Yoruba

About Yoruba

Yoruba is spoken by about 38 million people as a first language, mainly in southwestern Nigeria and in neighbouring Benin and Togo. It also lives on in the religious traditions of Cuba and Brazil.

Yoruba is a tonal language with three tones, and the tone can change the whole meaning: ọkọ means husband, ọkọ̀ vehicle and ọkọ́ hoe. An acute accent marks a high tone, a grave accent a low tone and no mark means a middle tone. The dot under a letter matters too: ẹ sounds like the e in "bed", ọ like the o in "pot" and ṣ like sh. Respect for elders is built into the language, so greetings to an older person begin with ẹ, as in ẹ káàárọ̀ (good morning), while friends simply say káàárọ̀.

FamilyNiger-Congo, Yoruboid
Native speakersabout 38 million (2019)
Where spokenNigeria, Benin, Togo
ScriptLatin alphabet with tone marks and dotted letters
Tonesthree (high, mid, low)
Codesyo (ISO 639-1), yor (ISO 639-3)

Speaker number: Ethnologue (2019), via Wikidata. Retrieved 26 September 2026.

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