For a while, I’ve noticed the absence of tone marks on the Yoruba “n” and “m”. But, thinking about it now, I realize that noticing that absence itself is conditioned by an awareness of an earlier presence of the feature in some old published literature.

I grew up reading literature in both Yoruba and English, and I am still capable of conjuring the moods and affectations that occasioned my reading of works by Adebayo Faleti, Bamiji Ojo, J.F. Odunjo, Akinwunmi Ishola, etc. It is perhaps the same reason why in thinking back to the features of some of those writings, I remember having come across the syllabic nasals written with the tone mark. Like in a word like “Bọ́lánlé”, for example, or “Ọláńrewájú”. More than the tone-marked syllabic nasal, in fact, my memory of those times includes a whole lot of dynamic and exciting diacritics on written Yoruba vowels.

For some reason, however, most of these symbols are gone,  no longer to be found in written literature  – at least those published after the nineties. I remember once seeing the caron, a v-shaped (so called “assimilated low-tone”) sign that was used to replace a vowel cluster (as seen in “Káṣimáawòó”). Instead of the two “òó” as in this case, there’d just be one “o”, carrying the caron, signifying the two contrasting tone marks it carries. There is also a reverse of this sign, the inverted “v”  circumflex which is used to signify the combination of a high tone and a low one. There was a tilde /  ̃/signifying nasality, and a macron / ̄ /showing mid-tone. These are all gone, not just in writing, but in some cases in computer keyboards as well. But none is more curious for me today than the disappearance of the tone mark on the syllabic nasal.

The syllabic nasal, so called because of its ability to (without having more than just a single letter) embody the properties of a distinct syllable, has always carried a tone mark for obvious reason. It is the unit of sound, and must necessarily account for the tone it carries. In other instance of the nasal where it is not syllabic (e.g. the “n” in “Olatubosun”, “Adeosun”, etc), the “n” is simply left alone as a ghostly presence, physically symbolizing the end of the word, and phonetically representing the nasality that exists, actually, on the preceding vowel (in this case, “u”). When it’s syllabic, however, it, in itself, is the syllable, occupying a pride of place in the word (e.g. the “n” in “Bolanle”, and the “m” in “Odunmbaku”). Broken down into syllabic components, the names would be “Bo-la-n-le” and “O-dun-m-ba-ku” respectively, leaving the syllabic nasals alone as the masters of their syllabic domains).

“Aare-Ago Arikuyeri” by Lawuyi Ogunniran (1977)

So, what happened? We used to see the words written as “Bọ́láńlé” and “Ọdúnm̀bákú” respectively, with the tone marks placed on the “n” and “m” to show their place in the realm. But today, most written Yoruba literature (and there are not many of them) write them as “Bọ́lánlé” and “Ọdúnmbákú,” with nothing showing the syllabic nasals as anything different from their mere filler equivalent. My suspicion is that the Yoruba tone-marking rule (“Only vowels should be tone-marked”) which used to accept exceptions for syllabic nasals, eventually became universal, wiping out whatever is left of the initiative to continue tone-marking syllabic nasals. Standardization efforts over the years have only too permanently registered their influences on the language, leaving us with what we have now.

Now, I should probably clarify that much of the published literature from which I’ve drawn this conclusion are written in English (by Yoruba writers, no less). However, the fact that tone marks are placed on every other syllable in the word, but not on the syllabic “n” and “m”, in all those cases, is curious enough. Being aware of this phenomenon is also enough incentive, now, to pay more attention to what conventions have been accepted, over time, by the Yoruba publishing community (or what’s left of them) as the orthography of syllabic nasals. This piece helps with some explanation, but not enough. Creating a dictionary compels these kinds of interesting observations as, I realize, what users see more often over time will usually become their perception of what is appropriate for future everyday use.

“Ireke Onibudo” by D.O. Fagunwa (Nelson: 1949-2008)

In the pictured text above, from a play Aare-Ago Arikuyeri by Lawuyi Ogunniran (published in 1977), the conventions have been retained, so only current literature can offer a better explanation. For all we know, I may have just been reading the wrong texts. On the other hand, looking through each of the five classic novels by D.O. Fagunwa published by Nelson (pictured left) showed another extreme instance: none of the vowels were marked at all, except the special ẹ and ọ, and sometimes an occasional  ̃ playing the part of a caron or circumflex. How people, particularly students, managed to get through the text (that have remained popular with the Yoruba over the years) without breaking a sweat will, for a while, remain a mystery.