudo). Some writers indicate word division in a contracted form by the use of an apostrophe, e.g. /’dr/ “‘on the head”;

3

wo'lé “‘enter”. Others write the contracted form together as one word i.e. /dri, wolé. You will even find inconsistencies in the conventions of word division used in the same text. In one text for example, the item si is separated from the preceding pronoun: 6 si sp fin u. In the same paragraph, the same item is written together with the pronoun as if they were a single word: kf ési dd "nd m¢ on.! In another text, there are several examples of such inconsistencies; but I will quote only two: First person pluralr pronoun joined to verbal particle 7i in one phrase and separated from it in an identical phrase—

Ohun ti ari "lépa Ohun ti ai nlépa }

What we are pursuing

Two items written as one word in one phrase and written as two words in the same phrase, both in the same paragraph— igiin kansoso e } “only one vulture”2? igun kan soso

Many native speakers of Yoruba will talk in Yoruba to close friends and relations who are literate in English; but they will hardly ever write to them in Yoruba. Why won’t they? I would like to suggest that one of the main reasons why they don’t is that they are

confused about the “correct” conventions of word division. Should they write wi, sp, ro, together with pé as wipé, sopé, ropé; or separately as wi pé, sp pé, ro pé? Should they write the expression meaning “We shall go next week” as A6 lp Igs¢ 16 by or as A 6 lp I'dsé °6 b9y ? These are the sort of problems they have to grapple with; and very often, they take the easiest way out by writing in English.

The differences of convention which we have observed point to the fact that Yoruba orthography is not yet finally settled or fixed. There

is still some fluidity in how one can write the language. This in itself may be a good reason why spelling reformers think that Yoruba is a legitimate A more suggest a English, is

target. powerful reason why many people will not hesitate to reform of Yoruba orthography, whereas they will for that our written literature is still very scanty. At the Univer-

1 Aworgrin, May—June, 1960, p.12. 2 These examples are taken from a talk broadcast by Chief S. L. Akintola on March 11, 1964 and published by the Government Printer, Ibadan under the title: Ire Titun De si lle Iwp Oorun Najiria. See pp. 1 & 3.

4

sity of Ibadan, the library has rows of shelves filled with books of

English literature labelled in centuries from as far back as the fifteenth century to the present day. The books of Yoruba literature do not even fill one-third of a row of shelves! If a spelling reform is carried out, we do not have much to re-write or reprint. This is not saying

that we are poor in literature. On the contrary, the bulk of our literature is oral. It is gratifying to note that a lot of research is now being carried on into this oral literature. Those concerned with this research are constantly faced with the problem of transcribing

this oral literature directly from informants or from tapes into a written form. They then come up against the problem of the confusing and unsatisfactory conventions of our orthography. The contrasts of tone and sometimes of other significant sounds which are

very important in the poetry, and which they would wish to indicate in the writing, they find they cannot indicate in the framework of our present orthography. Whether we like it or not, such people may be

forced to modify the orthography to suit their purpose. Rather than allow each person to make his own innovations, thereby making a

confused situation still more confused, is it not better to have an agreed reform which will give us a standard orthography ? Suggestions

about

reforming the orthographies

of African

lan-

guages have often come from European non-native speakers of the languages—missionaries, government officials, linguists—who had to have a working knowledge of one African language or the other. It

has been unfairly suggested that such proposals for spelling reform were made in order to make it easy for Europeans to learn the languages,

or as a piece of experimentation

with exotic phonetic

symbols or even as a means of cutting off the African from “‘the same orthographic group as the rest of the progressive world”.! It is wrong, however, to give the impression that only the European

is

interested in reforming our orthography. In 1875, a conference on Yoruba language was held in Lagos. One of the Africans who featured prominently at this conference was Bishop Crowther. The

manuscript report of the proceedings of the conference—the conference discussed and resolved a number of anomalies in the orthography—can still be found among Crowther’s papers at the Church 1 Su tions of this kind may be exemplified by Ogbalu: An Investigation of :rlrllne:o?: Orthography, Port Harcourt, 1952. The quotation is from page 10

Missionary Society Archives in London.! Here we are again today considering the possibility of reforming our orthography. And this we are doing not because of any prompting from any foreign quarter, but because of the difficulties we as native speakers are experiencing

in using it. If I may refer again to the two criteria for determining a good ortho-

graphy (all and only the significant sounds represented, one symbol for each significant sound),

I would

like to show

that these criteria

should be taken as the ideal which one should try to achieve. In practice, it may be very difficult to comply with these criteria in

particular cases. Take for example the alternation between the sounds represented by the letters n and / respectively in Yoruba. The former sound is found only before nasalised vowels, whereas the latter is found only before non-nasalised vowels. We can say nin but not ni. We can say /p but not lpn. The conclusion

one can draw

from

the

alternation of the two sounds is that they are not significant. In other words, they can be represented by one symbol which will have the sound now represented by the letter n before nasalised vowels, and the sound represented by the letter / before other vowels. It is doubtful, however, whether such a logical innovation will ever be accepted. Can you imagine having to write plp “grinding stone” as ono, or intin “inside” as ilin? A likely rejection of either innovation underlines the limitation to a completely logical and consistent orthographic system.

Two other principles which may seem rather obvious must be mentioned. One is that a possible spelling reform must make as few

changes as possible (otherwise nobody would accept it); the other is

that each proposed change must cover, or have implications over, a wide area of the language (otherwise more symbols than necessary will be introduced). This is a convenient point to turn to a detailed consideration of the orthographic problems in Yoruba. We have already classified our orthographic problems into two: Representation of significant

sounds and Word division. 1 mn;la and Resolutions of Conference on Yoruba Language, January 28—29, More recent studies of Yoruba orthography include:— Akintan: History and Structure of the Yoruba Language, Lagos, 1950; Ward: An Introduction to the Yoruba Language, Cambridge, 1952, Appendix 1V ; Ssertsema: “Some Notes ing”, Bulletin de I'Institut Francais d’ Afrique on Yoruba Phonetics and

Noire, T. XX Serie B, 1958, pp. 576-592.

6

Under

the heading

“Representation

of Significant Sounds”,

we

may wish to consider representation of vowel and consonant sounds on the one hand, and representation of tonal contrasts on the other. 1. Vowels From the spelling point of view, vowels may be divided into three types: Non-nasalised, Nasalised and Double. (i) Non-nasalised vowels: There are two aspects of the represen-

tation of non-nasalised vowel sounds worth looking into:

(@) Different spellings for the same vowel sound: These may be observed in the following set of words: I. diya “chest”, aiyé “world”, giye “bird”. The spelling ai stands for the same sound represented by the

spelling a in aya “wife” or ayé “leave”: and the spelling ei stands for the same sound represented by the ¢

spelling in ¢ye “honour”. Since the letters ai also represent a sequence of two sounds in the same context, for example in diyd “not calling” (noun formed from the verb ya “call”’) the retention of the ai spelling for a single sound may lead to some confusion, especially in view of the fact that as the orthography now stands, tonal contrasts which might have served to differen-

tiate the two spellings (i.e. two tone marks on the former and one on the latter) are usually omitted.

It is

therefore suggested that diya “chest” and aiyé “world” be written dyd and ayé€ respectively, and

for the same

reasons, ¢iye “bird” should be written ¢gye. 1I. yio “will” The spellingio represents the same sound as the spelling

o represents in /d6de “outside”. For reasons similar to those given in () above, the present spelling of this word is best replaced by ydé or yd.

()

Alternative spellings for the same vowel sound:

The vowel sounds in the words ko

“husband” and

es¢ “foot” are usually represented in writing as o, ¢.

But they are also sometimes represented as ¢, ¢. The latter spelling is preferred by some people because it is casier to underline the letters without destroying the

d

vertical bar. It is also suggested by some that whereas it is easier to omit the dot, you cannot easily omit the bar. This is doubtful speculation. Afterall, the letter i

is always dotted on top. Why

is it easier to omit a

lower dot and not an upper one? It seems to me that the only valid point in favour of the bar is the first one.

The dot is destroyed by underlining the letters, but it is the convention most widely used. Whichever spelling one adopts will not matter much.

In fact, perhaps

it

may be better to retain the two as alternatives.

(ii) Nasalised vowels: Nasalised vowel sounds are indicated in three ways: (a) With the letter n, as in the third person singular pronominal item on.

®) With a letter representing a non-nasalised vowel in the following cases: 1. After a nasal consonant, ‘“‘take” e.g mu ‘“have” ni pmg ‘‘child”

ona

‘“‘road”

II. As a third person singular pronoun after a verb having a nasalised vowel. “give him” e.g funu “fryit” dini “‘send her” rdna pon ¢

“putit (the child) on the back™

‘take it” With a letter representing a non-nasalised vowel, and a muu

(e)

following letter n in all other cases.

e.g kin ‘“befull” cf. ku *die” cf. di “‘be blocked” “fry” din pkan “heart” cf. pk¢ “vehicle” owon “pillar”

cf. pwd “broom”

In (a), the letter n always represents the nasalised vowel sound

which is represented in other contexts by the spelling un or u as in

ohun “thing” and imi “nose”. The n spelling does not contrast with the spellings un and u of the same sound in any word because the

spelling n occurs only after o, the spelling u occurs only after m and n and as a third person singular pronoun after a verb having the nasalised vowel, and the spelling un occurs in other contexts. Since there is no nasalised o in single words like on!, the spelling én cannot be taken to represent a single sound as in (c). But even if there is a nasalised o sound, the ambiguity between an on spelling representing two sounds and an on spelling representing one sound can be resolved by indicating tone marks. Therefore, there is no possibility of confusing the sound represented by n in on with any other significant sound. In spite of this, there doesn’t seem to be any good reason why there should be a special spelling for the vowel sound

in on which, in all other words, is spelt either un or u. Since there can be no question of substituting the u spelling for n because of the possibility of confusing this spelling with an u spelling representing

a non-nasalised vowel, the only spelling that can be substituted for the 7 is un, and this change is therefore recommended (i.e. on should be written oun). In (b) (I), the use of a letter representing a non-nasalised vowel for the nasalised vowel does not lead to any confusion except in one case,

because the nasalised vowel does not contrast with its non-nasalised counterpart (i.e. using # as a mark of nasality, we have mun but not

mii, non but not ng). In the case of an a spelling after an n, there is some complication. After an n, the nasalised ¢ sound is usually spelt @ as in gnad “road”, ind “fire”, but it is also sometimes spelt ¢ as in nora “take a nap”, npmba ‘‘vaccination”. In the former case (i.e. an a spelling representing a nasalised ¢ sound), we are on shaky ground because the spelling a following an » may represent an a sound as well. For example, ndin “ninepence”, nddnf “to have regard for”, and the personal name Adéndiké. There is therefore no

way of knowing when an a spelling stands for a nasalised ¢ sound and when it does not. It will be advisable therefore to change the

spelling a to ¢ whenever a nasalised ¢ sound is intended, i.e. to write ¢nad as 9ng, and ind as ing. In (b) (11), the situation is the same as in (b) (I). Using n toindicate nasality once again, we have fiin un *‘give him” but not fim u, din in “fry it” but not din i. Butin the case of an g spelling representing a

1 A nasalised o does occur in verb-nominal contractions. For example, the verb-nominal combination in the sentence, d kin oko “‘the farm is full of it is contracted d kdnko with a nasalised o in place of the vowel sound in kin.

9

nasalised vowel sound, there is the possibility of confusing the third

person singular pronoun which the spelling stands for, with a second

person singular pronoun (a non-nasalised vowel sound also represented by the spelling ¢). In other words, a sentence written as 6 pon ¢ may mean “‘she put it (a child ) on her back™ or “‘she put you on her back”. The grammatical contrast which these two meanings

represent

is such an important

one

that it must

be indi-

cated in writing. It is suggested therefore that the orthographic ambiguity be resolved by using the spelling on to indicate the nasal-

ised vowel (i.c. the third person singular pronoun) and the spelling ¢ for the non-nasalised vowel (i.e. the second person singular pronoun). For the other nasalised vowel sounds in (b), it is recommended that the present convention of not indicating nasality be retained. This now leaves us with (c). I have heard suggestions to the effect that the phonetic symbol called a tilde [~] should be put on top of

a letter standing for a vowel to indicate nasality. Apart from the objection that it is unnecessary to introduce a new symbol if existing symbols could be used effectively, the introduction of the tilde

will cause complications

because it is the symbol

currently used

to indicate double vowels. Even if a new convention is adopted for indicating double vowels, the associations of the tilde with a

double vowel will still remain in the minds of most people. The use of an n after a letter representing a vowel to indicate nasality is simple and effective and should therefore be retained. The possible confusion between an n indicating nasality and an n standing alone as a syllable will be dealt with later. But before leaving this point of indicating nasality by an n spelling, two cases of different spellings for the same vowel sound must be considered. The first case is about the spellings un and on for the word okunrin or okonrin “man”. These two spellings represent the same sound (i.e. the same sound as the spelling un represents in ikun “‘stomach”).

In the texts I have looked at, the on spelling should be no difficulty therefore in replacing it need hardly add why such a replacement is spelling stands for a nasalised ¢ sound, and it

is very rare. There by the un spelling. I necessary. The on cannot at the same

time stand for a nasalised # sound. The second case is the spelling on or an for the nasalised p sound

which is found in such words as ibpn *“‘gun” or iddn *‘magic”. The spelling on is found after the letters p, b, gb, w and feg. ppgn*‘wooden tray or trough”, ibon “gun”, ggbgn “wisdom”, pwon “pillar”, ifon

10

“‘craw-craw™.

ahdn other after there the

The spelling pn or an is found after the letter 4 e.g.

“tongue”, fihan “‘show”. The spelling anis found after all the letters, except m, n and [ (the spelling for this nasalised vowel the first two letters has already been discussed in (b) (I); and can be no nasalised vowel sound after the sound represented by

third

letter), e.g. addn

“‘bat”,

pkdn

“‘heart”,

isan

‘‘vein”,

itan

“story™. The obvious thing one would want to do in such a case as this is to allow one spelling to represent the same sound. But this solution is not as easy as it looks. Suppose one allows gn to be the only spelling. For one thing, it is the less common of the two spellings (found exclusively after five out of a possible total of fifteen letters). For

another, the orthographic ambiguity which we have earlier observed between

a second

person

and

a third

person

singular

pronoun

object after verbs having the on spelling will be transferred to verbs having an an spelling where this ambiguity does not exist. When the verb has an an spelling, the third person singular pronoun has the spelling a, and the second person singular pronoun has the spelling 0. For example, 6 rdn a “she sent him” and 6 rdn o “she sent you”. The substitution of the gn spelling leads to the writing of both

sentences

as 6 rgn

o.

Since

it has

already

been

pointed

out that this orthographic ambiguity must be resolved by using the on spelling for the third person singular pronoun, it means that the substitution of the on for the an spelling will necessitate a further change in respect of the third person singular pronoun. On the other hand, suppose one says that the spelling an should be substituted for the spelling on. The orthegraphic ambiguity noted

above will be avoided, and the introduction of a special spelling involving indication of nasality for the third person singular pronoun will be unnecessary, as it is in the case of all the other nasalised vowel sounds. The sentence now spelt ¢ pon ¢ will be spelt 6 pdn d “‘she put it (the child) on her back’ when a third person singular pronoun is intended, and 6 pan ¢ *‘she put you on her back” when a second person singular pronoun is intended. The disadvantage of allowing the an

spelling to represent a nasalised o sound is that such a convention makes the indication of a nasalised @ sound by the same spelling impossible. Such a sound actually occurs in some dialects of Yoruba. But more important still, such a sound occurs in Standard Yoruba in verb-nominal contractions involving an elision of a nasalised

vowel before an a sound. For example, the contraction of rdn awg 11

in the first “sew the leather” is rdnwp, with a nasalised a sound with that of rdn asp syllable. This contraction may be contrasted

“sew the cloth” where the contraction can only be spelt rdnsp even

. In other though the sound in the first syllable is a nasalised ¢ sound

words, in these contractions, the an spelling stands for a nasalised

a sound as well as a nasalised p sound. There s of course no such

tures just confusion with the on spelling. The two verb-nominal struc leather” given will be contracted differently, i.e. rgn awp “‘sew the ” contracted to contracted to rdnwp and rgn agp “sew the cloth rénso. This contrast in vowel sound is significant and as such ought to be indicated in writing. If the an spelling is allowed to be used for other spelling the nasalised ¢ sound, it is difficult to think of any

nent to that may be used for the nasalised a sound. Besides, it is perti

for a recall. that we have earlier seen that an a spelling standing (b)(1)). In nasalised ¢ sound has to be replaced by an ¢ spelling (See

r of an other words, an a spelling is already being dropped in favou and have o spelling. Why can’t we extend the same to the an spelling r of a replaceit replaced by the pn spelling? Another point in favou

a replacement ment of the an spelling by the pn spelling is that such

be represented by means that the nasalised ¢ sound will only “gun”, rén on “send two spellings, i.e. on as in pkon “heart”, ibon

. The replacement of him”; and o as in im$ “knowledge”, in¢ “fire”” nasalised p sound will on by an on the other hand means that the

t”, itan be represented by four spellings, i.e.an as in pkdnit”; “hear in im9 as ¢ “measure “story”; a as in rdn a “send him”, wan d “knowledge”

and

on as in mo

¢n “knowit”.

And in spite of the

between the nasalised fact that there are four spellings, the contrast occurs in verb-nominal ¢ sound and the nasalised a sound which d. Considering all these contractions will still be left unindicate an spelling by the on spelpoints, I think that a replacement of the this replacement involves an ling is preferable. The objection that sent him”' or *‘she sent you”) orthographic ambiguity (¢.g. 6rén ¢ “she change in the spelling (i.e. the which has to be resolved by a further be spelt pn and not ) can be third person singular pronoun has to

the proposed replacecountered by pointing out that even without 6 pon ¢ “she put it (the ment, such an ambiguity already exists (i.e. back”), and in any case, child) on her back” or “‘she put you on her spelling. My change in the it has to be resolved by the same kind of

should be replaced recommendation therefore is that the an spelling by the on spelling.

12

(iii) Double

Vowels: Double vowels are indicated in the ortho-

graphy by the use of atilde, e.g. drin*‘sun”, érf “dirt”. Asan indicator of a double vowel, the tilde is satisfactory. But since a double vowel implies two tones, in practice, the tilde indicates both the doubling and the tones. It is only because the tilde is not an adequate indicator

of the tones that I am going to recommend that it should be abolished and its place taken by a sequence of two letters. Its inadequacy in

respect of tonal indication will be demonstrated later. 2. Consonants Consonant sounds are generally well indicated in the orthography.

There are only four cases of different spellings for the same sound which

might

be considered.

(i) The Syllabic Nasal: A variety of sounds is represented by the

spellings n, m and ng in the orthography. These sounds depend on the type of sounds which follow them. For example, if you. try to pronounce the words written rit9, 7f0, 1ké, rb¢ as in 6 ritp “‘he is

urinating”, & #fo “he is jumping”, J 7iké “he is crying” and 6 mbo “he is coming” respectively, you will find that although in all the cases, the sound represented by n or m is produced by allowing the air to pass only through the nose, there is a difference in each case in what the relevant speech organs in the mouth are doing. In 79 the blade of the tongue is raised to touch the teeth ridge, in 7if9, the upper teeth are in contact with the lower lip, in 7iké, the back part of the tongue is raised to touch the soft back part of the roof of the mouth, and inbg

the two lips come together. The sound repres-

ented by ng in ng 6 lp “I will go” or ng & lp “I am not going” is usually the same as the sound represented by n in Aké. There are still more sounds represented by the spelling » as for example before gb in 6 righ¢ “he is hearing”. But all these sounds are not significant

because they occur in well-defined, non-contrastive environments. Therefore it is suggested that the spelling n be used in all cases. The only problem raised by this suggestion concerns the use of n to indicate nasality of vowels. If an noccurs in the spelling after a letter representing a vowel, how are we to know whether this n shows that the vowel is nasalised or whether it stands for a separate syllable? Admittedly, in the type of words that we may be faced with this problem, it is very rare to get a meaningful word by interpreting an » standing for a syllabic nasal as a mark of nasality or

vice versa. For example, there is a word dindi “fried yam”, but 13

there is no word diindii (tone mark is indicated on the syllabic nasal);

there is a word dindin “a type of drum”, but there is no word dindiiny and there is panti ““dirt”, but no pantf. However, the possibility of the problem arising exists, especially if we consider contracted forms of verb-nominal combinations. We can have a word kgrnko “a type of frog” and a verb-nominal combination k¢nk¢ as in 6 konko “it touched the spear”. The simplest solution to the problem

is to indicate tone marks on thez representing a syllable. This solution is adequate for a syllabic nasal having a high tone or a low tone,

but not for a syllabic nasal having a mid tone because the mid tone is usually left unmarked in the orthography. For instance, is the

spelling gongo to be pronounced with a nasalised vowel, i.e. gonge

or with a syllabic nasal, i.e. goiigp? In order to resolve such ambiguities, it is suggested that the mid tone should be marked with a macron as in the example immediately above. The problem of the ambiguity between an » standing for a syllable and an n indicating

nasality is therefore to be solved by indicating all tone marks the former.

on

(ii) The Items: nwgn “they”, ¢nyin “you”, nyin “‘you, your” The spellings nw and ny are supposed to indicate nasality of the sounds represented by the letters w and y.! But even so, this nasality is not indicated in the third person plural object won which is pronounced exactly as nwgn, and it is left unindicated in yfn which is really an alternative spelling for the item nyin. Apart from the consideration that these inconsistencies ought to be removed, it is really

unnecessary to indicate the nasality because the nasalised variants are found only before nasalised vowels and therefore do not contrast with their non-nasalised counterpart which occur only before nonnasalised vowels. One other reason that has been advanced in favour of the inconsistency between the spelling of nwgn and wgn is that the orthographic contrast reflects the grammatical contrast between the items so spelt, i.e. the former is a subject and the latter an object.? Of course this contrast is already well expressed by the structural position of these items. The subject item is always pre-verbal and the object item post-verbal. In a sentence in which both items are spelt

identically, we have no difficulty in saying which item is the subject and which is the object. For example in the sentence wgn m@ wgn 1 See Ward, op. cit., pp. 23-24. 2 See Ward, op. cit., p. 186.

14

“they know them”, the first wgn is the subject and the second wgn

is the object. It is clear then that there can really be no good case for retaining the spellings nw and ny. They should therefore be discontinued, and w and y substituted. The items would then be spelt wén, ¢yin, and yin.

(iii) The spelling s or s: The solution proposed for these alternative spellings for the same consonant sound is the same as that proposed for similar alternative spellings for certain vowel sound (See (i) (b) under “Vowels”).

(iv) Double letters and the spelling sh: These may be called colonial spellings (i.e. spellings introduced either by, or under the influence of, Europeans who could not be bothered to use the accepted Yoruba

spelling). They still survive in place names, e.g. 1dd6, Qtta, Oshogbo. In a government release published recently in a Nigerian newspaper,! the following Yoruba towns are spelt with sh: Ilésha, Shagdmu, Oshogbo. There is really no excuse for the continuation of these spellings. The double letters should be replaced by single ones, and sh should be replaced by §. 3. Capitals

In the orthography, capitals are used for the initial letter of personal and place names, and also for the first letter following certain punctuation

marks

such

as a full stop,

a question

mark,

or an

exclamation mark. The retention of this convention is recommended. 4. Tones It is often said that tone marks are unnecessary in writing, since

there is usually little or no ambiguity as to what a particular word means in its context. For example, in the sentence wgn ti wo oko, with the tone marks omitted on the spelling k¢ the native speaker of Yoruba has no difficulty in knowing that what is meant in this case is the word for “boat, vehicle”, i.e. pk¢ in the sentence with the

meaning, “they have entered the boat/vehicle” and not one of the other three possible words

that might have been meant,

i.e.

pko

“husband”, pkd “hoe” and 9k¢ “spear”. But all these words may be meant by the same spelling in the sentence, wdn ti rf pko “they have

seen the vehicle/the husband/the hoe/the spear”. 1 Sunday Times, 1st March, 1964, p. 3.

15

We are probably all familiar with the stock jokes about clerics misreading bible texts. To quote a famous example, kétékétée tani mo gbdd ri? dguton tani mo ghdd ri? tani mo réé¢ jeri? Of course, the joke turns on the putting of wrong tones (and also wrong lengthening of vowels)—gbdd ri for gba ri and ré¢ je for ré je. The text is, in fact, a modified version of a text which appears in the bible as follows: malu tani mo gba ri? tabi ketekete tani mo gba ri? tani mo reje ri? “whose ox have I taken? or whose ass have I taken? or whom have I defrauded 7! The question whether tone should be indicated or not has only one possible answer. It should, because tones are significant in the way

that consonants and vowels are. We saw earlier that the contrast in meaning between dé “arrive” and ké “cry” is due to the contrast, in the significant consonant sounds represented by the letters 4 and . In the same way, the contrast in meaning between k¢ “‘teach” and k9

“refuse” is entirely due to the difference in tone. The next question is, how many tones should be indicated and how? It is suggested that three tones are indicated—a high tone to be

indicated by the acute accent as in kg, a low tone by the grave accent as in k9 and the mid tone which should be left unmarked as in k¢ “write” except on the n standing for a syllable. The other problems which arise in connection with tone marking are considered under the following headings: (i) Tone on Double Vowels: The tones which occur on double

vowels are usually marked in the orthography with a tilde. This is most unsatisfactory because any combination of the

three tones may be covered by the tilde: High+High High+Mid

fibd dddd

=riibd =ddadda

‘‘apologise” *‘good”

High+Low

pddi

=pdadi

‘*‘padre”

Mid +High

érd

=eéri

“ash”

Mid +Mid

drun

=oorun

“‘sleep”

Mid +Low

dram

=odrun

1 ISamuel, 12, v. 3.

16

‘“‘sun’

»

Low +High

dran

=d6rin

Low +Mid

eghdji =eghdaji

“‘smell” *“‘four thousand”

Low +Low dbd =aabd “protection™ 1t is therefore recommended that double tones should be marked on double vowels and the use of the tilde dropped. (ii) Assimilated Low Tone: There is one other tonal feature which isnot generally taken account of either in the description of

Yoruba or in the orthography.! This is a tonal feature that

results from the elision of a syllable bearing a low tone. You will find this feature in contractions of combinations of verb and noun and in certain single items. Suppose the combination of verb and noun in the sentences 6 nf pwg “she

has a broom”

and

6 nf dwo

“‘she is respectful”

is

contracted, although the mid tone of the first noun and the low tone of the second noun are both replaced by the high

tone of the verb, the two sentences are still contrasted in pronunciation. This is because the influence of the low tone

is still present in the latter contraction.? Since this tonal feature is significant, it must be represented in the orthography. It is therefore suggested that wherever a low tone is

displaced in a contraction, a dot should be put to indicate

this. When the verb-nominal combination is contracted, the two sentences will then be written 6 /gw¢ “she has a broom” and 6 Ig.wo “she is respectful”. Some items which qualify nouns are derived from other items by the elision of their

first syllable. For example, the item . y7 “this” is derived from éyi “this one”, .kon ‘“one” from dkon “one”, .kini “first”

from ékinf “the first one”. Since these items always qualify nouns, they are unlikely to be confused with other items, evenif the assimilated low toneis notindicated. But if one is presented with the sentence babd yf subii, one will have to

decide whether it is “this old man fell” i.e. babd .yf subi, or ““father rolled over and fell” i.e. babd yf subu. 1t is therefore

better to indicate the assimilated low tone in the manner

already suggested, notonly in contractions but also in these qualifying items. 1 The only scholar who has taken any serious note of this feature is Siertsema,

op. cit., pp. 586-587. 2 A more detailed and technical description of this feature will be done in a subsequent paper.

17

(i)

‘Tor.le in Grammatical Structures: The tone which an item has

in isolation or in a dictionary entry is not necessarily the tone ‘thc item has in every grammatical structure. Indeed, certain tone changes are characteristic of particular structures. The following structures involve change of tone:

(a)

Subject-Predicate

Structure:

In

a

subject-predicate

structure, the final syllable of the subject is modified according to its tone and sometimes according to that

of ':hc preceding syllable as well. For example

omo

“child” becomes pmg as in gmg ti dé “the child has come”, bdrd “shoe” becomes batd as in batd rita mi

“my shoes hurt”, igi .kon “one tree” becomes igi .k¢n asin igi .kgn wé “a tree fell”.

®)

Emphatic Clause: The final syllable of the emphatic clause is modified according to the tone of the preced-

ing syllable. For example, the emphatic equivalent of 6 wd “‘he came” is 6 wda “‘he did come”, the emphatic equivalent of & /o ‘‘he went” is 6 Jpo “‘he did go” and

that of 6 pg “it is plentiful” is 6 pdo ““it is really plen-

tiful”.

(c) Verbal Junction: There may be a tonal junction between

the verb which immediately follows the verbal particle 7 and any other verb which immediately follows this verb. For example,

we can have wgn ririn lp or wgn

firinin lp “they are walking along”. We can also have 6 1ibd mi ja or 6 7ibd mif ja “he is having a quarrel with me”. A similar junction is characteristic of verbs following a restricted group of verbs such as f¢ “want”, $0ro “be difficult”,

mp

“know”.

We say mo féé gbé e

“I want to lift it”’, & sorod se “it is difficult to do”, mo

@

mo durii 12 “I know how to play the organ”. Pronoun Subject: The first or second person pronoun which precedes the verbal particle 7 has two forms. For example, we can say mo rilp or mo rilp “Iam going”,

¢ rikorin or ¢ rikorin “you are singing”.

(e) Pronoun Object: The pronoun object has a mid tone or a high tone depending on the class of verb preceding it. For example, we say 6 k¢ mi “she taught me”” but

18

6 k¢ mi “‘she divorced me”, 6 bi won “‘she gave birth to them” but 6 bi wgn *‘she asked them”. (f)

Verb before Noun Object: A verb having a low tone in isolation has this tone changed when there is a following noun object. For example, 6 m¢ “he knows” as opposed to ¢ mp Délé “he knows the person called

Dele™. (g)

Noun plus Noun: When a noun acts as a qualifier to another noun, there is a nominal junction between the

nouns. An example

of this is the junction before a

second noun which has an initial consonant sound. The noun ilé “house” when qualified by the noun

babd “‘father” becomes house™.

ilée as in ilée babd “‘father’s

All these examples of tonal modification in grammatical structures raise the problem whether tonal modifications should or should notbe indicated in writing. Insome

cases suchasin(g), one mightsay that once

you know that the word bdbd is a noun, then, the junction is automatic. You would say ilée babd (with a nominal junction) but ilé kékeré “‘a small house” (without a nominal junction because the qualifying item is not a noun). What happens, however, when an adjectival item like kékeré is used as a noun as in ilde kékeré .yen

meaning “the house of that small one™ as opposed to ilé kékeré .yen which means “that small house”? In most othercases, this possibility of contrastiveness of the junction is present. The tonal junction is the only thing that indicates the contrast between aso funfun “the white cloth” and asg funfun “the cloth is white” and between & yoro fim won “it is difficult for them” and 6 sorod fim won “it is difficult to give them”. These examples can be multiplied. On the other hand, the indication of the tonal modification might

lead to fresh ambiguities. For example, in the case of the junction between subject and predicate, words which are contrasted by tone when they occur in isolation may come to have the same tones in the subject-predicate structure. For instance, i/4 *drum” and i/ “town” fall together as i/ in ili t6bi “the drum is big” or “the town is big”;

oko “husband” and k¢ “hoe” fall together as ok in okd po “hus-

bands are many” or “hoes are many”. In spite of this possibility, a strong case can still be made for the indication of these junction tones. They are contrastive and they should not be difficult for native

19

speakers to indicate in writing, since they are actually made in speech; even the ambiguity of il 16bi and pkd p9 is a true reflection of the ambiguity in speech which only the context can resolve. I am there-

fore of the opinion that these grammatical tones should be indicated

in writing.! We now come to the problem of word division. This is by far the more difficult problem, because it is not easy to think of any principle

that can be applied effectively. Take for instance the meaning principle which has been suggested. To quote Ward, “The guiding prin-

ciple should be whether the compound conveys a single idea apart from its component parts... /i oke, li odo would be written as loke,

lodo,... when the literal meaning of oke as “hill” and odo as “‘depth”, “hole”, are not present. But when the literal meaning of oke, odo...is

intended, it may be well to write /i oke or I'oke, etc.””? The fact is that

what happens in this case is true of a large number of verb-nominal combinations in Yoruba. For example, po/dwé “hawk wares” and

p’oléwé “call the owner of the money”; k¢ron “to be done for” and

(c’éron “collect the meat”. It seems an unnecessary encumberance to !ntroduu two types of spelling for a contrast which can be explained in terms of the type of combination of verb and nominal involved.

WOolff suggests that “units which have no meaning when standing

alone should not ordinarily be written as independent words™.> The question arises: What type of meaning? Does the verbal particle 7 or the relative particle 1/ have a meaning in the ordinary lexical sense? Quite apart from this objection, do all words have to be able to stand

alone before they can be written as independent words? On this criterion, many items, including most of the ordinal numerals (e.g. .kin{ “first”, .ke. ji “‘second”, .kg.ta ““third”’) would not be written as separate words because they cannot stand alone, even though they have a

‘meaning’. 1 think that whatever system of word division one adopts will be to some extent arbitrary. But in the case of Yoruba, where we are deal-

ing with a correction of existing inconsistencies of word division, I feel

that we can allow separation in writing of comparable words to guide us in deciding in many cases whether other words should be written together or not. The application of this criterion will be exemplified presently. 1 of. Siertsema who holds a contrary view, op. cit., pp.590-591.

2 Ward, op. cit., pp.188-189.

3 Wolff: Nigerian Orthography, Zaria, 1954. p.18.

20

The inconsistency of the present conventions of word division is to be found in cases where items are separated in some cases and not

separated in others. For example, the verb pé ““say" is almost always written together with wi “say” as wipé ‘‘say that”” whereas it is always

separated from sp “say” as in sp pé ‘“‘say that”, the relative particle ¢/ is always separated from most preceding nouns, e.g. ilé t{ mo k¢ “the house that I built”, owd t/ mo gba *‘the money that I received”, but it is usually written as one word with some nouns, e.g. ibitf wgn lo “the

place they went to™, eniti wgn ri ““the person they saw”’. This type of inconsistency in the present conventions may be reviewed under the following headings:

Verbal Items: There are two types of verbal items which are

(i)

almost always joined

(a)

in writing.

Verbal items which can be separated by an object, e.g. bdjé as in 6 ti ba féré jé “‘he has spoilt the whistle” (separated by object), 6 ti bajé “‘it has got spoilt” (not separated by object). Similar items are yfkd “‘surround”, pap¢ “‘to be together”, fihon “‘show™.

(b)

Verbal items which cannot be separatetl by an object, e.g. wipé*“‘say that”, jéki “‘let that”, t¢/é “follow”, md.se ““don’t”.

In (a); the items are written separately anyway whenever an object comes between them. There is no reason therefore why they should

not be written separately when there is no intervening object. It is suggested theréfore that they are written separately in all cases. In (b),

the items seem to have come to be written together through frequent association.

But

we do

have

other

combinations

involving

these

items. For instance, we have ré pé “think that”, mg pé “know that”, sp pé “‘say that”. These combinations, unlike wipé, are:always separ-

ated in writing even though they are fairly common combinations. Similarly the combination j¢k{ which is always written together is paralleled by the combination y¢ ki “be necessary that” which is always separated in writing. In view of the existence of these parallel combinations which are usually separated in writing, I suggest that the verbs in (b) should also be separated in writing. (i) Verb-Nominal Compounds: Items such as dorikodo (i.e. da ori ko 0dd) ‘“‘be downcast”, farabalg (i.c. fi ara ba il¢) “be patient”,

ddriji (i.e. dd ori ji) “forgive” occur written as single words. Since these compounds always involve a contraction, the problem involved

will be dealt with under “‘Assimilation and Contraction”.

21

(iii) Other Items: The following items are usually written together as single words.

(a)

i after the nouns éyf “this”, eni “person”, ibi “place”, igha “time” as in éyit/ “the one which”,

enitf “person

who”,

ibiti *“place where”, ighdti “time when”. These items are paralleled by other combinations of noun plus relative particle which are separated in writing, e.g. owd ti in owé ti mo gba *‘the money that I received”. Besides, the noun can be followed by a qualifier which can separate it from the relative particle, e.g. igha .kini ti mo lo “the first time that I went”, and grammatically #f is part of the relative clause qualifying the nominal, because a nominal can occur inde-

pendently of #/, but the qualifying clause does not normally occur without #i. In view of these structural patterns, it is

suggested that ¢/ should be separated in writing from the items above. (b)

i preceding pronouns as in tiré “‘his own”, tiwa*‘our own”, tiyin “your own”, tiwon “their own”. The convention of writing the genitival particle #i with pronouns may be retained because it is an additional distinction between pro-

nouns and nouns (before which it is usually written as a separate

word, e.g. ilée ti babd “father’s house” as opposed to ilée tiwa “‘our own house”). In the contracted series: témi “my own”, tire “‘your ‘“his

own”,

‘“‘our own”,

tawa

téyin

‘‘your

own”,

own”,

foun

tawpn

“their own”, the problem of elision of vowel is involved;

thesame way as contractions. in therefore these items shouldbe treated

(¢)

Thesyllabic n

The syllabic n is usually written together with the verb that follows

it as in 4 7ilo “‘he is going”, & ririn *‘he is walking” & ik bdtd “he is taking shoes”, and the same n is written together with the negative verb ko *“‘not” as in nké m¢ “I don’t know”. We know that the n is a verbal itemin all cases, except the last one, where it is a first person

singular pronoun. One can have a pronoun before 7ilp as in mo slp “I am going” but not before 7ikd in ikd mo. Furthermore, in the latter case n may be replaced by any other personal pronoun. For example,

a “we” or ¢ “you” as in a ko m9 “we don’tknow”, ¢ ko mg, “you don’t know”. There is a good case for making an orthographic dis-

tinction between the verbal particle and the pronoun. I suggest that the pronoun be separated in writing from the verb (i.e. ikomg should

22

be written 7 ko m9) and that the present practice of writing the verbal

particle with the verb be allowed to remain. (d)

ni*is™ in tani “who is it 7, kini “what is it 7", bééni “it is so” and k¢ “‘is not” in bgékd “it isn’t so”.

There seems to be a good reason for writing each of the first two items as a single word. The items ta “who’ and ki *“what” never occur except before ni. The item béé occurs in contexts where it is not followed by ni or k¢, but it never occurs by itself as an utterance unless it is followed by either of these two items. On the other hand, grammatically, ni and kJ belong to a class different from those of

these other items; and they are separated

in writing from

items

belonging to the same classes as these items. Compare for example the items é/6 “how much (money)?” and éwo “which ?”” with ki in é/6

ni won gha ? “how much did they get?”, kini wgn gha? *‘what did they get?”; éwo ni won mit? “which did they take?”, kini wén mii? “what did they take?”. We should note too that the items#i and k¢ always require a preceding item (i.e. they never occur as independent utterances). I don’t think that one can allow obligatory co-occurrence

of items to be a criterion for writing such items as one word. Consider for example an item like “writes” or “wrote” in English. These items must always be preceded by a subject. Should we therefore say that this subject must be joined to the two items in writing? I think that for the sake of consistency fa, ki and b¢¢ should be written as separate words.

(e)

bi in sebi (or sébi) “is it not the case that?”, rabi “‘or”, gégebi “just as”. Since the first two items behave like single words belonging to classes comprising other single words, the present convention of writing them as single words should be retained. The item gégé modifies b7 just as it modifies b¢¢ in bé¢ gégé “‘just like that”. There is no reason why it should not be separated from it in writing.

(f)

The qualifying items ngo “‘that” in l¢.hinngo “‘after that”, nitoring¢ “therefore”, konndo “the same”; .kon “one”in enikon

“‘a certain person”;

.yf “this” in ni.sisi.yi “now”;

and soso “only” in .konsoso “‘only one”.

These qualifying items have, in many cases, become fixed combinations with particular characteristics. For example, the word ibi has the meaning *‘a place” or “‘an evil”, but ibikgn means “a certain place”

and

ibi .kon,

“a certain evil”. The

23

item .kgnnd9

precedes

certain qualifying items which nd¢ does not precede. For example it precedes the qualifying clause in obinrin .konngd ti mo ri “‘the only womanthat I saw”, but ngo usually follows the same qualifying clause, i.e. obinrin ti mo ri ng9 “the woman that I saw”. It seems that some of the items behave as single words formed from what was origin-

ally more than one word. A test of their fusion is to try and separate them by inserting qualifying items between the component parts. If one cannot be inserted, then the fusion is complete.

For

instance, we cannot insert the clause 1/ mo dé “that 1 came” before

.yi or ngg in ni.sisi.yf, nitoringd; whereas we can in /¢.hinng9. We can insert a qualifying item in ibikon, enikon.

For instance, we can say

ibi tuti kon “a certain wet place”, eni diudii .kon*a certain black

person”. Although we can insert another qualifying item in .konngg, this will lead to a change of meaning, e.g. obinrin .konngd ti mo ri “the

only (or same) woman that I saw” as opposed to obirin .kon t{ mo ri

ngo “that only woman that I saw”. Applying this criterion of the possibility of insertion of other items, we may say that where

no

other qualifying items can be inserted, the items should be written as one word. This is the case with ni.sisi.yf, nitoring and .konsoso.

Where other qualifying items can be inserted, the items should be written as separate words. This is the case with all the other items.

(iv) Assimilation and Contraction: Tt is a characteristic feature of Yoruba that when an item beginning with a vowel is preceded by another item, there is often an assimilation or elision of one or the other of the two vowels in contact. (@)

Assimilation:

The

assimilated

vowel

is replaced

by

the

other vowel in contact with it, e.g.

(b)

ard it

assimilated

ard ali

“townspeople”

aolp

"

aalp

“we didn't go”

tiobdlp

»

té o bdlp

“if you go”.

Contraction: The elision of one of the vowels in contact results in a contraction of the two items. The contraction may involve a second item which is a pronoun, e.g. “he saw it”’ contracted to 6 ri orli “do it” $é i se é “if we go”. tabdlp i tdabdlp

The contraction may also involve a second item which isa

noun, e.g. b

gbé asp

contracted to

Jfoasp k¢ ¢kg The question

W »

that arises

gb’ dsp

“lift the clothes”

fo 'so k' ék¢

“wash the clothes” “learn a lesson”.

in connection

with assimilation

and

contraction is how to indicate them in writing. In the current orthography, assimilation is not indicated. The easiest way of indicating it in writing is to substitute the second vowel for the assimilated

vowel. (See examples of contractions above.) This solution raises a further problem:

should

word division be retained in writing two

items when there is an assimilation? For example, should one write ard ali or ardali for the assimilation of ard il “townspeople”?

In

this case, indicating word division helps to show that we are dealing with two nouns and not just one (cf. 0/d.0ghé “the deceased™). But in other cases, the retention of word division may lead to a distortion of the general pattern of the language. We know for instance that no noun in Standard Yoruba begins with the vowel « nor with a nasalised vowel. A convention which allows word diyision to be indicated in assimilations will also allow these vowels to occur in word-initial position. For example, era igi assimilated eri ugi, “bundle of wood”, awpn iyawd assimilated awon gnyawd. In view of this, itis advisable to write assimilated nouns without indicating word division. Since

the objection noted in the case of nouns does not apply to pronouns, there is no reason why word division should not continue to be indicated in an assimilation involving a pronoun, e.g. ¢ 6 /p assimilated ¢ ¢ Ip “you didn’t go™. The basic convention of indicating contractions in the current

orthography is to omit the elided vowel. As a secondary device, an

apostrophe is often used to mark the position of the elided vowel (with word division indicated). But there is no consistency in the use of this device. Some

contractions are indicated by an apostrophe,

others are not. In fact, the same contraction may be indicated by an apostrophe in one case and not in another. For example, ljdpd wd béré I’ gwgo r¢ “*‘And Tortoise asked him” as compared with 6 si diip¢ Igwgo ré “And he thanked him”.! Two advantages may be mentioned in favour of the additional convention of indicating contractions by an apostrophe. 1 These examples are taken from Aworerin, May—June,

25

1960, p.12.

I.

It helps the identification of the items in the contraction. For example, in the contraction written as fp 'sp “wash clothes™, we know straightaway that the first item of the combination is the verb /9 “wash"; we can then go onand

think of an appropriate noun ending in so. If thecontraction

is not indicated by an apostrophe as in the spelling fpsp, we will first have to find out whether the verb is 9 or whether the noun is gsp, before we can think of the appropriate

second item.

II.

Where qualifying items follow a noun in a contraction of

verb and noun, it makes the noun (and not the contraction) come immediately before the qualifying item, thereby showing that it is the noun and not the verb-nominal con-

traction that is qualified. For example, fp sp funfun “wash the white cloth” as compared with fpso funfun which has the

same structure, even though it looks like a combination of a roun plus a qualifying item.

Against these advantages, it may be argued that indication of contractions by an apostrophe is not contrastive and therefore not essential in the orthography, and that some contractions cannot be

so indicated anyway. For example, contractions involving a second item which is a pronoun (See (iv) (b) above), such as ¢ ri i contracted

to 6 ri “he saw it”. There is still one other important contraction which cannot be indicated by an apostrophe. In Yoruba, there are a number of verb-nominal combinations which are fixed in the sense that one of the items in the combination no longer occurs as an independent item in the language. Examples of these are pddé “‘meet”, Jjé.ké “sit”. It is obvious that in these cases, one cannot indicate the

position of the elided vowel as in other contractions because we do not know where to indicate it (i.e. is it p’ adé or pa 'dé?).

Since the apostrophe cannot be used in certain contractions, question may be raised whether there is any point at all in using an additional convention for indicating contractions. Besides, advantages in favour of using the apostrophe do not outweigh

the it as the the

important objection that the indication of a contraction by an apos-

trophe is a superfluous convention in the orthography, since it does not represent a significant contrast. My suggestion therefore is that

the convention should be discontinued.

26

Elision of a vowel or a consonant within a word is another form of contraction (the contractions already discussed are contractions between words). Examples of this contraction are: lé for nflé “in the house”, ényon for éniyon “‘person”, Qlg.un for Qlg.run “God”, lpglé

for lp silé “'go to the nouse”. In ordinary writing, it is not advisable to indicate these contractions. But where a stylistic effect is intended

(for example, to show a colloquial style, as in a conversation), contractions within words may be indicated in thesame way as any other contractions.

Before leaving the subject of contractions, we must look at verbnominal compounds involving a contraction as well as a combination of more than one verb. These verb-nominal compounds are extremely common, and are considered by native speakers as single verbs. They are not single verbs, however, because they behave like other verb-

nominal combinations in the language. But I doubt very much whether the average Yoruba writer can separate each compound into its verbal and nominal parts. It is therefore futile to suggest a separation into these parts. I suggest that the items be written as single words as is now the practice in the orthography, &.g. ddriji “forgive”, Jarabalg “be patient”, dpbdlg “prostrate”.

(v) Word Formation: Words formed from other words may divided into two: Nouns and Others. (a)

Nouns:

Many

structures,

or

nouns are formed from from

other

nouns.

be

verbs, verb-object

There

are

usually

no

problems when only verbs or single nouns are involved because the noun formed can be written as one word. For example,

alp “going” from lp “‘go” aim¢ “ignorance” from m¢ “know” ighaghg “‘faith” from gba gbg “believe” aldsp “cloth seller” from asp “cloth” When verbs and complements or nouns and their qualifiers are involved, however, there is a problem of word division.

Should the whole formed word be written as a single word, or should the parts forming it be separately written as different words? For example, should we write diréwérasp or airéwé raso “‘failure to get money to buy cloth”, olériburiki or oléri buruku. It is clear that we need to make a

distinction between

items

27

which

are parts of a formed

word and the same items as separate words. For example, oléri burukt as a single noun means “a luckless person”,

but the same item as two words means “a bad leader”. It is therefore suggested that hyphens be used between parts of a word constituting a formed word where it is inconvenient to write such a formed word as one word. For example, ol/dri-burtikii *‘a luckless person” (cf. oldrf buriki “a bad leader”), adiréwd-rasp, atilp-si.liu-wa “how to go to our town”, afi-dt¢wg-fon-ing “‘one who takes burning

coal from the fire on his palm”. Personal_ names which are often the same form as sentences are

usually written as single words, e.g. Adéwplé, Kdypdé, lydbo. This convention should be retained. (b)

Other Items: Items suchas adjectives, numerals, and adverbs may be reduplicated to form other words. For example,

pelebe pelebe “flat, flat, i.e. very flat”, kidkid “*quick, quick, i.e. quickly™, robotg roboto “fat, fat, i.e. very fat”. Since these items behave as single words and not as a combination of

two words, it is suggested that they are written as one word where possible (i.e. where they are not too long) e.g. kidkid in order to differentiate them from two words. Where they

cannot be written as single words, a hyphen should be used to indicate the contrast, i.e. pelebe-pelebe, robotoroboto.

The last problem one may wish to consider is the question of punctuation. Here, there are two factors: (a) Variation in punctua-

tion is a well-known stylistic device. It is impossible therefore to indicate contexts where particular punctuation marks should be used. For example, one writer may use an exclamation mark and another,

a comma in the same context. Compare 0jé, mo ti dé with 0jé! mo ti dé “Ojo, I have come”. (b) Punctuation marks are not necessarily significant. For example we know that the sentence é/6 ni wgn gba? “how much did they take?” is a question from the presence of the question item é/6 which has the meaning “how much (money)?” The question mark is superfluous. In spite of these factors, one clearly wants to avoid a situation where significant pauses, such as at the end of sentences, are indicated in some cases and not indicated in others. The following exam-

ple from Fagunwa illustrates the point:

28

Bayi ni pkunrin nd sp fun mi o si fa mi le pkunrin alakisa nl

lowp o ni ki 0 mu mi wa oju pna, on na si se bg,....! ““Thus the man said to me, and he delivered me to the man

clothed in rags. He asked him to bring me up to the path, and he did so.”

In this text which is quoted as it appears in Fagunwa's book, there

are four significant pauses only two of which are indicated with commas. The two other significant pauses come just before and just after the clause o si fa mi le pkunrin alakisa ni low. In normal conversation in Yoruba, it may be observed that pauses are obligatory at certain points, such as between sentences, or clauses or between lists of nouns. For example, obligatory pauses occur at the points indicated by a slanting line in the following sentences:

Awon iyd arighé|wén d& wd sgja “The old women—they will come to the market.” W¢n ra batd|wén si tin rabjsg| “They bought shoes and they

also

bought

stockings.”

A rita panlal eron| atatal

“We sell stockfish, meat and pepper.” This obligatory pause is significant because failure to observe it may result in an utterance which is different from the one intende d, Compare for example the following pair of utterances contrasted

solely by the obligatory pause: Aofé | késofo

“We don’t want it. Let it be wasted.”

A 0 f¢ ké sofo “We don’t want it to be wasted.” The obligatory pause may be indicated by a single punctuation mark, either a comma or a full stop. If a full stop is used, the implication is that parts of the same sentence can be separated by a full

stop. If, on the other hand, a comma is used, the consequence is that the beginning of a new sentence will not be indicated by a capital letter as is usually done in the orthography. It seems that in

this case, both the full stop and the comma will have to be used; the former to indicate obligatory pauses at the end of a sentence, and 1 Fagunwa, op. cit., p. 5.

the latter for obligatory pauses in other contexts. The three examples

given above will therefore be punctuated as follows:

Awon iyd arighd, won d wd sgja. W¢n ra bata. Wen si tin rabgsé. A nita pahla, ¢ron, atata. Most writers use a question mark to indicate questions. This con-

vention should be retained. The use of quotation marks, and exclamation marks where appropriate may also be retained. The orthographical changes I have so far proposed are the minimum necessary to offset the inconsistencies' and ambiguities of the present orthography. The changes have deliberately been kept to a

minimum. Even so, I expect that some people will object to even these few changes or any changes at all for that matter. To such people, I would like to quote the words of Professor Westermann,

“A common script is a compromise: it can only be brought about by a willingness to make concessions.”! This paper has been written as far as possible in non-technical language. The reason for this is that I would like it to be accessible to as many people as possible. Teachers, writers, students and ordinary users of the language who are literate in English can read and follow the arguments put forward in it. These are the people who

will ultimately be affected by any orthographic changes and it is important that they are aware of any proposed changes, which should be widely known and discussed. I am reminded of a comment by Professor Siertsema in connection with Yoruba orthography. She writes, “It is up to the Yorubas to decide, nor should they wait too

long with the decision, and once the proper authorities

have estab-

lished the spelling everybody should conform to it, or there will never be an end to the present doubts and hesitations of Yoruba readers.””? The purpose of this paper is to help the Yorubas to reach an objective decision on their orthography.3 1 Rejaf Language Conference, 1928, Khartoun, . 2 Siertsema, op. cit., p. 592.

1928, p.16.

3 | am grateful to Professor R. G. Armstrong, Dr C. Hoffmann, and Dr A.

Babalgla for reading this paper in manuscript and making helpful comments.

APPENDIX Summary

A

of Proposed Changes

No changes are proposed in the number or type of letters in the present Yoruba alphabet. The few orthographic changes proposed

are set out

(1

below:

The spelling ai. ¢i before y or io after y to represent a single vowel to be discontinued in favour of the spelling a. ¢ and o respectively e.g. diva “‘chest” to be spelt dya; eive 'bird™ to be spelt gye.

2)

The nasalised o sound which is spelt a after n to be spelt 0 c.g.

3

ona

“road™

The spelling an

to

be

spelt

ong.

for the nasalised vowel to be replaced by

on, ¢.g. okan “heart” to be spelt pkon

(52

The spelling on to be used instead of ¢ for the third person singular pronoun object, following verbs ending in on,

c.g. G pon ¢ “she put it (the child) on her back” to be spelt 6 pon

(5)

(6) (M () 9)

gn.

The tilde to be replaced by double vowels, e.g. dran “sun” to be spelt oorin. The syllabic nasal to be spelt n in all cases, e.g. 6 mbo “he is coming” to be spelt 6 ribd, ng 6 mo “I don’t know” to be spelt 7 0 mo. The spelling nw, ny to be replaced by w and y, e.g. nwin “they” to be spelt wgn, nyin “your” to be spelt yin.

Double letters to indicate a consonant,

and the spelling

sh to be discontinued, e.g. Iddd to be spelt 1d6, Oshogho to be spelt Osogbo. Tones to be indicated in all cases. The mid tone to be indicated with a macron only on a syllabic nasal;and the assimi-

lated

low

tone to

be indicated

with

a dot,

e.g. panla

“stockfish” to be spelt panla, l6ni “today to be spelt /6.ni.

(10)

A few words usually combined in writing to be separated,

e.g. ibiti “‘place where” to be written ibi 1i, wipé “'say that” to be written w/ pé, baj¢ *‘be spoilt” to be written ba j¢.

(11

The use of an apostrophe to indicate a contraction to be

discontinued, e.g. fp’sp “wash clothes™ to be written fpsp, gb'dsp “lift clothes” to be written gbdyp. 31

(12)

Derived

words

inconvenient

to be linked with a hyphen

to write them

as single words,

where it is e.g. adiléwé

Igwg “being without money” to be spelt ailéwé-Igwd, pelebe pelebe “very flat” to be spelt pelebe-pelebe. (Note: For obvious reasons, these changes should not necessarily apply to the spelling of personal names.)

APPENDIX

L.

B

Sample of Text in Present Orthography

Nigbati odi oju ale mo pada wa si aba wa, mo lp si pdp egbon mi agba okunrin ti o je omg iya baba mi, mo wi fun u pe mo nfe de takute 6 si gbe okan fun mi, mo gbe e lp si inu ko wa ni inu agbado, mo de ¢ si oju

ona awon dya ti nje agbado wa, nigbati o di owuro ojo keji takute nd ko ré nitori biotilgjepe awpn oya wa pa agbado, nwon ko rin si oju takute mi. Sugbon nigbati o di owurg ojo keta ti mo lp wo o mo ri i pe 0 ti ré o ti mu gya ni apa, o ti ge apa pya, eranko na si ti ghe kukute iyokulp.

Awon ¢biti mi ti beresi pa eku ni pjp keji ti mo de won, eyiti mo si de si ébé ala ni eti oko koké wa pa okere ni pjo keta. Nigbati o di ojo kerin ti mo ti de oko ni pkan ninu awpn ode ti mbe loko wa pa agbonrin kan ni inu oko o si gbe e wa si abd o kun u o si fun awa ti a je pmode ni opolopo ijanjd eran ti a sun je sugbon o fun awon agba ni eran ti o po

Ju tiwa lg. Eyiti o fi fun baba mi pg ju ti gbogbo awon ti a jo ngbe aba, nitori baba mi ni olori oko wa. Sugbon o dun mi lati sp pe nkankan s¢le

sugbon baba mi ko ba mi wi pupo o ni nki ise b¢ ati wipe o sési ni, sugbon o kilp fun mi pe nko gbodp se b¢ mo ati wipe pjo ti nba tun se ) bé on o na mi. Bénimo sa gbadun oko nd titi o fi di pe mo pada wa si ile. Igbati a fi md wa ile odo ti 0 wa lpna oko wa ti fa dig, won ti se afara le e lori ) ori afa nd ni a si ba koja nigbati a mbo. Sugbon kini igbehin eniti mo ri lpna oko ti o fi ppa kan mi lori?

Lati gjo ti mo ti ri i nko tun fi oju ba a mp di bi mo ti nspro yi sugbon mo nri i loju ala ng o si sp bi mo ti se nba a pade loju ala mi.

(Fagunwa: Ireke Onibudo, pp. 6-7.) 32

1.

Sample of Same Text in Proposed Orthography Ni.gha

ti 6 di oju al¢, mo pa da wa si abaawa.

Mo

lp si odg éghgn

.mi dgba ok unrin ti 6 j¢ pmo iyda babd .mi. Mo wi fun u pé mo nf¢ de takuté. O si gbé ohon fun mi. Mo gbé e lp si inti okoo wa ni inii dghado. Mo

dg ¢ si oju ono awon

oyati rije agbadoo

wa.

Ni.gba

ti 6 di owurd

0j¢ ke.ji, takuté ngo ko ré, nitori bi 6 til¢ j¢ pé awpn dya ngog wd pa

agbddo, won ko rin si ojuu takuté .mi. Sugbgn ni.gba ti 6 di owiro pjg -ke.ta, timo lp wo 6, mo riipé 6 tiré. O ti mi ¢ya ni apd. O ti gé apd

oya. Eronko ngog si ti ghé kukuté iyokiu lp. Awon gbiti.mi ti bérésiipa eku ni 0jg ke.ji ti mo de won. Eyi ti mo si de si ebé aala ni eti oko kokdo wa pa okéré ni 0j¢ ke.ta. Nighd ti 6 di 0j0 ke.rin ti mo ti dé oko ni pkon ninti awon ode 1i rbe 16koo wd pa

agbonrin kon ni ini oko. O si ghé e wd si aba. O kun . O si fun awa ti a j¢ pmpdé ni ppolp.po ij{ir':ja' eron ti a sun je. Sughgn 6 fun awon agha ni gron ti 6 po jutiwa lp. Eyi ti 6 fi fin babd .mipo ju ti ghogbo awgn

ti a jo righé aba, nitori babd .mi ni olori okoo wa. Sughon 6 din mi ld.ti sp pé nrkonkgn selé si mi l6jo yi, ti 6 dun mi gidigidi. Ibi ti mo ti

#iti 0do bo, mo f¢ akéngbé. Sughon babd .miké bd mi wi pipo. O ni

7 ki ise bée, ati wi pé 6 sési ni. Sughon 6 kilp Sunmi pé n ko ghg.dp se bé¢ mg, ati wi pé 0jg ti h bd tin se bé¢, oun 6. no mi.

B¢ ni mo sda ghddun oko ngo, titi 6 fi di pé mo pada wi si ilé. lgha

ti a fi mda wd ilé, odo ti 6 wa lg.no okoo wd ti fa di¢. Won si ti se afdrd

1é e [6ri. Ori.afd ng ni a si ba kojd ni.gha ti a rib.

Sugbon ki ni ighghin eni ti mo ri 1g.no oko, ti 6 fi opa konmi lori? Ld.ti pjg ti mo ti ri i, ko tinfi oju bad mé di bi mo ti nspro .yi.

Sugbgn mo i ri i loji ald. N 6. si sp bi mo y ge rbd a padé 16ju ald .mi.