Yoruba Name

November 18, 2017 by Dadepo Aderemi

Achieving Multilingual User Interface

On November 14, 2017, we turned on the Multilingual feature for www.yorubaname.com, making it possible to view the content of the website not only in English but also in the Yorùbá language.

If you visit the Dictionary now, at the top right corner, you will find the language switch button.

This language switcher allows a user to toggle the language in which the content of the website is displayed. Right now, English and Yorùbá are supported. Clicking on YOR would switch the website’s’ language to Yorùbá.

Multilingual capabilities have always been a feature we planned for the YorùbáName dictionary. It was not an afterthought; we knew at the very beginning when we started working on the codebase for the YorùbáName dictionary, that we would like to support multiple languages.

Even though it was not going to be possible to have multilingual at launch, we made sure, the technical infrastructure to easily support multiple languages was in place. So that when the time came, it was easy to add another language, since the technical foundation that was needed has already been laid.

In this post, I will quickly give a broad overview of the technical aspect that enabled us to easily support a multilingual user interface. I will also mention the things we still need to do.

The Building Blocks

The YorùbáName website is built using Spring boot, which makes it easy to quickly hit the ground running when developing applications with the Spring Framework.

One of the advantages of having a framework like Spring at your disposal is the fact that there are already implementations for a lot of the supporting features, outside the business logic that is needed by a non-trivial web application.

So when it came to building the multi-lingual support into the YorùbáName website, it was a matter of assembling the necessary components and configuring them to taste, rather than having to develop the necessary moving parts that would be required for such a feature from scratch.

Spring framework provides 3 main components that were used to achieve our aim. But before I touch on them, let us imagine we need to build multi-lingual support into an application, but without the support of Spring. What would this entail? What are the things I might have to develop?

I can imagine I would have to build something that allows the user to select the language they are interested in. Then provide the mechanism that communicates the selected language to the rendering part of the application. Maybe using sessions, the URL, HTTP headers, cookies etc.

I would then need to make sure the rendering part of my application is built in such a way it can resolve to different texts depending on the selected language.

And all these would need to be built with user isolation in mind, so as to prevent one user’s language selection from interfering with the selection made by any of the other users visiting the web application.

These can be roughly grouped into recognizing language selected, rendering the content of the site in the selected language, and provide a per-user mechanism for switching language.

These stated capabilities are already available with Spring, and I now briefly explain what they are and how they were configured.

LocaleResolver

When a request is made, the LocaleResolver is the component responsible for determining which language is to be used when responding to the request. There are various places the LocaleResolver can look for in other to accomplish its task. These include the accept-language header in an HTTP request, the session or in the cookie.

The implementation we went with, uses the cookie.

So depending on a specific value set within the request cookie, the right language is used when constructing the response to be sent back to the user

The configuration looks like:

@Bean
public LocaleResolver localeResolver() {
CookieLocaleResolver cookieLocaleResolver = new CookieLocaleResolver();
cookieLocaleResolver.setDefaultLocale(Locale.ENGLISH);
cookieLocaleResolver.setCookieName(LANG);
return cookieLocaleResolver;
}

MessageSource

The messageSource is the component that helps in defining and grouping the translations for each language to be supported. As can be gleaned from the name, it provides the source for all of the text translation and makes it available depending on the language required.

So while the LocaleResolver component helps determine the language, the MessageSource helps in providing the translations for that language.

We are using property files as the mechanism for providing the language translations. You can see these files here

The MessageSource makes use of these property files to supply the required translations.

The configuration looks like:

@Bean
public ReloadableResourceBundleMessageSource messageSource() {
ReloadableResourceBundleMessageSource source = new ReloadableResourceBundleMessageSource();
source.setDefaultEncoding("UTF-8");
source.setBasename("classpath:/messages");
return source;
}

LocaleChangeInterceptor

Last but not the least is the LocalChangeInterceptor, which is the component that makes it possible to manually switch the current language as needed.

Since the LocalResolver mechanism uses cookies to convey the preferred language, the LocalChangeInterceptor updates the cookie value depending on the language selected.

This is the component that makes it possible to switch the language by clicking on the language selector.

The configuration looks like:

@Bean
public LocaleChangeInterceptor localeChangeInterceptor() {
LocaleChangeInterceptor lci = new LocaleChangeInterceptor();
lci.setParamName(LANG);
return lci;
}
// and then registered as an interceptor

...
@Override
public void addInterceptors(InterceptorRegistry registry) {
registry.addInterceptor(localeChangeInterceptor());
}

For more on how things stack together on the code side of things, you can take a look at the Spring context configuration here

The Road Ahead

The work still needed to be done around internationalization and localization can be grouped into supporting more languages and providing a more exhaustive translation.

Support more languages. It is good to have the website in Yorùbá, but it would be better if we can add more Nigerian languages. This obviously needs the manpower needed to provide the translations. So if you are interested in helping make the YorùbáName dictionary available in another language, please do get in touch. :).

Please send an email to volunteer@yorubaname.com with “Translate” in the subject line.

Providing An Exhaustive Translation. As can be seen, not every single content on the website has been translated. Apart from this, the meaning of the names in the dictionary is still only in English.

We would like to improve on this, but it would require some extra work: from rethinking the data model used to store the names to providing the necessary tools that would support the lexicographers in managing the meaning of names in multiple languages. These are technical challenges, and tackling them won’t be trivial, but it sure promises to be fun. For example, instead of depending on static language translation files, what stops us from writing a custom implementation of the MessageSource interface to use the google translation API?

All of these are on our radar, and in due time, they would be worked on. So, if you are a developer and you are interested in helping out with the technical side of things, feel free to get in touch also 🙂

But in the meantime, as at now, do enjoy YorubaName.com in Yorùbá!

in Software Development 0 comments

November 3, 2017 by Dadepo Aderemi

YorubaName is Seeking A Developer Intern

Hi People,

The Yorùbá Names Project is looking for an intern to support the development work at YorubaName.com.

Must have skills:
1. Graphic designing (Using Sketch, Photoshop or other tools suitable for creating graphics for the web etc)

2. Basic HTML/CSS/JavaScript

Nice to have:

1. Java or experience with any other backend programming language.

General responsibilities:

1. Making Graphical changes, and textual updates to the YorubaName website

2. Working on improving the general design and usability of the YorubaName website

What to be gained:

1. Experience of working in a fun freelance environment.

2. Credit on your work on the YorubaName website and on any future work you help out with.

3. YorubaName t-shirt, and other in-hour perks

4. Opportunity to represent us in tech/developer events

5. Many more.

The opportunity should be suitable for:

1. Someone looking to have a real life experiencing applying HTML/CSS/Javascript skills

2. Someone looking at gaining experience around user interface desgin and usability

3. Or someone who is interested in gaining experience in building web applications using JVM/Java/Spring stack

If you’re interested, please send an email to volunteer@yorubaname.com with “Software Intern” in the subject line. In the body, let us know your skills, what draws you to our work, and how many hours per week you will have to volunteer.

We look forward to hearing from you.

October 21, 2017 by Kola Tubosun

YorubaName Now Has Audio!

I am excited to announce to you today that we have launched a crucial part of the YorubaName vision: audio.

One of the crucial elements planned for this dictionary since its inception has been a voice element. The project itself was conceived in part because of the problem of pronouncing Yorùbá names illustrated in this video of David Oyèlọ́wọ̀ on Jimmy Fallon’s show, a problem believed to be caused only by the absence of a place online where Yorùbá speakers, learners, and foreigners interested in the culture, can go to hear how names are pronounced.

The problem has finally been solved. We have incorporated an audio element into the dictionary. You can now click on the audio icon beside a name and hear how it is pronounced.

Try it out by searching for a name entry you’d like to hear pronounced!

A little word on the voice element

As I wrote in a blog post in April 2015, the biggest obstacle to achieving appropriate auto-pronounce was technology. There was no available computer voice in Yorùbá (and as far as we were concerned it had not been created before). So we had a choice of employing one person to pronounce all the names in the dictionary (a very tedious and expensive choice indeed), or creating – through speech synthesis – the technology that can do it automatically for every new addition. The latter option required only the knowledge of the tools necessary, and far less funding than having to bring someone to pronounce each entry in the dictionary.

We didn’t like that limitation and we committed to breaking it. We wanted to create an automatic Yorùbá voice for the dictionary. We also wanted to work towards interesting speech synthesis applications that can enhance African languages in technology.

Read: “What We Are Building Next” on Medium

We achieved the technical breakthrough as far back as 2015, as you would read in the blog post, but never had the funds to get complete the cycle. Hence, earlier this year, we proposed a crowdfunding on indiegogo effort to raise appropriate funds to complete the work.

We raised $1,672.

Through these funds and the generous time of volunteers, the work has now been completed. We no longer need to get one person to record all the names. The software will pronounce as many new names as are added to the dictionary from now on, whether they be 10,000 names or more.

I wrote the phonological rules for the application and provided the voice you now hear. Turning the language rules into software was done by Adédayọ̀ Olúòkun. Getting the work incorporated into the dictionary in a final deployment was done by Dadépọ̀ Adérẹ̀mí. We intend to add a female voice and improve on the output as time goes on.

Through this technology, we have solved one problem and enhanced this dictionary experience. But there are many more ways in which ideas of this nature can (and will) change the world by enhancing the African language experience in technology and on the internet. We hope to be a part of that future.

Hear the names

We hope you enjoy using the dictionary to hear the names pronounced, learning the names of your friends, and becoming more fluent in Yorùbá. Please let us know what you think, especially if some of the names do not render the way you expect them to. We assume that there will be a few glitches here and there and we look forward to fixing them.

in Audio/Sound / Featured / General / Software Development 8 comments

March 24, 2017 by Kola Tubosun

Of Names, Like Puzzles

I had a colleague in my last employment whose name was “Osokomaiya”. I’m deliberately leaving that unmarked for tone because that was how I first encountered it. But when I started hearing it pronounced, there were variations, from “Oṣókòmaiyà” to “Ọ̀ṣọ́kòmaiyà”. The latter is correct, by the way, but I also didn’t know it at the time, confused by the different ways in which the name was rendered to my uninitiated ear.

Last week, I asked him for the meaning of the name. After a few hours of waiting, he sent his response. The name, he said, meant “Adornment does not catch me unawares”: Ọ̀ṣọ́ ò kò mí l’áyá, which more accurately can be interpreted as “Adornment doesn’t overwhelm me.” It is an Ìjẹ̀bú name, but the etymology makes it likely to be borne in Ìjẹṣà and Èkìtì precincts as well.

What fascinated me about the discovery, however, was how knowing one name suddenly opened up another. For a while, a name “Olúkòmaiyà” had stayed queued up in our dashboard awaiting indexing. But because no one could figure out what it meant, it had remained there in waiting. By solving “Ọ̀ṣọ́kòmaiyà”, Olúkòmaiyà was easier to figure out: “Prominence/leadership does not overwhelm me.”

So I’ve been thinking of the process of decoding the meaning of names as similar to the process of solving a puzzle. What makes a puzzle interesting is that one clue usually leads to another and to another, until everything that once seems difficult opens up with ease. The example of Ọ̀ṣọ́kòmaiyà was only the recent one. A while ago, I had a similar experience with a name “Ariyehun” which, where I first encountered it in writing, seemed Yorùbá, but whose outward appearance lent nothing about its meaning until clues came from very unlikely sources.

Where I grew up in Ìbàdàn, one of our neighbours had a daughter named Ọlátóún. Until I became an adult, I had no idea what the name meant. So one day, while working, I found an entry in an old dictionary that defined it as “Wealth/nobility is worth rejoicing over”: Ọlá-tó-hún. Until then, I had no idea that “hún” was a Yorùbá word, and that it meant “rejoicing” or “celebrating” as it did in this case. The name Tóún is a typical Ìjẹ̀bú name, which explains the relative obscurity of the meaning, if not the name itself.

Figuring out what “hún” meant made the meaning of “Ọláníhún” even clearer. Even though it is a name that is borne almost all around Yorùbá land, most people (sometimes even those bearing it) have found it hard to break it down to its component parts. Or maybe I speak only for myself. In any case, it was now easier to understand either “Ọlá-ní-n-hún” (Wealth/nobility asked me to rejoice/celebrate) or “Ọlá-ní-ohun-hún” (Wealth/nobility has found something to celebrate). Either way, the puzzle was solved. Same for Adéníhún, etc.

So, one day, I returned to “Aríyehún” and the problem was solved without much effort. It is “a-rí-iye-hún: one who sees mother(s) and rejoices” and it made all the sense in the world. Also an Ìjẹ̀bú name, this turned out to be the direct equivalent of the name bearing the same meaning in standard Yorùbá: “Aríyàáyọ̀”. Many more names with “hún” in them fell open without any push, like “Aróyèhún”, a name I would have pronounced differently had I not encountered the relevant background information.

Maybe this is why I enjoy working here, on names. Rather than reach for a 3×3 Rubik’s Cube and solve a puzzle I’ve solved many times over, it is sometimes more delightful to sit back and try to understand the working of Yorùbá names, many of which I’ve taken for granted for a number of years. I’m sure it feels the same way, perhaps even with more pleasant rewards, in other languages.

What is your experience?

in General / Language / Lexicography 1 comments

February 4, 2017 by admin

Mother Language Day to Be Celebrated with Yorùbá Memes

Every year since 2014, 21^st February has marked #TweetYorùbá day, an online campaign running concurrently with UNESCO’s International Mother Language Day, in which we flood our social media streams with posts in Yorùbá and bring attention to issues of language diversity online and offline.

This year, we start the fun early with a very exciting concept: an international meme campaign in languages such as Bambara, Swahili, Galo, Bininj Kunwok, Euskara, Pular and more, all under one hashtag: #MemeML.

Spanish meme “when you only speak one language…”

A fun way to celebrate linguistic diversity

Co-organized by Rising Voices and the Living Tongues Institute, First Peoples’ Cultural Council, Indigenous Tweets, Endangered Languages Project, First Languages Australia, and the Digital Language Diversity Project, the project is a fantastic opportunity to connect with other groups around the world who are working towards advancing their own languages, whether it be in the form of revitalisation efforts or a struggle for greater recognition in the public sphere. The official website’s introductory message has already been translated into 23 languages including Pular, Bambara and Afrikaans, and speakers of other languages are warmly invited to join in.

In previous editions of International Mother Language Day, online activities focused primarily on using Twitter as a way to promote endangered, minority, indigenous, and heritage languages. But this year is a bit different, as Eddie Avila, director of Rising Voices, explains:

We are hoping to make it a month-long activity culminating on February 21. We chose to try something different this year, and thought memes might be a fun and more creative way to encourage and celebrate linguistic diversity on the internet.

With just 17 days to go, #MemeML needs all hands on deck to make this month-long event a true representation of language diversity and language activism online. Participants are already flooding in from all corners of the globe and together, we can make a point of adding our voices to showcase important aspects of Yorùbá culture as well as the need to preserve the language.

Add your creative voice!

At YorubaName, we were instantly taken with the idea and we’d love for Yorùbá memes to be a part of the global #MemeML. Here is how you can help:

1. Draw attention to Meme ML by sharing social media posts and inviting others to participate.

2. Create a meme and share it on all your social media platforms with the hashtags: #MemeML and #Yorùbá or #Yoruba. Feel free to tag all your friends as well, since fun is known to be contagious! You can also share your creations on this Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/mememl

3. Translate this page into Yorùbá and send your translation to project@yorubaname.com

in Featured / Language 0 comments

December 16, 2016 by Kola Tubosun

“Èṣù” isn’t “the Devil”; But You Knew That Already

Since readers of this blog have been fascinated with the last two posts on the etymology of common Yorùbá root morphemes, we might as well tackle the big and most controversial one: Èṣù.

Born into old Yorùbá mythology, lionized in the various Odù Ifá as a trickster god of some sort, servant to many of the other dominant gods, Èṣù enjoyed his run as a clown and Falstaff known for his mischief as well as an amorphous personality determined by situation, master, or purpose. He was not a harmless fellow, to be clear, but his character was usually determined by a lot more things than “good/evil” or “death/life” or “heaven/hell”. Then came Christianity.

I haven’t read enough about Nigeria’s pre-colonial missionary days to know the process by which certain expressions were agreed upon as representing specific ideas in the new Christian religion. (Please feel free to suggest in the comment below which books I should read for this purpose). But we know that when Bishop Àjàyí Crowther and his team decided on rendering the famous Biblical character known as Satan or Devil into Yorùbá, they settled on Èṣù, the Yorùbá trickster god. With the benefit of hindsight, the choice made some sense. To the new converts hoping to leave behind a culture in which one god wielded a lot of power to make or mar relationships depending on who was paying the bills or – as I’ll illustrate below – on the innate character of the people un/fortunate enough to interact with him, this was the perfect fall guy (or “fall god”, if we’re being technical). The Yorùbá had no conceptualization of heaven or hell as Christians did, so had no “devil” or “hell”. But since the bible needed translation and the missionary journey needed its fervent converts, Èṣù took the fall and acquired a new role.

I was once asked on Facebook, by the author Yẹ́misí Aríbisálà, the following question: ‘Why do the Yoruba say “Èṣù má ṣe mí, ọmọ ẹlòmíi ni o ṣe” when he is such a harmless just-slightly mischievous fellow, so useful at helping us understand the contradictions of our lives?’ Here was my response, in full:

There is a famous story of Èṣù in his most mischievous element, one day walking on the street and (perhaps bored) deciding to confound two friends who had displayed what he considered an irritating level of public affection for each other. What he did was to wear an outfit that had two different colours on each side, one part red and the other black. But the colours were split such that each was on two sides of his body – the red on the right and the black on the left. For some reason, the friends didn’t see him until he walked right between them, so each only saw one colour. But as soon as he had gone and disappeared, they began to argue between each other about what colour the stranger wore. One said “red” while the other said “black”, and the argument degenerated. Needless to say, that was the end of the “friendship”. What’s the lesson here? I don’t know. Perhaps, that you never really know how friendly you are with one person until you’ve had a disagreement, or that if you let a difference in perspectives change who you are, then you were never close in the first place. What I took away, referring to your question, is that the Yorùbá often wish never to be subjected to such test, not because it is always harmful, but because it can sometimes have unintended consequences. But as far as Èṣù is concerned, he’s just providing just one more way to test what we’ve agreed upon as conventional truth.

Anyway, since the Holy Bible became our primary source of interpreting this new foreign idea, the language adapted to it, with everything evil becoming associated with “Èṣù”. If you didn’t go to church, or did things that the church frowned upon, you were “ọmọ Èṣù”. It was probably also helpful that it contrasted easily with “ọmọ Jésù” which is the good child, son of Jesus”. Jésù, the saviour, was on one side, and Èṣù, the devil, the accursed one, was on the other. Eventually, all those previously named with Èṣù began to change their names. If the psychological bullying of the Pentecostal movement didn’t get you, your mates in school, who came from Christian homes and knew of Èṣù only in that one context of the church, would ensure that you make required changes.

Names like Èṣùbíyìí (Èṣù gave birth to this) or Ẹṣùgbadé (Èṣù received royalty) slowly disappeared from use, to be found only in literature and television. Even in the case of the latter, children were warned off too much familiarity with such forms of entertainment with the worry that one might get tainted by that contagious evil. Others just changed them to Olúbíyìí or Olúgbadé. See previous post on Olú.

But there was a slight break. Crowther and his other translators, for some reason, decide to translate “Deliver us from evil” as “Gbà wá lọ́wọ́ bìlísì”. Bìlísì was a Yorùbá corruption of Iblis, which is the Arabic word for evil and had also entered the Yorùbá vocabulary due to Hausa/Arabic influence from the north. That was fine. But why wasn’t it used in all all the other cases where “Devil” or “Satan” needed translation help? “Satan” sometimes was translated as “Sàtánì”, which was good, but in popular usage Èṣù became more famous than them all.

In October 2015, before I started working at Google, I was tagged by Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina on Facebook about someone who wanted to know why Google Translate had “Devil” and “Satan” translated as “Èṣù” when they were not the same thing. I answered that it was probably the fault of earlier translators of the bible where Google engineers likely got their data. I began working at Google later that year but totally forgot about the tag.

Then sometime in January 2016, something else brought the issue to my attention. I was now an employee of the company and now ostensibly in a position to make a change. The idea that generations of Yorùbá children/readers and non-speakers would grow up getting a wrong impression if all they had was Google Translate to learn from felt very disturbing. Technology was replacing books anyway, and we needed it to better represent the culture.

At the time, however, I had no idea that I could do anything about it. My role in at Google was on a totally different project. Google Translate is manned, contrary to what people outside think, not by linguists but by engineers. And I didn’t know that I could convince these guys who worked many miles and time zones away to pay attention to something seemingly mild, and with agreed-upon roots in the foundation of Yorùbá literacy. But it turned out that I could, and I did.

For ideas, I crowdsourced an open conversation on my Facebook page about prospects of each new translation suggestion. And a week later, the translate engine had begun to reflect a more acceptable approximation of evil/devil/Satan in Yorùbá to users of that Google service. I made a tongue-in-cheek post to that effect on January 16th: “Early this morning in Mountain View California,” it read, “the trickster Èsù was relieved of its perceived demonic duties.”

Èṣù now translates as Èṣù, devil as Bìlísì, and Satan as Sàtánì, and Demon as ànjọ̀nú (also with an arabic Etymology). Only fair. The tone marking on the translations were the cherry on top. I wish all the Yorùbá words in the machine had tone marks, but that would mean replacing the engineers behind Google Translate with actual linguists. A long shot.

Now this probably would not change the public perception of what had taken generations to ingrain, but one hopes that it might begin a new way of restoring the true role of what was just another character in the Yorùbá religious pantheon in the public consciousness. At least one way of being true to the word’s cultural and linguistic history.

____

Postscript

A year or so after I left Google, people started pointing out to me that the translations had reverted to Devil, Demon, and Satan for Èṣù. Being out of the system, I couldn’t do anything about it. I returned to Google in February of 2019 as NLP Linguist for African Languages, and the original changes are back, hopefully for good this time.

in General / Language / Lexicography 8 comments

December 15, 2016 by Kola Tubosun

“Olú” isn’t (Always) “God/Lord” Either

After the last blog post examining the common misunderstanding of the Yorùbá root word “Ọlá”, I realised that there are more of these root morphemes whose meanings are not often clear among native speakers, and subsequently among non-native speakers.

One of these is “Olú” commonly translated as “Lord” or “God”, but which is not always deserving of such a simple reading.

Like “Ọlá”, there are instances where “Olú” could be a short form of “olúwa” which, in many cases, refer to lord/master. e.g. “Olúwa mi. Olówó orí mi…” said by a woman to her man is believed to be a term of endearment: my lord and owner/master. (Sorry, feminists).

But in translating the Bible into Yorùbá in the early/late nineteenth century, the word olúwa was used generously to refer to “the Lord” Jesus Christ, and it took a different meaning. “Olúwa” (especially written with capital letters) became identified only with the son of God, and “Olúwa Ọlọ́run” (Genesis 2:7) as God him/herself.

Written in small letters, it continued to be used as “lord”, a term of endearment, but also a generic word for “individual”. e.g. Ta ni olúwa rẹ̀ to ń pariwo níbẹ̀ yẹn? (Who is the individual making noises there?). In most cases where it is used in the latter case, it is often in anger: Ta l’olúwa rẹ̀!?

In all the cases listed above, Olúwa/olúwa is written and used in full, with no abbreviations.

But before the generous use of olúwa in the bible, children have been named with “Olú” as a root morpheme for many generations. And in these instances, it meant something far away from the Christian “lord” and “saviour”. It simply meant “prominence” or “prominent one” or “head”; anything signifying of stardom or elevation of status in society. An “olú ọmọ” was the star child, the prominent child with promise. The “olú igbó” was the head of the forest, and the “olú ọdẹ” was the head hunter. Same for Olúawo (or Olúwo), Olúòkun, etc. Even the traditional head of Ìbàdàn is called Olúbàdàn (“the prominent head of Ìbàdàn”). Even our distant cousins in Warri have their king called Olú as a primary title.

So children named Olúmìdé, Olúwọlé or Olúbáyọ̀dé were initially named for their intended/projected prominence: “My star child has come”, “The prominent one has entered the home”, and “Prominence came with joy”, respectively. Those meanings still hold till today.

But the ambiguity introduced by the expansion of the meaning of “Olú” to also mean “Olúwa” when Yorùbá citizens began to embrace Christianity with uncommon fervour began to muddy the waters as time went on. A name like “Olúṣẹ́gun” which would otherwise mean “the star child has conquered” could now also mean “the Lord conquered” as thanks to God for the successful birth of the child, or a future projection into his future successes in battle. The latter meaning was enthusiastically embraced by Nigeria’s past president Olúṣẹ́gun Ọbásanjọ́ whose life story of battles, defeats, and resurgence seems to have perfectly matched his given name.

Names like Olúdárà or Ọláolú began to be expanded to be written also as Olúwadárà or Ọláolúwa even if it wasn’t the originally intended meaning while names like Olúwaṣeun began to mean only one thing (“The Lord be praised”). In actual fact, one can guess that names beginning with “Olúwa” began to surface and increase in usage only after the successful Christian missionary incursion in to Yorùbáland. Before then, it would be rare to envision a name like Olúwalógbọ́n (“only the Lord/God is wise”) or Bólúwatifẹ́ (“As the Lord/God wants”) being given in a community with mostly animistic and polytheistic outlook.

In any case, not all names can be expanded into “Olúwa”, and those have mostly retained their original meaning. A name like “Máláólú”, for instance, means “give the white cloth (of the Ọbàtálá religion) to the prominent one” perhaps in worship or as sacrifice. There is no way in which “give the white Ọbàtálá cloth to the Lord Jesus” would make any contemporary sense. It is the same with Olúdọ̀tun (“prominence/stardom is renewed”) or Kúmólú (“Death took our prominent head”) which can not be changed to “Olúwadọ̀tun” or “Kúmólúwa” without raising eyebrows. Thankfully.

Something else also began to happen, however, especially with more Pentecostal growth. Names originally with traditional root morphemes like Ògún, Ṣàngó, Èṣù, Omi, Oṣó etc began to be replaced with Olú instead, a seeming harmless and possible Christian replacement for their “heathen” heritage. Thus Ṣóyínká (“I’m surrounded by sorcerers”) became Olúyínká (“I’m surrounded by prominence/Lord Jesus”), Èṣùbíyìí (“Èṣù gave birth to this”) became either Jésùbíyìí or Olúbíyìí. Ògúnsànyà became Olú́sànyà. Popular musician Dúpẹ́ Ṣólànà became Dúpẹ́ Olúlànà.

One of the challenges of our work in defining names in the Yorùbá Dictionary of Names is in knowing when the name refers to a Christian root or the original, more traditional one. The process of discovery is half of the fun.

What does your name mean?

in General / Lexicography 4 comments

December 12, 2016 by Kola Tubosun

“Ọlá” Isn’t (Always) “Wealth”

One common stereotype about Yorùbá names is that they, on the surface, always seem obsessed with wealth. It is incompatible with the truth, of course, but examples are usually provided easily to show how almost any verb combined with the word for “wealth” will almost generate a Yorùbá name.

My name is “Kọ́lá” (full name Kọ́láwọlé), a very good example of this instance.

There are others: Bọ́lá, Ṣọlá, Tọ́lá, Nọ́lá, Fọlá, Dọlá, Gbọlá, etc. In actual fact, I realised a while ago that a simple computer program can generate unlimited numbers of valid Yorùbá names if we would just combine almost any consonant in the language with a few key root morphemes (like ọlá, adé, oyè, etc).

The problem, however, is that the “ọlá” in Yorùbá names do not all mean the same thing. They are not, to use a cliché, created equal. In the case of “Kọ́láwọlé”, I can provide a curt interpretation as “(He who) bring(s) wealth into the house” but that doesn’t say all that the name embodies. In any case, the “ọlá” in the name is more than nominal wealth. It is prominence, it is dignity, it is nobility, it is success, it is honour, it is acclaim.

A man referred to as “Ọlọ́lá” is not just rich, he is a notable public figure with admirable nobility. If money were to be the distinguishing factor, he would be called “Olówó” instead. There is another appellation given to properly highlight material wealth. That is Ọlọ́là. This ọlà (note the difference in the tonal marking) highlights material success above individual character or nobility.

Therefore a name like Adégbọlá would be better interpreted either as “We have arrived to receive wealth” or “The crown/royalty has received nobility/prominence/honour/success.” The context, or the family story, will decide which one is appropriate in each instance. A name like Ọláńrewájú, however, brings a different problem. Same with Ọláwálé. Here, the root “ọlá” is being given a subject role in which it is forced to be more than wealth or nobility. It becomes a person! A Dictionary of Yorùbá Personal Names by Adébóyè Babalọlá and Olúgbóyèga Àlàbá defines both, respectively, as “The head of this noble family is progressing” and “The new member of our noble family has come home.” In both cases, Ọlá is a living being, represented by this newly-born child.

Please leave other relevant examples that you’re familiar with in the comment below.

In other instances, Ọlá means “blessing” or “grace”. And isn’t that interesting? The sentence “Ọlá Ọlọ́run ni mo jẹ” means “I’ve benefited from the grace of God.” In this case, it is not “wealth” or “nobility” at all. What the name is saying is that if not for the presence/grace/help of God, the child wouldn’t have been born. Now, this doesn’t mean that it couldn’t also mean “the wealth of God”, but that would be a simplistic reading indeed. This interpretation would explain names like Ọláìyá (“the benefit/grace of mother”), Ọláòkun (“the benefit of the ocean – or foreign travel”) or Ọláolúwa (born by “the grace/benefit of God”). See also: Ọláifá, Ọláọ̀pá, Ọláoyè.

Photo from PixarBay

In late 2015, an expectant inter-ethnic couple (the wife is Yorùbá while the husband is Igbo) wrote to us asking for help in picking out a name for their firstborn child (you can read the whole blog post here). They were open to anything, especially names that could be easily pronounced by both parents. But they had a caveat: the name shouldn’t have “ọlá” in it. Why? Because it connoted “wealth” and they wanted names that focused instead on celebrating the child than something that would seem so superficial and focused on material gains. They eventually settled for “Tiwanìfẹ́” (Ours is love/loving) which is a beautiful name. But had they settled for “Tiwalọlá” (ours is grace/nobility/wealth), it would also have been equally as delightful. In any case, the “wealth” or “nobility” in Tiwalọlá refers to the child and nothing else: “this wealth, this child, is ours”.

Perhaps it is what is lost in translation. When we say “wealth” in Yorùbá, we are not always referring to money or material wealth (that would be ọlà). That “wealth” referred in “ọlá” is something more: human potential, largeness of heart, generosity of spirit (and of materials, yes), nobility, dignity, honour, and grace, depending on context. In names like “Ìwàlọlá” or “Ọmolọlá”, the definition of “ọlá” is actually given, as “character” and “child” respectively. And in “Babalọlá”, “Father/hood is honour/wealth/nobility.”

That is why what a child like “Kọ́lá” brings into the house in “Kọ́láwọlé” is more than just a temporary (or even measurable) treasure.

in Language / Lexicography 4 comments

August 31, 2016 by Kola Tubosun

On Lukumi Inclusion on YorùbáName.com

Lukumi/Lucumi is a version of Yorùbá that survived the Middle Passage and has continued to thrive in Latin America particularly in Cuba. It shares several attributes with standard Yorùbá in phonology and lexicography with mild differences in spelling and tone. You can read more about the differences and similarities here.

At YorùbáName.com, we are committed to an inclusive work that takes into account all variants of Yorùbá in Nigeria (Ijẹ̀ṣa, Ìjẹ̀bú, Ìlàjẹ, Ondo, etc), as well as other variants from Francophone West Africa (Benin, Togo) to Anglophone West Africa (Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana) to Latin America (Brazil Cuba, Jamaica, etc) and even to Arabic. We’re always looking for lexicographers/scholars who are able to help facilitate this inclusion. Names from Benin Republic are already being added thanks to the work of Laila Le Guen and Dr. Moufoutaou Adjeran. (More about that here and here).

Photo from OrishaImage.com

As from this week, users of our dictionary will notice new names common to Lukumi speakers in Cuba. Thanks to the work of Nathan Lugo who is a scholar of the language (and a practitioner of Yorùbá religion) in collaboration with our lexicography team, we are adding all Yorùbá-Lukumi names in pursuit of our desire for a comprehensive work useful for all Yorùbá speakers, descendants, and enthusiasts everywhere.

The spellings will be unfamiliar to local Yorùbá speakers (Obbá, Oddualá, Echudiná, Oyeboddé, etc) but to those who bear them in the diaspora, they’re properly spelled and marked in the tradition of their Yorùbá ancestors. At YorùbáName.com, you will be able to identify them by spelling and peculiar tone (accent) marking, and also by our geolocation tag foreign-general.

What our lexicographers are doing along with Cuban scholar Nathan Lugo is to ensure that variants of the name in West African Yorùbá are also listed, for the benefit of both diaspora users as well as continental ones. This complementary exchange will, hopefully, improve the quality of interaction between the two communities separated by hundreds of years of history, and a large body of water.

in General / Lexicography 4 comments

July 20, 2016 by Kola Tubosun

The Making of an Entry: from Submission to Publication

As at this writing, there are 3,629 published name entries in the dictionary.

At the rate of about twenty new entries per day, we could reach a year’s goal of 10,000 entries in no time. In this post, I would like to show you how a submission from the homepage becomes an indexed entry in the dictionary. There will be lots of pictures to illustrate the process.

The homepage is at YorubaName.com where hundreds of users have submitted their names into the dictionary since we launched the public page in February 2016.

So, what happens when an entry is submitted?

On the lexicography dashboard, I see a list of names suggested by the public, or by other in-house lexicographers. As you can see in the image below, the email of the submitter is listed.

I have blurred an email address to protect the person’s privacy. In the future, we will have a login name instead of an email address.

To begin editing, I click on whatever name I would like to work on. In this case, I give preference to the publicly submitted name over the in-house ones. The name is “oderinde“.

In the edit mode, the name is expanded and I can see all that the submitter put in his/her submission. In most cases, as in this example, the submitter hasn’t been able to find the exact spelling of the name so some editing will be needed.

I begin first with capitalisation. I change the first letter from “o” to “Ọ”

The submitter seems to have an idea of the meaning so I move further down to the syllable breakdown. This functionality is meant to be used to train our text-to-speech system to know how to render Yorùbá names. The functionality isn’t yet live, but the field is compulsory, so I complete it, rendering the name syllable by syllable.

By now, I’ve completed the three required fields. So, to prevent my work from being lost, I scroll down and save the entry.

I get a notification on the top right corner.

Sometimes I return to the “meaning” box to modify what the submitter wrote.

Then I move to the “morphology” field to break down the name according to its smallest meaningful units (the linguistic term is morpheme). This is usually the most exciting part for me, because that is where the names usually unravel.

The morphology and the gloss fields are usually written in small letters, but their meanings can include capital letters in the case of proper nouns.

Sometimes there is more than one meaning of a morpheme, so I supply them, and then save.

I save at this stage by just hitting “enter”.

The geolocation field is one of our most cherished features, designed to be able to map certain names across the country. The user has chosen “Abẹ́òkuta” as the location of this name. But because I know that it is a name that is borne in other different parts of Yorùbáland, I add another location indicator: “General”.

At this point, I get an epiphany as to a better way to express the meaning of this name that is not too literal as to render it risible.

So I edit it again. This time I’m satisfied.

Finally, to see if there are notable people with this name, I turn to Google, which never fails.

I get many hits, but I am biased to the topmost one.

I sometimes also go to the “news” tab, since notability might also reflect in the newsmaking ability of the bearer.

In the end, I settle for the topmost hit on Google. For now, at least, until another user goes to the entry and upbraids us for overlooking another famous name.

I add the link as well.

Then save.

Finally, I publish the entry.

Ọdẹ́rìndé is now in our dictionary!

The end.

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Addendum

Shortly after this post was drafted for review, Laila drew my attention to an interesting phonological feature in this particular name which I’d not paid attention to in my earlier work: there is an extra /ẹ/ in “Ọdẹ́rìndé” which I hadn’t accounted for before. As it often happens with incomplete entries, I simply returned to the name and edited as necessary.

I also left a short note in the relevant box about the phonological behaviour of certain tones like this in contiguous environment. In a layman’s language, a grammatical morpheme in this word took on the feature of a neighbouring vowel resulting in an extra tone mark where there otherwise isn’t any.

Fascinating linguist’s stuff.

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If you’d like to join our lexicography department to help speed up the meeting of our 10,000 names goal, send an email to project@yorubaname.com with “Lexicographer Volunteer” in the subject field.

in Language / Lexicography 0 comments