Probz:


My observation is that oyibo is more popular generally in southern Nigeria (and among Igbos) and that's how the word's pronounced anyway. Yorubas (at least the ones I know) also say oyibo but write oyinbo. I know some Yorubas use eebo but in written language it always has a likeness for oyinbo from what I've seen. The rest of us in the south just say and write oyibo.

rhektor:


What are you saying? àbí is a Yorùbá word
Àbí orí ńṣe ẹ ní?

MozartianDreams:


Waka, and likely wetin have English roots. I remember reading this on a Pidgin language lesson website, and they are vernacular versions of 'walk' and 'what?' respectively. I am more sure of the first of the two however.

'Ah-ah' (said quickly) sounds like the hausa word for no.

'Ahhh---Ahhh' (said loudly and solemnly) sounds like an exclamation of despair and I have heard it from many people, but perhaps from yorubas the most.

You have to understand that even in primitive stages of human civilization, and even when you were a baby, that humans are capable of making exclamatory sounds before language development.

That said:
I recently learned that in pre-colonial and colonial eras that the person who was in charge of the native peoples would be refererred to as an 'Organizer'. But, they had difficulty pronouncing the word properly and only the first two syllables survived, hence, with a 'terrible English accent' which no one would blame the natives for having at the time, the word 'Oga'.

Probz:


You're living on cloud nine if you think Igbos only have one way of making egusi. Ógbalóti na ofe okazi, na?

lawani:


Let me teach you something about languages. The more tonal a language, the more in its original form it is. Then number of alphabets does not matter. Pidgin English like Sierra Leonean Creole have more alphabets than Yoruba but not older than Yoruba. If a language has been considerably disturbed, it will lose tone. So, personally, I believe level of tonality is a good measure of the long standing of a language. I will give you some examples of Yoruba tonality, you give me Igbo. Remember tonality is nothing less than tonic sulpha in music. So it really is a measure of long standing of language.

Aja (re mi) is dog
Aja (do mi) a town
Aja (re do) We fought
Aja (re mi) again but depending on context is 'we fled'.
Aja (re re) We off loaded it
Aja (re re) Depending on context is 'We tore it'.
Aja (mi mi) he will flee
Aja (mi do) He will fight
There are still more
Baba (do mi) Father
Baba (do do) copper or so

Ade (re mi) crown
Ade (re mi) depending on context is 'We have come'.
Ade (re fi) we bound him
Ade (re re) We covered it.
Ade (mi mi) He will come
Ade (mi re) He will cover it
There are still more.

The tones are just 5 but they go over a wide scale and that is why Yoruba can be spoken with a drum easily.

If I say something to a fellow Yoruba, they may not understand unless we were talking before which may allow them to use idea or sense to understand. Which language do you know like that?.

Let me put this sentence out with intonation if anybody can interprete, so you see what I am saying

WaWaWa (MI DO MI)
ASK YOUR YORUBA FRIENDS TO TRANSLATE IF THEY CAN.

From the analysis above, Igbo is more of a pidgeon language than Yoruba.

agadez007:
Who said "Ube" is not Igbo?

Nonsense,wetin person no go read on this Nairaland,FYI Ube dosent grow in the south west
I remembered a certain time my mum offered ube to a yoruba guy,he was like "Mama,wetin be this,i never see am before"

Pear dosent have a Name in the yoruba language,how can you name what you dont have/seen

Probz:


cc. 9jakool

Really?

IkpuMmadu:


We don't call shaki...Igbo call it afọ anụ
Pomo is called Kanda in Igbo pls

Very soon Yoruba would claim Ugu (pumpkin ) theirs
They would claim Ọha also
And they would claim Ose too

9jakool:


Obi means parent. Don't worry, it doesn't sound at all like Igbo version tonally and it stems from a different root altogether.
The stem verb "bi" means to born or to give birth. O + bi refers to one's parent.

OlaoChi:


In this same context, "ovbi" means child in Edo

IkpuMmadu:


Lie ! You lie

alablec:


Can you just imagine!

These people left their 'bekee' and start claiming 'Oyinbo/oyibo'

TAO11:


I grew up seeing a pear tree in my neighbourhood. That your story of it doesn't grow in south west is poo and dust.

agadez007:
then what is it called in Yoruba language?

lawani:


Let me teach you something about languages. The more tonal a language, the more in its original form it is. Then number of alphabets does not matter. Pidgin English like Sierra Leonean Creole have more alphabets than Yoruba but not older than Yoruba. If a language has been considerably disturbed, it will lose tone. So, personally, I believe level of tonality is a good measure of the long standing of a language. I will give you some examples of Yoruba tonality, you give me Igbo. Remember tonality is nothing less than tonic sulpha in music. So it really is a measure of long standing of language.

Aja (re mi) is dog
Aja (do mi) a town
Aja (re do) We fought
Aja (re mi) again but depending on context is 'we fled'.
Aja (re re) We off loaded it
Aja (re re) Depending on context is 'We tore it'.
Aja (mi mi) he will flee
Aja (mi do) He will fight
There are still more
Baba (do mi) Father
Baba (do do) copper or so

Ade (re mi) crown
Ade (re mi) depending on context is 'We have come'.
Ade (re fi) we bound him
Ade (re re) We covered it.
Ade (mi mi) He will come
Ade (mi re) He will cover it
There are still more.

The tones are just 5 but they go over a wide scale and that is why Yoruba can be spoken with a drum easily.

If I say something to a fellow Yoruba, they may not understand unless we were talking before which may allow them to use idea or sense to understand. Which language do you know like that?.

Let me put this sentence out with intonation if anybody can interprete, so you see what I am saying

WaWaWa (MI DO MI)
ASK YOUR YORUBA FRIENDS TO TRANSLATE IF THEY CAN.

From the analysis above, Igbo is more of a pidgeon language than Yoruba.

Probz:

I got that digging around on Nairaland. Oyinbo conceived of there doesn't even originate from the Yoruba but the country of Benin. All I can see is Yorubas attaching a meaning to everything and then claiming it to theirs. I dunno.

The "oye Ibo"-oyibo theory is very plausible. I can get behind the Yoruba remix (oyinbo) but the fact that it's pronounced oyibo even by the Yorubas makes me wonder. Or is the "n" in "oyin" semi-silent?

I can barely tell the difference between the Igbo and Yoruba oyibo vs. oyinbo pronounciation save for the sound that the "i" sound is elongated in the Igbo/Niger delta form so it sounds oy-EEEEEEE-boe compared to the yoruba oh-YIH-boh. No one pronounces the n. At least not that I know.

Other theories state that "oyibo" literally translates to white in Urhobo. I've also come across convincing Bini theories. The whole thing's complicated.

alablec:


Just the way the 'rest of you' are saying: Agboro, Ashawo, kpele, kpaktakpakta, etc...

absoluteSuccess:


"I have the intention of putting this across a long while ago, I believe now is the time. So how did the word Oyinbo crept up in Yoruba lexicon? This piece might help. The Yoruba has been familiar with different races from the onset of time. The Yoruba were a race of diverse races at one point in their history. To the Yoruba ancestors, the white were not always "Oyinbo", the most tenable word for a white person with the ancient Yoruba is Ofun.

Originally however, the parent word for 'Oyinbo' may have come from the Fon kingdom of Dahomey, who contacted the white folks first after the long seperation from that race. The Fon for a white man is 'Yevo'. This word is derived from 'Oye' and 'Ovo', meaning, "of different shade".

To the Fon, mankind is called Gbetor, meaning 'father of life', now the word in full is a phrase, 'Gbetor-yenor' meaning, 'a shadow (or replica) of the father of life'. That establishes 'ye' as in 'yes' as shade or shadow in that language. For instance, Yesehmeh in that language stands for 'shade's transit point'. Again, racial shade is known to this people.

To the ancient Yoruba, white- man is 'e fun', we still say it in Yoruba language as 'Oyinbo-alawo-funfun'. That's a long-tail-expression however. Some Yoruba ancestors were white-skinned. It shows in the way Yoruba peoples named them afterwards based on their colour.

For instance, the word Efunyela simply means "white skin is befitting to Ela". The Yoruba perception of their ancestors can also be observed in the way Yoruba sees the albino. They says, owo koko lafii wogi, owo Orisha lafii wo afin. Afin are spotted with Orisha, who are Yoruba ancestors.

The Yoruba equally have black heros. One of the black hero in annal of Yoruba history was Odu. And in that regards is the folksong, "eye melo t'olongo wale?"...'Okan Dudu-Aro, Okan Sese Osun'. Hope you don't take the nursery rhyme as worthless. 'Duduaro' in another way round is 'Odunaro' a Yoruba surname spotting with a black thinker in annals of Yoruba history.

"Sese Osun" is also a historical phrase, we speak of Osun as "Osun-se-ngese, Olooya 'yun" and also 'etu obeje elese osun', a totem of mother Osun, the matriarch of Yoruba race. Osun was a black beauty of Yoruba history, hence it is said, 'Odu eleyinju ege'. Osun is o su, that is of dark shade. Another way of putting it clearer is O du."

This guy, I really don't know what's wrong with you. I believe you are too careful to put my mention after cropping up my post to create your medley. I just discovered this post yesterday.

No wahala, na you sabi.

Probz:


No, I don't. I've openly acknowledged having copied this theory from yet another of Nairaland's oyibo vs. oyinbo debates.

Now, the Yoruba have penchant for creating alternative words to convey their ideas beyond reasonable doubt. In respect to 'Oyinbo', it simply means 'oyin bo', which means 'honey-deficient' or 'honey peeled off'. Yoruba equates Oyin with Adun. As a resault of this, we therefore have the phrase 'Oyinladun'. 'Adu' (Odu) is a variant of Adun (Odun). The Yoruba of old equate the black melanin with honey. They thus have the idea of 'sexual chocolate' before our time. Oyinbo thus mean 'drilled of honey', in Yoruba. Is all of this possible within Yoruba thought system? A Yoruba proverb to that effect says 'irini si nisoni lojo' meaning: 'appearance will tell what you are described as'


I also got that post from the OP. In short, oyinbo is a Dahomey/Benin-derived words with a Yoruba-attached meaning. Assuming native honey is dark as melanin and melanin's strongly associated with honey to the ancient Yoruba, I can get behind the oyinbo remix but notice that this dude's stated that "the Yoruba have penchant for creating alternative words to convey their ideas beyond reasonable doubt." In other words, the Yoruba ascribe meaning to foreign concepts and ideas by breaking them down into syllables. It's not mad to think they could've also done this with the Igbo oyibo and corrupted it to oyinbo (two syllables joined together as a single word/idea). The word still doesn't originate with them though. That's the bottom line.

https://www.nairaland.com/2191374/etymology-word-oyinbo

That's the thread I got all this info from, after much digging around.

Probz:


“I got that digging around on Nairaland.”

And never for a minute did I pass it off as my own. Boy, either read the whole post or don’t comment.

I also got that post from the OP. In short, oyinbo is a Dahomey/Benin-derived words with a Yoruba-attached meaning. Assuming native honey is dark as melanin and melanin's strongly associated with honey to the ancient Yoruba, I can get behind the oyinbo remix but notice that this dude's stated that "the Yoruba have penchant for creating alternative words to convey their ideas beyond reasonable doubt." In other words, the Yoruba ascribe meaning to foreign concepts and ideas by breaking them down into syllables. It's not mad to think they could've also done this with the Igbo oyibo and corrupted it to oyinbo (two syllables joined together as a single word/idea). The word still doesn't originate with them though. That's the bottom line

absoluteSuccess:


If the digging fetch you the post as worthy of reckoning to further your claims, it behooves on you to quote the source and not act as if it turn up from an anonymous well, cleverness is not wisdom. If Olaochi did not assume you wrote that by yourself, would you have put the link?



How does the bolded speaks for your conviction? If the Yoruba have two names for one object, does that translate to making a foreign word Yoruba by breaking the word into syllables? I don't understand your logic.

If I say the Yoruba borrowed Oyinbo from Yevo, what if I'm wrong? What if the word Yevo is just the word with the easier interpretation than Oyinbo to me studying the word countless years after it was coined? Hello, I can make mistake, so stop the clever game.

Recently, I stumbled on a phenomena by accident on the Egun/Yoruba word that have baffled me a great deal, what the Yoruba called epon (scrotum) the egun called it "atoquin". Yoruba word for sperm is 'ato' ultimately from ito, that the Egun call 'adido'.

Meanwhile, quin (pouch) is from okun, seed. From this, the word 'atoquin' simply means 'sperm pouch' in Egun, an amalgam of Yoruba and Egun word. I am able to interpret this being a person of both heritage, but the coinage is beyond anyone of both divides.

So in a case like this, who borrow from who? Both have their words, but employ other related terms in their sphere of influence for intellectual purposes. The Yoruba have Oyinbo, just as the Egun have Yevo. If Igbo has Oyibo, its none of my business.

Stop snooping around, make your valid and independent conclusions.

YourNemesis:


Ogbono is Apon in Yoruba.
That Onugbu is Ewuro, if I am right about Onugbu meaning bitter leaf.
We still Have Efinrin, Orunla, Ayamashe, Different types of veggies (Rorowo, Efolo, Gbure, Tete) Etc.. so you see.
Most popular soups are eastern due to popular culture of course, especially the names. But know that Yorubas also have names for most of these things... especially if you go to the villages.
Most times when igbos are mentioning Oha, Onugbu etc before... I used to think they were different things found only in igboland, until I was told their English names, then I realized Yorubas also had them.
A word like "Okporoko", the igbo word for stock fish for example has become popular with other nigerians prolly due to nollywood and stuff, but in Yoruba it is Panla. Only Yorubas and close tribes might know what Kpanla/Panla is... but Okporoko will be more recognizable across nigeria at the moment.
Hope u get the drift.

linguistically 'egwusi' was recent in Igbo. in Ekiti and other older central Yoruba dialects, it's 'egushin' simply meant to 'break and remove'. the white specie is called 'êdè' Igbo borrowed a lot of vocabularies from Igalas who share a lot with ancient people of present Yorubaland.