General

If you come by a Yoruba name and perchance you happen not to be familiar with the Yoruba culture and language, their is the chance you would probably trip trying to get the name’s pronunciation right: not to talk about understanding and appreciating the name’s meaning and what it represents. This should not have to be the case; you do not have to trip over Yoruba names: and even if you do the first time, you should be able to have access to tools/resources that teaches you and helps you get it right the second time.

Here in an article in New York times press which exemplify exactly how Yoruba names might be a daunting one to decipher, but it also illustrates precisely some of the problems we’re going to be solving with the dictionary. The Yoruba name dictionary would end up being a place where Yoruba names can be appreciated, their meaning understood and their right pronunciation learnt.

Do have a nice time reading the article, and keep your fingers crossed as we count down to launch!

This title is significant for me because of a recent and indelible encounter with a donor to the dictionary project. I hadn’t told her about it, even though we live in the same compound, but she found out about it anyway, and found a way to contribute to the work in her own (but to me significant) way. The icing on that cake came in form of a text message she sent to me afterwards. It read “May your name always be remembered.”

To go for the most charitable interpretation of this prayer, may our work endure for as long as possible, and most importantly, may our names be remembered along with it. But “What is in a name?” as Shakespeare once asked? Won’t a rose by any other name smell just as sweet? To the Yoruba, a whole lot! And, a rose is only a rose because it is so called. In any case, roses don’t grow in Yorubaland so we won’t have to figure out that particular example.