The Yorùbá language is spoken by about 30 to 40 million speakers.  Majority of Yoruba native speakers live in the South Western part of Nigeria. Yoruba is also natively spoken in othe Republic of Benin and Togo. Many Yorùbá speaking communities are also found in the Northern and Eastern parts of Nigeria, in Ghana, Sierra Leone, and different parts of West Africa. According to Yoruba mythology, the Yorùbá people are all descendants of Oduduwa, a mythological figure through whom the world had started at Ile Ile, the cradle of mankind. It is the general belief that it is the sons and daughters of Oduduwa that migrated out of Ile Ife to found many of the other Yoruba nation-states.Yoruba language is a member of the Defoid language family within the Benue Congo phylum. Other languages in the phylum include Nupoid, Edoid, Igboid, Idomoid, Platoid, Cross River, and Bantoid languages. Yorùbá’s closest relatives in the Defoid family are Igala and Isekiri in Nigeria, Tsabe and Idaitsa in the Republic of Benin, and Ana and Ife-Togo in Togo Republic.

            Yorùbá language is a dialect continuum. It has a number of geographic dialects marked by differences in pronunciation, grammatical structures, and vocabulary.  Some of the major Yorùbá dialects in Nigeria are; Ife, Ijesa, Eko, Ifaki, Afa, Ahan, Awori, Ayere, Bunu,  Ekiti, Erusu, Egba, Egbe, Gbede, Ibolo, Ifaki, Igbomina, Ijebu, Ijumu, Ikale, Ilaje, Ondo, Owe, Oyin, Oba, Oka, Osun, Owo, Oworo, Oyo, Ido, Ikare, Uro, and Yagba.  The dialects in the Republic of Benin are Ketu, Nago, Ije, Ajase, Idaitsa, Tsabe; while those from Togo Republic are Ana and Itsa. Some Yorùbá dialects are also used in the New World (which is often classified as part of the Yoruba diaspora). In Brazil, Nago is the Yoruba dialect that is spoken, in Cuba, it is Lucumi and Trinidad Yoruba is used widely in the West Indies. Besides these dialects, there is the standard Yoruba, which is recognized as the norm for the written language as embodied in books, newspapers, magazines, and any literary texts.  It is the norm used for educational purposes and in such media as radio and television. Speakers of all the various dialects understand standard Yorùbá. It is the variety represented in major dictionaries and grammars of the language prepared over the past two centuries and in most pedagogical materials prepared for Americans and Europeans who wish to learn to learn the language. It is also the form that is being studied in the Yoruba language classes at UGA.

            Sociologically, the term Yorùbá describes a number of semi-independent peoples loosely linked by geography, language, history, culture and religion. The Yorùbá live primarily in Nigeria and have resided in cities for many hundreds of years and are among the most urbanized peoples in Africa. Ìbàdàn (where your professor was born and raised), located in southern Nigeria, is one of the oldest and largest Black cities in Africa with a population estimated at over 5 million. Yorùbá cities formed the political centers of city-states governed by a king and supreme council. In pre-colonial times each city-state was autonomous and had its own distinct dialect, religious cults and army. These ancient states frequently warred with one another, and several centuries ago one of these kingdoms, Òyó, became dominant. Old Òyó, as this state is called, gave cohesiveness to Yorùbá custom and contributed greatly to the collective identity of modern Yorùbá-speaking people. In the Yoruba classes at UGA, We learn about the cultural values of this collective identity and ensure a substantial level of practical knowledge about the cultures of the Yoruba people.