Congrats then!
Hoping they don't throw you guys into the Scandinavian Lagoon Ocean someday

captainBIAFRA:
Congrats then!

it is a Positive for African languages.

Gud to hear dis am always happy when i see news like this
jos watch out dis na front page material

That's good we need Africa to be projected in Europe in a postive light

ECOTERRORS:
That's good we need Africa to be projected in Europe in a postive light

Good thought.
Africa has been represented so much in bad light, and the little positive changes we are seeing is very much welcome!

Some we be here now to blast o..


Yoruba my beloved language ! We remain the most educated tribe in Nigeria...we are moving forward

Pheals:
Some we be here now to blast o..


Yoruba my beloved language ! We remain the most educated tribe in Nigeria...we are moving forward

lies from the pit of hell,,if i hear yoruba are the most educated in Nigeria

scholes0:


If anything, all I see around in Nigeria is Yoruba domination.
Yorubas are the only "all-rounders" in Nigeria..... They are not lacking Politically, Educationally, Economically, Intellectually, Culturally name it ...

So as every other tribes. Though, I've to admit my tribe fell of the cliff politically. It's a beautiful thing when people make certain progress or success as it build some sort of awareness to others to clinched to whatever they believe in. I love progress and everyone should celebrate a triumphant.

coolzeal:
I am proud of where I come from and historically we have achieved a lot in this nation. I don't wanna talk about our resilient and success as people even against all odds. I celebrate merit and success in a fair level ground and that's where I stand. There's a difference between a political jingoism and a political game changer.

And I recognize and celebrate hard work/success wherever I see it.
so pls, stop talking from a tribal/clannish point of view

Yorùbá is still one of the most extensively researched of all sub-Saharan languages and cultures, and has a long tradition of oral verbal production (oral literature) within indigenous cosmopolitan which is receptive of both Islamic and Christian cultures. I love ma language...

Yoruba language is studied in 47 American varsities, says UI don

http://whatsupibadan.com/2013/11/16/yoruba-language-is-studied-in-47-american-varsities-says-ui-don/

While there is no incentive for the promotion of Yoruba language and more and more native speakers of the language are losing their native tongues, American government and its citizens are ironically spending huge resources and time to gain both fluency and immersion in the languages and cultures which the natives are ditching. Assistant Editor ADEKUNLE YUSUF reports.

IT was early in the day, but the young lads were already thirsty to sip from an array of the menu that formed the business of the day. From the exultant mood boldly etched on their faces, it is obvious that they had all kept the date jealously in their diaries. They were all tenth graders, drawn from public schools in Dane Country, Madison, Wisconsin, United States (US), all eager to gain from a week-long event to make them more knowledgeable about other cultures. That was July 28, 2011, and the event, a yearly ritual, was to let students have a sip of the languages, foods and cultures of the Yoruba, Swahili, Chinese, French and Russian.

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This reporter, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison) at the time, who was recruited to lead the enthusiastic teenagers on a walk through the fringes of Yoruba cultural mores and folklores, was filled with amazement by the time the curtain was drawn, as these American kids were happily reciting some Yoruba folkloric songs, which some of them recorded to enrich their mementoes.

The above event is not by happenstance. Every summer, it is the ritual for the Language Institute at the UW-Madison to assemble some select American pupils with the aim of introducing them to other cultures and concomitant educational utility therein. Although the essence of the weeklong summer carnival is to catch them young as far as deepening the interest of impressionable Americans in cultures and languages from other climes is concerned, at more formal levels, there are plans specifically designed to give impetus to students who wish to further explore their curiosity in the study of African languages, especially Yoruba.

Luckily, many of those pupils who have sipped from the summer initiative do later move up in life to enroll in undergraduate programmes in universities in the states and its environs. Thanks to the requirement that makes every American college undergraduate to gain proficiency in at least one international language (second language) before being certified worthy in learning and character; there exists a cooperative agreement between the University of Ibadan (UI), Oyo State, and the American Council for International Education (ACIE), Washington DC, US. Enacted in 2009, the agreement is planned to give fillip to the desire of American students who wish to pursue their interest in other cultures another notch, especially in Yoruba language and culture. And the product of that agreement is the Yoruba Language Flagship Programme (YLFP), which gave birth to the Yoruba Language Centre (YLC), operating since 2010 as a non-degree awarding unit at the University of Ibadan.

So, every year, American students travel down to the University of Ibadan for immersion in Yoruba language and culture, made possible by the exchange programme.

Essentially, the YLC renders services in Yoruba language acquisition and capacity building, among other things. It achieves this by running a specialised summer, semester, and academic programme of study in Yoruba language and culture for both undergraduate and graduate students from American universities, training them in Yoruba from the novice to superior level of proficiency, with emphasis on interpersonal communication skills- speaking, reading, listening and writing. That is where the good tiding lies; for some of YLC’s alumni, after gaining proficiency in Yoruba language, are now literally stealing headlines anywhere they go. Kevin Barry, otherwise known as Kayode Oyinbo, is one of such new enthusiasts of Yoruba language and culture. So is Cara Harshman, known as Titilayo Oyinbo.

The duet, who derive their Nigerian nicknames because of their uncanny ability to speak the Yoruba language without code-switching, are so proficient and fluent in Yoruba that a conversation with any of them is bound to leave many a native speaker green with envy. And all the immersion in the language is through their participation in the exchange programme at the University of Ibadan in 2010, aided of course, by previous course offering in the language at the U-Madison, their alma mater.

Currently, 10 students from first-rate American universities are completing the Yoruba studies at the University of Ibadan. But of the five Americans that benefited from the exchange programme when it started three years ago, Kayode, who plays the African talking drum and bata, has become a Yoruba language ambassador who is enjoying a rising profile, having visited Nigeria a number of times since then. On June 19 this year, Kayode took members of the Lagos State House of Assembly and guests by surprise when he addressed them in undiluted Yoruba, urging them to ensure that legislative business is conducted in Yoruba, not English.

Anytime the young American jets into the country, he hobnobs with Nigerian celebrities and top-notch politicians. Recently, he played one of the lead roles in You or I, a film by ace actor and producer Saidi Balogun film, which takes a look at marriage from the perspectives of what makes or mars it. The cast of You or I is entirely Caucasian, with the exception of Balogun. Aside Barry (Kayode), other Caucasians in the film are Elizabeth Croydon and Shira Oyive.

Like Kayode, Titilayo is another passionate Yoruba language enthusiast. Anytime any opportunity presents itself, she encourages native speakers not to ditch their language. In her productions, some of which are posted on YouTube, she constantly uses her journalistic skill to condemn the code-switching that has become the order of the day among Yoruba native speakers who live in the city.

Titilayo, in an article entitled ‘The beginning of the end’, said: “As the fateful day the Oyinbos will leave Nigeria draws nearer and nearer, the number of send forth parties gets higher and higher. Our Yoruba Flagship Center hosted a party for us on Wednesday. The party was a typical Yoruba function with a high table with distinguished guests, lots of prayers and people who spoke on forever about the importance of speaking Yoruba. Kayode and I gave short speeches in Yoruba and the five of us even sang a song that went : O digba, O dabo; Ki Olorin sho pade o; Ka rira pe layo; Ka maa ma sunkun ara wa.

“An incredible cultural troupe from Ibadan performed astonishing bata dances and Kayode joined in with his own Yoruba drums. People told us a local television station broadcast the party on TV but unfortunately-like all of my prior television appearances here- I never catch them.

“The send forth parties still continue in a non-formal setting with us and our Nigerian friends. Saying goodbye is a long process here because I am bombarded with questions from random people such as: ‘Will you take me back to your country with you?’ ‘When are you coming back?’ The prior question I get almost everyday. I have started giving responses like ‘No, because I am not a customs official and cannot give you a visa,’ or ‘I can take you if you can fit in my luggage.’ And to the latter question, I simply say ‘Mi i ni pe’/‘I will not be long’.”

Another Occidental boost for Yoruba language is from the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Through an initiative called Foreign Language Teaching Assistants, young speakers of Yoruba and Hausa languages who have educational background in English or language arts are recruited as teaching assistants to teach their languages and cultures to American students in the US universities and colleges. Olugboyega Adebanjo, lead translator, XML Language Services Limited, says this is a testimony to the immense value of Nigerian languages as veritable export commodities.

“If there are no Nigerian goods to be exported, and there are no Nigerian innovations to sell to the world, our languages and cultures can be our economic exchange with the Occident and the Orient,” he added.

Over the years, scores of young but talented Nigerians have used this scheme as springboard for greater educational achievements, serving as teaching assistants and all the concomitant benefits of tuition waiver and so on that come with it to climb higher education ladders.

One of them is Kazeem Kehinde Sanuth, who left Nigeria some years ago to teach Yoruba language and culture. Now a doctoral student in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) at the UW-Madison, Kazeem still teaches Yoruba every summer at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Asked about the prospects awaiting the Yoruba language, he enthuses that the sky is not even the limit, adding that Americans will always value the richness and cultural values imbued in the language.

Besides recruiting young minds to teach the language, Yoruba, among over 2,000 African languages, is one of the most widely learnt as a second language in Europe and America. The long list of top American universities and colleges that run ambitious, full-fledged programme in Yoruba language and culture include: Harvard University, Stanford University, Cornel University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Massachusetts, Indiana University in Bloomington, Ohio State University, Michigan State University, Ohio University, University of California at Berkeley, University of California at Los Angeles, University of Florida, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Howard University, Amherst College, Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, among others.

Ironically, as Yoruba language is winning converts in droves abroad, its native speakers are fast ditching it. As if speaking in mother tongue is a plague that needs to be avoided, many parents have stopped talking to their children and wards in their mother tongue, ignorantly believing that it is both primitive and uncivilised for their children not to be able to speak good English, thus allowing the language to rank in the category of endangered languages compiled by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). And going by the findings of a survey conducted two years ago in Nigeria’s six geo-political zones by a team of linguists led by Prof. Ahmed Amfani, more and more Nigerian parents are not handing over their languages to their children, for an average of 25 percent of Nigerian children of nursery and primary school ages do not speak their parents’ languages.

To worsen the situation, a recent directive from the National Education Research Council (NERC) is like an arrow that further pierced into the heart of indigenous languages, including Yoruba. In 2012, NERC, citing the need to drastically reduce the number of subjects students offer, ruled that indigenous languages should be removed from the list of compulsory subjects offered at the secondary school level. This, says Prof. Akinwumi Isola, poses a serious challenge for the continued survival of the mother tongue in the Nigerian schools.

Does the trend signal the near demise of Yoruba language? Not all experts share such pessimism. While insisting that Yoruba language will not die, Prof. Kola Owolabi of the University of Ibadan concludes that the language will only relocate abroad.

“Let us analyse the way the language is being taught and learnt in Nigeria and United States. I was told reliably that American universities studying Yoruba are up to 47. Now let us come to Yoruba land. How many federal institutions in Yoruba land are studying Yoruba as a subject? And if they are studying Yoruba as a subject, how many students do they have there? How many private universities in Yoruba land are studying Yoruba as a subject? So, you can see that the language is getting relocated to that place, whereas people here don’t pay attention to it at all. Yoruba language is dying daily because everybody is learning how to speak English. People abroad are concentrating on how to speak your language for you. So, the language will not die. In the next 50 to 100 years, those who speak the language natively will have gone, may be it may be limited to the countryside. By that time, Yoruba language will have been so entrenched in the US such that in 50 to 100 years’ time, it will have become a household study there,” he said.

Sadly, the import of this trend is that Americans will have gained so much fluency and mastery of Yoruba language that they will not just be communicating in it, they will also be sending experts to train and teach the natives what is supposedly their mother tongue!

The Yoruba language is rich enough to captivate non speakers far and wide. God bless this generation.

This is a good development.Yoruba folks should tap into this and pursue it aggressively especially in Latin American countries like Cuba and Brazil.

Culture is a major source of revenue for countries that tap into it.America basically market her culture.Brazil will be one of the big boys in the future and their Black and Mixed citizens are rising into the middle class at a good rate.

If they can exploit it...Yorubaland will benefit a lot especially in terms of Tourism.lfe Ife and Ibadan etc should be developed and marketed.

quimicababes watch this....

TV YORUBA- Brasil
http://yoruba.com.br/tvyoruba.html

Presents the Festival Osogbo in Brazil, 2015


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f78rsUFP82s


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srg-B_j3B6I

Watch "White boy speaking fluent Yoruba" on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmL66nBW2wQ

scholes0:
quimicababes watch this....

TV YORUBA- Brasil
Presents the Festival Osogbo in Brazil, 2015


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srg-B_j3B6I

Nice.I have watch the Osun Osogbo festival in Osun State and it was nice.I realized quite a bit of foreign Ifa folks participated in it.I am not an Ifa follower but places like Osogbo and Ile Ife and African museums I would totally be willing to visit.

I think they need to improve facilities..paved roads,not big hotels if they can't afford it but little bed and breakfast sheds like we have in the Caribbean that is supported by Osun indigenes.Selling Yoruba foods etc.Quite a bit of Black folks are interested in reconnecting with Africa and Yoruba culture is ripe to tap into that yearning.

When tourists come to Naija or anywhere else they usually prefer to experience the country's culture with modern conveniences.White folks prefer our bed and breakfast and eating our local foods when they visit here once they can get the modern conveniences such as water,electricity,internet etc.

Yoruba language is taught here in Trinidad where I am from.

Example of a bed and breakfast here in the Caribbean.They use Amerindian architecture btw which uses trees for roofing as in African cultures.

Watch "Director Of Jahn Library for African Literatures In Germany Speaks Yoruba" on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJWtz9gpGws

quimicababes:



Nice.I have watch the Osun Osogbo festival in Osun State and it was nice.I realized quite a bit of foreign Ifa folks participated in it.I am not an Ifa follower but places like Osogbo and Ile Ife and African museums I would totally be willing to visit.

I think they need to improve facilities..paved roads,not big hotels if they can't afford it but little bed and breakfast sheds like we have in the Caribbean that is supported by Osun indigenes.Selling Yoruba foods etc.Quite a bit of Black folks are interested in reconnecting with Africa and Yoruba culture is ripe to tap into that yearning.

When tourists come to Naija or anywhere else they usually prefer to experience the country's culture with modern conveniences.White folks prefer our bed and breakfast and eating our local foods when they visit here once they can get the modern conveniences such as water,electricity,internet etc.

Yoruba language is taught here in Trinidad where I am from.

Example of a bed and breakfast here in the Caribbean.They use Amerindian architecture btw which uses trees for roofing as in African cultures.

Great advise!, this is exactly what im expecting the governoon of the state to start doing...