Working with a purpose allows for a fulfilling and effective outcome, and because I believe part of my calling is to educate and equip individuals into being global citizens, serving as a volunteer for the Yoruba Names Dictionary Project presents a platform where I am able to influence a diverse population towards the significance of conserving one another’s cultures.
Living in the United States, I come across a lot of my peers that are progressively losing touch with their roots, specifically with demonstrating proficiency in using their native language/dialect either because their families do not expose them to it at home, or they feel as though they are never going to need it in their future careers. Receiving this kind of negative feedback from those who are supposed to carry on the legacy of these cultures demonstrates why the need to preserve the language is inevitably necessary. Being a Yoruba millennial myself, what better way to aid in the rescue than to join the efforts of this project through preserving and educating society on the sophisticated meanings and pronunciations of Yoruba names.
On the day I first learned about the Yoruba Names Dictionary Project, I was surfing the web and going through various materials on African languages. I then stumbled upon a YouTube video in which Mr. Tubosun was being interviewed on his objectives behind this project. I was certainly captivated as it was the first time I had heard of something of its kind; hence, my inspiration and motivation to join the team.
My role in this project is to expand its awareness to a larger population by carrying out tasks through our social media platforms. We aim for people in all parts of the globe to become aware of our work in order to engage with us in meaningful ways. Our current focus is gathering as many Yoruba names as we can come across, interpret them, and create pronunciations for them.
As the Yoruba language is just a starting point, I believe that this project will eventually present everyone on the continent (and elsewhere) with the luxury of being able to access names in all less commonly spoken languages with a view to ultimately help in individual worldwide efforts to conserve our various (linguistic and cultural) heritages.
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Kehinde Ligali is a senior at Indiana University, Bloomington (Class of 2016)