Yorùbá (Yoruba)
The tonal language of southwestern Nigeria, Benin, and Togo
Yorùbá is a Niger-Congo language spoken by tens of millions of people across southwestern Nigeria, Benin, and Togo, with deep-rooted diaspora communities in the UK, the US, and Brazil — a legacy of the transatlantic slave trade that also shaped Yoruba-derived religious and cultural traditions like Santería and Candomblé. It's one of the most widely spoken languages in Africa and a major literary language, with a written tradition going back to the 19th century.
Writing system
What counts as correct
Yorùbá is a tonal language with three tones — high, mid, and low — marked with an acute accent (á), no mark, and a grave accent (à) respectively. It also uses underdotted letters (ẹ, ọ, ṣ) to represent sounds Latin script doesn't otherwise capture. Both the tone marks and the underdots change meaning outright — "ọkọ" (husband), "okò" (canoe), and "òkò" (spear) are three different words separated only by tone.
Why it matters
Precision, not approximation
Drop a tone mark or an underdot in Yorùbá and you don't get a slightly-off translation — you often get a different word entirely, or no word at all. That's the gap Itumo is built to close: every Yorùbá translation is checked for the correct tone marks and underdots before it reaches you, in both directions.
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Translate Yoruba with Itumo
Pair Yorùbá with any of Itumo's other languages — including direct African-to-African translation.
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