OSO. Tijdschrift voor Surinaamse Taalkunde, Letterkunde en Geschiedenis. Jaargang 3

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The Yoruba language in the new world^*
John Holm and A. Goke Oyedeji

One of the most central debates in creole language studies concerns the degree to which the speech of Afro-Americans was influenced by African languages, either directly or via relexification (Voorhoeve 1973). The very idea was dismissed by most nineteenth-century scholars (e.g. Van Name 1869/70: 124), but over the past fifty years scholarship has pointed increasingly to our current understanding of the New World creoles (e.g. Sranan Tongo or Haitian French) as languages whose phonological, syntactic, and lexicosemantic systems have developed from a synthesis of both African and European languages. This perspective has brought considerable new insight into how these systems function. As an Africanist, Jan Voorhoeve was able to make important break-throughs in analyzing the verbal system of Sranan (Voorhoeve 1962), which has striking parallels not only in Haitian and Jamaican, but also in West African languages such as Yoruba (Holm 1978). Labov (1969) found that in American Black English (considered by many to be a post-creole) the form of ‘be’ was affected by its following syntactic environment, but he was unable to offer any historical explanation for this very un-European phenomenon. It was later demonstrated that parallels existed in creoles such as Jamaican and Gullah as well as African languages like Mandinka and Yoruba (Holm 1978), confirming the African roots of Black English (Labov 1982).

However, resistance to the substratal influence of African languages on the New World creoles has persisted among those who claim that the non-European features of these languages can be traced to universal tendencies toward certain changes found in all languages (Bickerton 1981). Although it seems quite possible that such tendencies do in fact exist, proponents have found their existence difficult to prove. One tactic has been to point

* This article is based on part of a paper which we presented at the English Symposium on Afro-Hispanic Literature in New York (1983). For their helpful comments, we would like to thank the following colleagues: Yêda Pessoa de Castro, Naomi Glock, Ian Hancock, Vânia Penha Lopes, James Park, Janina Rubinowitz, Robert Farris Thompson, and William Stewart. Responsibility for any errors, however, remains solely our own.

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to the many features shared by creole languages as the manifestations of these universals, in which case it is necessary to refute the alternative explanation of common African influence. Bickerton refers to those who focus their research from the latter perspective as ‘substratomaniacs’: ‘Let us suppose that a very common structure in Caribbean creoles is also attested for Yoruba and perhaps one or two other relatively minor languages... To most substratomaniacs, the mere existence of such similarities constitutes self-evident proof of the connection’ (1981: 48).

This paper addresses itself to the issue of the validity of examining Yoruba (and, by extension, other African languages) for evidence of influence on Afro-American speech varieties. Since the syntactic similarities are discussed in detail elsewhere (Taylor 1977: 7-10, Baudet 1981, Holm 1976 and 1978), this paper will focus on Yoruba lexical survivals in the New World to strengthen the historical evidence supporting the linguistic connection between Yoruba and the New World creoles. Evidence will also be presented from the creole-influenced Spanish of the Caribbean and the Portuguese of Brazil to demonstrate how widespread the influence of the Yoruba actually was. However, it should be emphasized that we are making no claim that the creoles are more closely connected to Yoruba than they are to any other West African language. The thrust is rather that the typological similarity of many of these languages (Dalby 1970: 285) allows one to refer to Yoruba as representative of many of the African languages that influenced the phonology, syntax, and lexico-semantics of the New World creoles in largely similar ways.

Bickerton's implication to the contrary, Yoruba is not a ‘relatively minor’ language. It is spoken by over 15 million people in western Nigeria and Benin (Eades 1980: 2), making it one of the most important languages in West Africa. The Yoruba have been iron and bronze workers since the first millennium (Osae, Nwabara & Odunsi 1973: 93); moreover, ‘the Yoruba have lived in cities since time immemorial.... Urbanism demands many achievements, among them political organization, standards of health, and military security’ (Thompson 1976: 1). The Yoruba's Oyo Empire was established around 1400 A.D. and prospered until the late eighteenth century. As the Europeans' demand for slaves for their Caribbean sugar colonies grew from the middle of the seventeenth century, ‘the principal tribes in the heart of the slaving area... [included] the Yoruba of western Nigeria’ (Parry & Sherlock 1956: 70). During the linguistically crucial first 75 years of Britain's sugar colonies (1655-1730), fully 25% of the Africans that the British brought to the Americas came from the area dominated by the Yoruba (Le Page & De Camp 1960: 74-5). During the rest of the eighteenth century, which represented the peak of the slave trade, over half the slaves exported to the New World from the West Coast of Africa were brought in British ships sailing from what is today Nigeria (Burns 1972: 76). It must be remembered that many of these slaves were sold to owners in colonies that were not British, so it is logical to expect the Yoruba, for example, to have ended up in the French, Spanish, and Dutch colonies as well as Brazil.

Regarding the linguistic impact of the Yoruba on the New World, Hancock (1979: 54) comments that ‘the group consciousness of the Yoruba, and the fact that they constituted a large and fairly homogeneous proportion of the West Africans who were shipped to the Americas, has resulted in there being retained elements of Yoruba language and culture in many parts of the western hemisphere to this day.’ The Yoruba language was spoken until the twentieth century in Brazil and Cuba (Reinecke 1937) as well as Trinidad (Warner 1971) and British Guiana (Cruickshank 1916). The Yoruba were known as the Nago (Jamaican English), nagó (Haitian French), nagô (Brazilian Portuguese) or anagó (Cuban Spanish) (Hancock 1969: 58, 71), from Ànàgó, a subtribe of the Yoruba living in what is today the southeastern part of

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the Benin Republic (Eades 1980: xvii).

The remainder of this paper will present some lexical survivals of the Yoruba language in a number of varieties of languages used by Afro-Americans. Except for Brazilian Portuguese and the Spanish of Cuba and Puerto Rico, these are creoles such as Haitian French or English-derived Jamaican Creole (JC), Sranan (SR) or Saramaccan (SM) of Suriname, Bahamian (BH), Gullah (GL), or Krio (KR). The last arose in part among Afro-Americans who were brought to Sierra Leone in Africa at the end of the eighteenth century. It should noted that many of the Yoruba-derived words in Krio (discussed in detail in Hancock 1979) are likely to have been brought to Sierra Leone during the nineteenth century by Yorubas liberated on slave ships intercepted by the British after they declared the slave trade illegal in 1808.

Yoruba words are from the Dictionary of the Yoruba Language (DYL) and the Dictionary of Modern Yoruba (DMY). Brazilian Portuguese words are from Mendonça 1933, Shelby 1978, de Onis 1978, and Barretto 1977. Spanish words are from Olmstead 1953, Courlander 1976, Cabrera 1957, and González-Wippler 1975. Haitian French words are from Comhaire-Sylvain 1955 and the Haitian Creole-English-French Dictionary (HCEFD). Of the English creoles, Jamaican words are from the Dictionary of Jamaican English (DJE), Sranan words are from the Woordenlijst van het Sranan-Tongo (WST), Saramaccan words are from Naomi Glock (personal communication), Krio words are from A Krio-English Dictionary (KED), Bahamian words are from the Dictionary of Bahamian English, and Gullah words are from Turner 1949. Because of the limitations of space, only the Yoruba words are glossed; their cognates in the New World languages have closely related but not always exactly equivalent meanings. Because they often refer to cultural phenomena unknown in Europe, the glosses in the original works tend to be lengthy; they can, however, be found in full in Holm & Oyedeji 1983.

I Yoruba Food Names

Yoruba		Port.	Spanish	French	English
1 àmàlà	‘yam flour food’	amalá	amalá
2 àkàrà	‘bean fritter’	acará	akará	akra	acara BH KR SM
3 àkàsù	‘cornmeal lump’	acassá	akasá	akasan	akansa SR
4 ágidí	‘cornmeal mush’		aguidi		agidi BH KR SM
5 ẹ̀fọ́	‘herb used as food’	êfó	efó		ɛfɔ KR
6 mọ́in-mọ́in	‘kind of cake’		mai mai		mōi-moi BH
7 obì	‘kola-nut’	obi	obi		obe SR, obi KR

II Yoruba Musical Instuments

1 agbè	‘calabash drum’	aguê	agbe	agbe KR
2 agogo	‘bell’	agogô	agogó	agogo KR GL
3 bàtá	‘kind of drum’	batá	bata	banda JC
4 ìlù	‘kind of drum’	ilu	ilu
5 ṣẹ̀kẹ̀rè	‘an instrument’	xequerê	chácaro	shaker BH

Before examining the next semantic category of Yoruba religious terms, some word of explanation is necessary regarding cultural syncretism in many New World religious practices: ‘A devotee of the Macumba [or candomblé] cult in Brazil may be, and probably is, a Catholic; if he speaks some ritual words in Yoruba, his native language is Brazilian Portuguese.... Macumba today is compounded of African, European, Catholic, Indian, spiritualist, and even more diverse and exotic elements... having to do with gods, demigods, spirits, curing practices, charms, rituals and magic’ (Courlander 1976: 5-6). Similar belief systems include Haiti's vodoun, Cuba's lucumí and Puerto

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Rico's santería. Such beliefs were often officially suppressed, so that in certain areas (e.g. the Spanish-speaking Caribbean) the words connected with them came to be regarded as part of a secret language that most speakers of the mainstream language would not be likely to know. In other areas, such as Brazil, the beliefs became more integrated into the mainstream culture along with the corresponding vocabulary (Castro & Castro 1980: 46).

III Yoruba Religious Terms

Yoruba		Port.	Spanish	French	English
1 adé	‘crown’	adê	adé		Ade KR
2 àfọ̀ṣẹ	‘soothsaying’	afoxê	afoché
3 alágbā	‘egungun chief’	alabê			alagba KR
4 àṣẹ	‘commandment’	axé	aché
5 aṣíṣẹ	‘one in adversity’	axexê
6 aṣògún	‘Ogun worshipper’	axogun	achogún
7 baba	‘father’	babá	baba		baba JC
8 babaláwo	‘Ifá priest’	babalaô	babalawo	babalao	babalawo KR
9 babalórìsà	‘priest’	babalorixá
10 bãyànni	‘Sango idol’	baiani
11 ẹbọ	‘sacrifice’	ebó	ebbó
12 ẽgún	‘masquerader’	egum,	egún		egun,
egúngún	‘masquerader’	egungum	egǔngun	gougoun	egungun KR
13 ẽpàrìpà	‘an exclamation’	eparrei	iepa!
14 ẹ̀tù	‘medicinal powder’	etu	etubo
15 ìrùkèrè	‘ceremonial switch’	erukerê	iruke
16 ìrù ẹṣin	‘horse's tail’	eruexim	irún echín
17 ìyá	‘mother’	iaia	iyáa
18 ìyá kékeré	‘little mother’	iyakêkêrê
19 ìyãlé	‘elder wife’	ialê	iyalá
20 ìyá l'ǒriṣa	‘priestess’	iyalorixa	iyalocha
21 ìyàwó	‘bride’	iauô	yaguó
22 ọba	‘king’	obá	obba
23 ọ̀gá	‘chief, superior’	ougan	oga enikeré	ougan	ɔga KR
24 ọrìṣà	‘idol’	orixá	orisha
25 orò	‘evil spirit, ghost’	orô			oro KR
26 ọ̀pẹ̀lẹ̀	‘divining chain’	opelé	opelé

IV Yoruba Deities

1 Ẹlẹ́gbẹ́ra	‘Èṣù's title’	Elegbá	Elegguá	Legba
2 Èṣù	‘trickster god’	Exu	Eshu		eshu KR
3 Ọbàtálá	‘creation god(dess)’		Obatala	Batala
4 Ògún	‘god of war’	Ogun	Ogun	Ogoun	ogu KR
5 Ọlọ́run	‘supreme god’	Olorum	Olofin
6 Òṛúnmìlà	‘title of Ifá’		Orumbila
7 Òṣanyìn	‘god of healing’	Ossonhe	Osain	Ossangne
8 Ọ̀ṣun	‘river goddess’	Oxun	Oshun
9 òṣùmàrè	‘rainbow’	Oxumarê	ochú malé
10 Ọya	‘wife of Sango’		Oyá
11 Ṣango	‘god of thunder’	Xangô	Shango	Chango
12 ṣọ̀pọ̀nná	‘small pox’	Xaponan	Sonponno
13 Yemọnọja	‘river goddess’	Iemanja	Yemaja

It is interesting to note in the tables above that the languages retaining the most religious terms from Yoruba are Portuguese and Spanish, with some French - languages of largely Catholic countries. Nearly all the cog-

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nates in English-derived Krio seem likely to have been imported to Sierra Leone directly from Yorubaland in the nineteenth century (see above) rather than from Afro-America in the nineteenth century, judging from the conspicuous absence of cognates of Yoruba religious terms in the English-based Afro-American languages. However, there remains the possibility that such words may eventually be identified in secret religious vocabulary, e.g. in the dipi-taki of Djuka, spoken in Suriname's interior (Voorhoeve 1971: 313-314).

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