Argument for The Reclassification of Yoruba as A Language Isolate

Volume 2 - Issue 4

Seun Ayoade*

Received: October 01, 2018;   Published: October 01, 2018

DOI: 10.32474/PRJFGS.2018.02.000142

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Abstract

Whereas the uniquely tonal language of Yoruba is currently classified as belonging to one of the ‘families’ of African languages an argument can be made that this is a misnomer, made by patronizing European explorers and linguists of the 19^th and early 20^th centuries. The principal reason Yoruba came to be thus classified was because of similarities European racists found between Yoruba and some other Nigerian/west African languages. Assuming sub- Saharan Africans had no history and had never set up kingdoms and colonies of their own it simply never occurred to these prejudiced Europeans and Americans that these other languages that so resembled Yoruba had been at some time colonized by the Yoruba and had borrowed syntax and words from the Yoruba. Here I present evidence that all the languages classed into the family of languages Yoruba is now classed into were once victims of Yoruba colonization. Next, I present evidence that The Yoruba language is indeed a language isolate.

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