blacko:
I understand ur claim the ruba word is mainly from the Hausa or Sudanese language it also may be from the old Malian language

MetaPhysical:




Kabiyesi,

Interesting!

Let us follow the footprints of the claims in your response and see where it would lead.

On the origin of Yoruba

1. Ahmed Baba (Malian) wrote an account on the Yorubas.
2. Sultan Bello said in his book "we are told".....so and so about Yorubas.
3. Samuel Johnson wrote in his book the statement made by Bello.

Before recklessly attributing Yo ba (a prefix for vulgarity) as the etymology of Yoruba, have pondered on the possibility that Ahmed Baba could have been a link in the upstream chain of transmitters of this knowledge? Did you bother to check if a record about Yoruba existed even before Ahmed Baba and how that record was preserved or transmitted?


Katunga or Katanga, I'm finding out, is Hausa word for wall. Oyo Ile was called Katunga because it was a walled city. Yorubas are not a people of wall even though they live in a walled city, so why would Hausa call us Katungawa or Katunga-bawa like you theorized? Ife was the origin and mother city of Yorubas and pre-existed Oyo-Ile. If Hausa called us Katungawa (people of the wall) in Oyo-Ile, then what did they call us in Ile-Ife, a non-walled city?

2prexios:




At what point did this slur become the magnificent phrase and next, so glorious for a conventional name or eponymous name with the Yoruba? So if we can think this superficial as to the origin of the origin of the name Yoruba, it is this same superficial minds that condemn the wise thought of others as crap.

Why was the slur the most magnificent of names for the people and,
How could Yoruba with repertoire of preciosity lose it at naming itself?

2prexios:
When did we start to mix with these people that named us Yoruba? From which of the neighbours? Cos all can't start the name at once, just like that. Why was the slur their favorite? How often does the slur occur in everyday Yoruba sentences in time of old and, if Yoruba has been saying that, then their language is clear at that stage: what did they call themselves at that material time? Moreso, they should be able to trace yoba to misnomer of their own slang favoured by a particular group just as you do. Ibn Baba identified the Yoruba as ethnic name 500 years ago. The Hausa favoured Yarbawa, then if the name was imported from neighbours, it simply follows that Yoruba import their slur and 'Yorubarised' it. I dont believe Yoruba to be like that, its not in their character, cos they say 'oruko rere nii yeni, apeja nii yeniyan': that is, good name is deserving, a full prounciation of it is befitting. The Romans were named after Romulus that founded Rome. Shall we subscribe to the easy way out?

rabzy:


The answer to how the yoruba's came to be known as yorubas might have been totally lost to antiquity. There would be theories and conjectures and this would be analyzed. No one can say with utmost certainty that he or she is correct so all these are just for research and knowledge reasons. No one can have the answers to all the above questions just ideas and thoughts. A group of people can let their name be known to their neighbors and others can be named by their neighbors, some are even called different names by their neighbors. I know the Yorubas are called Zanama by the Esans, what it means i dont even know.

TonySpike:
I remember Fani-Kayode said Yoruba means oYO eRU oBA. That is, Oyo is slave to the king. How about that?

rabzy:


The guy has mentioned Ahmed Baba which dates before sultan bello, asking him to research further is asking him to what anyone else can also do, maybe he has done so and he hasnt seen any earlier reference. If there is, you can also do the search and enlighten everyone.

The Hausa first contact or major contact with the Yorubas is likely thru Oyo, you cant assume they know Ife, and if they have given the name Katungawa to the people they met in oyo, then they will use it for anyone who bears resemblance, traits and similar speech with the oyos. They wont bother whether you came from a valley, a walled or a riverine area, since you behave, believe and talk like the katungawas then you are a katungawa.

MetaPhysical:



Rabzy,
Just few years ago I discovered the use of root words to decrypt sense and meanings in ancient tongues like Yoruba, and ever since I have uncovered a lot of treasures hidden in Yoruba tongue, language and culture.

On this topic I want us to focus on the root word YRB.

Use your imagination to twirl and toss YRB in variety of combinations to create a set of words, terms and ideas limited to the 7 Yoruba vowels a,e,e,i,o,o,u. Sorry I could not put diacritics where they belong, I do not have Yoruba keyboard installed on this phone.

Share with us what you come up with.
Thanks.


I want to add that in case the root YRB is not cooperating with you, use IRB instead.

Y and I in Yoruba are interchangeable if used broadly, ignoring the standard Yoruba dictum.

2prexios:


baba,

Aku aseku odun o.

I want to suggest that if you can add syllabic approach to your linguistic worktool, you may be surprise at the vault of secrets that you will uncover, based on your quintessential linguistic genius. Why I say this is because we are at the same corridor, you me and peterkbaba, and the secret is not too far to find. Peterkbaba finds it easy to deviate, so he is not playing by any rule, he is not targeting the bull eye.

Meta, you are doing just that, but please incorporate "syllabic-syntax" in the process as you used to do in the past. For instance Yoruba is apparent in that approach: Yo-ru-ba, no more, no less. If you reduce it to consonants, it is not going to give us any sound, and don't forget that even alphabets are syllables in pronunciation, they are not pronounced as one word, most times.

It is this syllables that will form the meaning of the word, and afterwards, we need to verify if what we have really exist in another pristine form, so we look for another word with similar meaning and compare the contrast. One stands as archetype and the other, feedback. I'm dedicating this piece to you my metaphysical, the undying spirit. I respect you a lot my pal. So I give it up to you now.

Yoruba, as far as I'm concern mean Yo (bright) Ru (night) Ba (Ruler).
Put more aptly, Yoruba means the light that rule the night.

Well, my definition.
Christmas gift, friends.

Yoruba, as far as I'm concern mean Yo (bright) Ru (night) Ba (Ruler).
Put more aptly, Yoruba means the light that rule the night.

PeterKbaba:



From your analysis, what about:

Yo = Bright= Sun
Ru = Oru= Night
Ba = ba = Ruler

Sun that rule's the night.
Remember the Arab sign is the Moon and the European sign is the Star, while the black man sign is the Sun.

Therefore, the Yoruba's are either the Sun that once ruled the night (Arabs - Moon & Europeans - Stars) in the past. Meaning our forefathers gave us the name which tells a reminder story of our past before we arrived Nigeria or the Yoruba's (Sun) are destined to Rule the night (Arabs - Moon & Europeans - Stars) in the nearest FUTURE!!!

MetaPhysical:
Sorry guys, i had neighborhood friends drop in on their own chosen schedule. Lol.



Prexios so what is "RU" in Yoruba?






There is no doubt Yoruba was a supremacist nd colonist in past.

I think the RU is altar!

2prexios:
Bros me, you are right o, but my tot is, it is an oriki of the same sort as 'Olokiki Oru'. It is the same idea that some brilliant ancient wordsmith made to 'midnite britening monarch'. Ancient Yoruba had scholars, maybe they were responsible for all Yoruba keywords. As to RU, riru ebo, I think it is the process of 'carrying' the ebo that is 'ru'. But when you say 'A bo RU bo Ye o! RU is identical with Ye. RU-BO is BO-RU, BO-YE. To bo Ye is to make sacrifice to Ye. Then study the response of the priest: A bo Ye bo Sise o.

MetaPhysical:


Exactly!
So then, what is ebo? Why do we give an offering at all?
You are creeping up on something..

2prexios:
Thanks baba. You know you subscribe to Noa, I subscribe to Abraham. The name Ebora is Yoruba version of Abram. It is only in Hebrew culture that you have ebo (sacrifice) central to a peoples existence, as you have it in Yoruba. Ebo is offer, Irubo or Ibo is offering, something (food) you give in anticipation of favour. When Abraham offered ebo, birds came to feed on it, likewise Yoruba will say 'bi a ko ba rigun, a ko gbodo sebo'. Ebo is what you give to the ancestors to receive their favour. If the ebo vanish-Ebora, then it is said 'Ebo fin, Ebo gba, ire wa de Orun'. Ebo is the ancient Yorubas way of saying their prayer. Riru Ebo Ni Gbeni.

MetaPhysical:
Before signing out I consider it very important that i again ask for forgiveness if i offend anyone's faith or belief system. Im only pointing to the root of my own culture and finding truth and pride in its greatness.

Noah, Abraham, Moses, Aaron, Jesus, Mohammed, were all Arabas and they divined.

Yoruba stuck on us because we are the true progeny of the line of Noah, a people of divination.

Arabs will supplicate to God and say Ya Rabb or Ya Rabbi. Well, Rabb or Rabbi is not one of the names or attributes of Allah. So who is Rabb?

Irubo - divine grace!


Edumare a fun wa se o, mo ki gbogbo wa ku odun!

2prexios:


Beautiful piece metaphysical, but I'm wondering it seems we have a running battle, if I drop the Hebrew card, you drop the Arab card too.

The words of 9jacrip and macof seems to haunt me, to 9jacrip, why must our history be used to promote the Arab stories? To macof: the christian Yorubas are writing Yoruba history with christian turn of mind, the muslims, with muslim turn of mind.

My only inspiration is simply that, they have their own angle too, nobody is neutral. But then, I also stand with Yoruba tradition because its pro-migration, pro-creation and not pro-evolution. I believe the Yoruba tradition needs nobody to lean on to stand, Arab o, Hebrew o, "ife lo wa n'be ta nbore jeko, tile oge to gee je"

Lets look at Kabiyesi, it means ka bi e si, "to question him not available" is it what Kaaba mean? the closest word to Kaaba in Yoruba is Akaba, except Kaba in Kogi state. Was kaaba significant in Yoruba history? There have to be more cogent point for that o.

As touching Esu, you did a great job sir. The problem with yoruba history is lack of documentation. But the stunner is that you spell it out as Elegbara. Esu is someebody's name. It was the name given to the matriarch of Yoruba by people who want to vilify her as evil. Look at this one

Efunsetan: Evil Seitan

Elegbara on the other hand is one who saved the congregation, so one mans saviour is another mans hero. The Yoruba knew evil as a word from old, efun, they know the word Satan, sata, sota. Ota is Yoruba word for enemy, and its also a word for places in Yoruba.

Now to combine the two word, the Yoruba will say, ko besu b'egba. Egba is another word for Esu, Esu is not necessarily evil, but a variant form of Odu or Su as in dark. So we can not always see the Esu in Yoruba history as you have it in Scriptures.

Ifa priests are disciples of Esu, that is the dark skinned, she is the mother superior of their institution at the beginning of Yoruba empire.

MetaPhysical:


Lol. Im beginning to think we should discriminate by saying the ancient occupants of Canaan, the ancient occupiers of the land of Midian, the original owners of Mecca or Kaaba, the occupants of the Jerusalem temples...rather than saying Hebrews and Arabs.

The denotion American is a perfect example, Who is American, the European settlers, the African settlers, or the native Indians? You cannot find one trace of native American Indian land in Georgia or Florida, from wherw they were relocated in the famous trail of tears to be resettled in Oklahoma. Even in Oklahoma a deliberate act of white-out has caused their legacy to change hands and Caucasians are the new Indians in Oklahoma. The Indian was the original and native American. Those who today answer as Americans are indeed citizens, not natives, of America.

Left to me Im almost concluding that Yoruba was originally an Arab and the one out of which the Arab culture itself evolved. By analogy, Yoruba is the native Arab, those who answer Arab today are citizens, not natives of, Arabia.

My only contention is that the evolution occured in Afro Asia, in other words Yoruba started elsewhere and settled in Ile-Ife at a later age, as opposed to the reverse. Which would mean Yoruba name was not given to us in our new settlement but instead followed with us from origin to settlement. In that case only those intimate with our culture and race and had knowledge of who were in our ancient land knew to call us Yoruba and also taught to those who did not know the identity of our race.

This makes sense why Ahmad Baba and the Malian scholars and the Andalusian Sufis knew and wrote of us as Yorubas, the people of or the race of Lamarudu (Nimrod) and because the Lingua Franca of the Sudan was Ajami, this name identity was repeated in the narratives of Sultan Bello and interpreted to Clapperton and Landers, from where it found its way to the missionaries and in turn retold in the revised version of Samuel Johnson's book. Our neighbors on the other hand knew of and called us the people of walled city (katunga) or the greeters (Aku) because they were not fully informed of our origin and journey....nonetheless regardless of their knowledge of our history and background, everyone in the West African belt agreed that Yorubas were foreigners!

Depends on whether 9jacrip accepts the modern Arabs as the native Arabs or simply as citizens of Arabia. Lol.

A set of knowledge is maturing in Yorubaland and Yoruba diaspora. Yoruba diaspora had recognized long ago and merged Christian ideologies and creeds into their Ifa practice and removed the confusion that we in Yorubaland are struggling with.

Cubans and Brazilians and Perto Ricans know instinctively that Jesus is same character as Esu.

If it were possible to teach Yoruba muslims that Alhaji and Alejo are same thing and Umrah and Imura are cognates, more importantly that the laterite stone at the entrance to the Kaaba is symbolically the same as the one at the entrance of any Esu shrine in Yorubaland then we begin to recognize a new mindset in our muslims in their visit and return from pilgrimage. They will no longer see Hajj as an elite social status but instead recognise it as the stage of atonement to reunite and reconcile matter.with spirit. In other words, Alhajis and Alhajas will see the light and come to understanding that the Hajj pilgrimage ia nothing more than IRUBO and the Kaaba is the shrine containing in it an altar or OJUBO (the point faced for offering)....the qiblah which Islam requires everyone to face when worshipping.

You cannot enter the BaytAllah (sanctuary of Allah) without first passing through the entrance door, but the significance of that door is the black stone, the symbol of Esu. Literally, Esu is the sentry or divinity through which we must first pass in order to approach God.

So what is BaytAllah and what is Obatala?

In Bible Christians say no one comes to the father but through the son. Who is the son? They said Jesus.

Even if we are numb to intellect and could not see the correlation of Esu and Jesus being one and the same we should pick up on the fundamentals of the rituals and instantly accept the two as one person or divinity.

The primary tenet of Christianity is the Trinity. Well, the fundamental tenet of Esu worship is Orita Meta (the three crossroads). The space formed by a lay line of the crossroads is an eye called the portal or vortice...a very strong energy point. The trigonometric construction of the planery crossroads is what gave rise to the Christian Cross.

So something is rising in Yorubaland that will unite all these knowledge and a time will come when the world will again become students of Yoruba civilization and come to us for knowledge about their own humanity.

For centuries there was a separation between Ifa and Western scholarships. Westerners are studying in Ifa and they are getting obsessive. Similarly, custodians of Ifa knowledge are also encouraging their descendants to get Western education.

Im a certified IT Communicatiin professional and with 15yrs experience, yet I still need the use of a tool to calculate IP subnetting. Ifa diviners subnet innately with no problem and they dont even recognize it as a vital branch of knowledge in computing.

Imagine a child raised in Ifa background and who goes to study Computing, he will understand the basic structure of binary and octets effortlessly because he is in his element.

We must encourage that, we must subscribe to that new Yoruba evolution. We do so by breaking down the inaccuracies and lies and unveil the truth.

Let me move on my brother...




Yes, the Yoruba tradition is durable and reformative, it sustains and spins off in new direction when threatened by impending calamity. This is why we still have Yoruba today and Ifa has not died, even though so many other ancient practices have been subsumed or killed off by new orders and faiths. Again, a time is emerging when Judaism, Christianity and Islam will fold back into Ifa. Each of them is going through cleansing and when they each attain their breakpoint everyone loose faith and their humanity and are forced to abandon logic and return to instinct. At that point of rebirth for humanity Ifa would have significant meaning for mankind.




To question who You forget Oba is "igba keji Orisa"!
So all attributes to the King will not contain terms like question, whether in the positive or negative order.

Look, lets go back with our imagination to Mecca itself and visualize the Kaaba in its pre Islamic days.and.picture Yorubas in and around the shrine. Its worship time and everyone is gathered to do what to the idols? To prostrate and kneel.and bow. Well, is this not the same manner we greet when we gather around an Oba, who is second in command to the divinity or deity in the Kaaba?

The word Kaaba is a set. We have lost them, even the Kaaba is not in our posession. The only one we have left, like the Araba...is Kaabiyesi, akaba.

If we hold Kaabiyesi to be a position of highness, a higher pedestal above others, and Kaaba as meaning honor, greatness, then Akaba is a part of that word-set.

I will suspect the place we go to give honor to God the Greatest (divinity) is the Kaaba
The person above us we honor is Kaabiyesi
The tool we use to move to a higher elevation is Akaba.




I think you meant that the role of Esu was misinterpreted and revised with biased outcome. If Esu had not been changed we would never have accepted Jesus who the white man had taught around the world to others who were unfamiliar with Esu. If Yoruba stuck to Esu as his savior, then white man would have had to kill all of us off and erase any knowledge of Esu or make a second trip around the world revising and substituting Esu for Jesus.

Esu was indigenous to us. His new role is what is foreign to us. We have always had the beaded crowns on our land, its part of our ancient heritage and each crown has the face of Esu on it. Its no different than the Pope wearing the insignia of Jesus on his robe.


God Bless.

2prexios:
*Esua/ Eshua:

That is the name for the first composer of Eyo song, called Aro Eyo, that is, the Lamentations of Eyo. The singers of Aro Eyo normally end their chant with the name "Eshua!" in praise of Eyo. The true Eyo is identical with Olori Olugbani of Lagos tradition. Eyo Ile Ola.

Eyo je kin boba gb'ade dele
kin bo ba de'ga, Eyo Oba.

EyoOba
YoOba.

Yooba.