Broad divisions and nature of collection

I started my work by dividing the Yorùbá collection items into two broad sections: pre-independence items, and post-independence items. The pre-independence items are books, serials, audio-visual, and other items collected before 1960, while the post-independence ones are those published after 1960 when Nigeria gained independence. Many of the items collected pre-independence were obtained under legal deposit or colonial legal deposit laws, while the post-independence items were obtained through gifts, purchases and exchanges. The items were marked with blue stamps if they came through legal deposit, red stamps for purchases, and green stamps for donations. Many of the items in the pre-independence era were actually published in the UK, so were subject to UK legal deposit laws rather than colonial legal deposit.

I set out initially to see whether there was any significance (for subject matter, breadth, limitations, etc.) in what items were obtained under which period. Would each period throw up similar items or would the period not matter at all in the assessment of the work? In the end, there was no significance. Materials were better understood through different categorizations (subject matter, for instance) than date. The literary renaissance in Yorùbá began in the 1940s and continued until the late 1980s – a period which spans Nigeria’s pre-independence and post-independence struggles.

It was easier and more productive to subcategorize the materials under the following headings focusing on the type of work as well as medium of publication:

• Creative work

• Academic work

• Religious texts

• Pedagogy (textbooks and other learning materials)

• Audio-visual materials

• Materials about Yorùbá language but not in Yorùbá.

I wrote blog posts for the BL about some of these areas (referenced in the footnotes). My focus during the fellowship was on print materials with less comment on the audio-visual elements.

In this overview, I describe these materials, their quantity, condition, subject matter, gaps in the collection, and other relevant information.

Searching for material

I identified the number of printed Yorùbá items in the BL collections through searching the staff interface of the catalogue, as well as through other searches carried out by Metadata Systems staff. Searching on the ‘yor’ language code, which is used in catalogue records for books, revealed a total of around 450 publications.

For users of the public catalogue, the best way to find books in Yorùbá, or containing the language, is to search on another field (e.g. keyword/author/subject/title), and then to refine by language. (A simple search on language code, such as the one I carried out internally, is not offered in the public interface.)

The codification of works in the collection needs some explanation for the interested researcher without a library background. Collections in the library relating to Yorùbá are drawn from many languages, from English to Yorùbá, to French and Spanish. English and Yoruba, being official languages of Nigeria, predominate.

The BL follows standard cataloguing practice, which is to code a book in Yorùbá as ‘yor’ in the 008 field of the cataloguing record. However, if a book is mainly in another language but includes some Yorùbá, the ‘yor’ code is inserted in the 041 field instead. The same applies when the item is a translation of a Yorùbá original. This is why items that show up when searching with the ‘yor’ code include items published in other European languages (but with Yorùbá content or translation).

The code is not inserted simply because of the author’s heritage or subject matter. It is specifically linguistic. In the subject heading fields, one will find Yorùbá being used as a heading, for example: ‘Yorùbá – African people’.

But the ‘yor’ language code will still not be used in this case unless the conditions above are met.

This took a while for me to understand and may cause some confusion for other researchers too. For instance, works by Fẹ́mi Ọ̀ṣọ́fisan,Footnote ² a Nigerian playwright, could be found within the Yorùbá collection, even though he wrote in English (but had lots of Yorùbá songs and texts in his work) while those of Wọlé Ṣóyínká did not always show up, because he wrote predominantly in English. Ṣóyínka’s Death and the King’s Horseman,Footnote ³ though, contained much Yorùbá singing, and should perhaps be included with a ‘yor’ code.

Early Yorùbá language publishing

The first known Yorùbá language publication is Samuel Àjàyí Crowther’s Vocabulary of the Yorùbá Language (1843) which is both a dictionary and glossary of Yorùbá, containing a short history of the people who speak the language. The work of Crowther in codifying Yorùbá language through his work with missionaries is well documented and does not need repeating here. He also worked on Nupe and Igbo, which are also represented in the BL.Footnote ⁴

After Crowther came a number of creative publications in the language, from religious publications by his missionary colleagues to newspapers. The first newspaper published in Yorùbá (and English) was titled Ìwé Ìròhìn (1859). It was published in Abẹ́òkuta by the printing press of Henry Townsend, and it catered to the educated bilingual elites of the time. It sold for about a penny, but ceased after a few years. I could not find any copies of this publication in the BL records.Footnote ⁵

It was replaced by another version of the publication: Ìwé Ìròyìn Yorùbá Àti Èkó (1891), of which the BL has a few copies. Many other local publications sprang up during this time, and were widely read, some in English alone, while others were published in both Yorùbá and English. They include The Lagos Observer (1882) which the BL has from 1882 to 1888 in microfilm, and Akéde Èkó (The Lagos Herald), published in 1928.

One of the interesting characteristics of this period is commonplace bilingualism. Pages of Ìwé Ìròhìn Èkó at the BL have English and Yorùbá texts printed in adjoining columns. This does not look out of place. It certainly would today, where not only are all newspaper publications in Nigeria monolingual, but almost all are in English, except for one or two local publications in Yorùbá, which are no longer much read.

Many of the first creative works in Yorùbá were initially printed as serialized texts in some of these early newspapers.Footnote ⁶ Of these early works, the novel Ìtàn Ìgbésí Ayé Èmi Ṣẹ̀gílọlá Ẹlẹ́yinjú Ẹgẹ́ Ẹlẹ́gbẹ̀rún Ọkọ L’áíyé (1929) – fully reproduced and referenced in Print Culture and the First Yoruba Novel: I. B. Thomas’s ‘Life Story of Me, Segilola’ and Other Texts edited by Karin Barber (Reference Thomas and Barber2012) – is considered the first Yorùbá novel and likely the first novel written by any Nigerian. It was first serialized in Akéde Èkó by its publisher I. B. Thomas.

Some of the other works in this early period include translations of European classics, such as Aesop’s Fables, as well as translations of catechisms and Bible stories. These are complemented by works about the gods and òrìṣàs of Yorùbá religion. Examples include:

The pre-independence period featured the most experimentation in creative and non-fiction writing. According to Rebecca Jones (Reference Jones2019), about sixty-nine works were published between the 1850s and 1940 focusing on histories of Yorùbá towns, both in Yorùbá and English, and written by Yorùbá citizens, many of whom had travelled extensively within and outside Yorùbá country. The most famous of these is Samuel Johnson’s History of the Yorubas (1921) which is often cited as the most definitive. There were others, such as A. K. Ajíṣafẹ́’s The Laws and Customs of the Yorùbá People (1924) and Isaac Délànọ̀’s Aiyé d’Aiyé Òyìnbó Footnote ⁷ published in 1955.

This period defines the first wave of Yorùbá writers, notable for the diversity of output. Aside from journalism and religious texts this included travel writing, history, and Yorùbá learning materials. Daniel O. Fágúnwà wrote a couple of children’s stories. See Táíwò àti Kẹ́hìndé Footnote ⁸ (1948); Ìrìn Àjò Footnote ⁹ (1949); and Òjó Asọ̀tàn Footnote ¹⁰ (1964). Isaac Olúwọlé Délànọ̀ wrote a monolingual Yorùbá dictionary and a short grammar called Atúmọ̀ Èdè Yorùbá Footnote ¹¹ (1958). He also wrote short histories, such as Ìrántí Àǹfàní: ‘Short Histories of Yorùbá Tribes’ (1962); L'Ọjọ́ Ọjọ́ Un Footnote ¹² (1963); A Dictionary of Monosyllabic Verbs (1969); Josaiah Ransome-Kuti, the Drummer Boy who Became a Canon (1968); and Oba Ademola II, a Great Alake of Egba (1969).

No plays were found, but there was some poetry such as that from J. F. Ọdúnjọ and Adébóyè Babalọlá. Jones (Reference Jones2019) has made an in-depth study of this early period. Akínwùnmí Ìṣọ̀lá, Daniel O. Fágúnwà, Adébáyọ̀ Fálétí, and other names that came to define Yorùbá literature feature in another blog post.Footnote ¹³

Serials and music

Most of the items are books (coded with BK). I found five serials (coded with SE) and six that are sheet music (coded with MU).

• Ìwé Kíkà Oxford (1948–) Oxford University Press, London.

• Ìwé Oxford fún Òde Òní (1947–) Oxford University Press, London.

• Ìwé Ìròhìn Èkó (1891); periodical published in Lagos.

• Àwòrán Ogun [a Yorùbá edition of ‘War in Pictures’] (1941–45) published in London.

• Yorùbá: Journal of the Yorùbá Studies Association of Nigeria (1976) by Ẹgḅè Ońiṃò Èdè Yoruba (Nigeria) Ìbàdàn: Onibọnoje Press.

• Ifè: Annals of the Institute of Cultural Studies (c.1986–) published by the Institute of Cultural Studies, University of Ife.

Broad subheadings

In Table 1 I put all the items in the record under broad subject categorizations. The numbers are approximated.Footnote ¹⁴

Table 1:

Subject categorizations of items

Table 1 illustrates an early discovery, the preponderance of religious texts in the Yorùbá collections. This makes sense against the background of colonial intervention, which sometimes went hand-in-hand with missionary adventurism. Some of the first books written and published in Yorùbá were translations of the Bible and notable hymns. But I was surprised to find that almost a third of the items in the collection (about 121 in all) were religious in nature. They were mostly Christian of course, and they can be divided into these categories:

There do not seem to be many more religious items acquired by the BL after the early 20^th century. There are a few Islamic materials (a Qur’an, some Qur’anic texts, etc.) but no more than five in all. In contrast, there is a lot of work on Yorùbá spirituality, from Ifá to the ways of worship, to other liturgical texts.

Many of them are in English, like Sixteen Great Poems of Ifá by Wande Abimbola,Footnote ¹⁵ while some are in Yorùbá, like Ìgbàgbọ́ Àti Ẹ̀sìn Yorùbá Footnote ¹⁶ by C. L. Adéoyè.Footnote ¹⁷ A few of them straddle both languages, like Ifá: A Complete Divination by Ayọ̀ Salami.Footnote ¹⁸

Prose, drama and poetry

The collection boasts a good and wide array of works from the Yorùbá creative generation of the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. All the notable Yorùbá language writers are represented, though not all comprehensively. One of Fágúnwà’s novels is missing, for instance. The other writers represented each have at least two to three works present, even when they have written about ten or more in their career. It would be good to have a full representation of all these Yorùbá writers’ outputs in the BL catalogue.

These names, like J. F. Ọdúnjọ, D. O. Fágúnwà, Àjàyí Crowther, Adébáyọ̀ Fálétí, Akínwùmí Ìṣọ̀lá, Ọládẹ̀jọ Òkédìjí, Túbọ̀sún Ọládàpọ̀, Láwuyì Ògúnníran, Bámijí Òjó, Adébóyè Babalọlá, defined what we think about when we think of literature in Yorùbá. However, the Library only boasts a few publications by each of them. For instance, with Ọládẹ̀jọ Òkédìjí there are only Rẹ́rẹ́ Run Footnote ¹⁹ (1973) and Aájò AjéFootnote ²⁰ (1999). Other notable works of his, e.g. Àjà Ló Lẹrù,Footnote ²¹ are nowhere to be found.

The period between the 1940s and 1990s was a notable and productive time in Yorùbá creative writing and scholarship. Having left behind the 19^th century religious publications and the early 20^th-century experimentation in journalism and translations, from 1940 came a full creative surge, beginning with the political and cultural awakening on the march towards independence, followed by the high energy of post-independence writing and cultural assertiveness, and the eventual disillusioned zenith of the post-war, post-military 1980s.

This period includes many of the most prominent writers in Yorùbá, from D. O. Fágúnwà to Adébáyọ̀ Fálétí. Coincidentally it also includes the most important first generation Nigerian writers in English, beginning with Amos Tútùọ́lá whose first novel, Palm Wine Drinkard (1952), laid the path for what was to follow in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958) and Cyprian Ekwensi’s Jagua Nana (1961) among others.

This time, especially the early to late 1960s, also included a thriving art movement in Ìbàdàn and Òṣogbo often remembered under the name Mbari. The Mbari Club in Ìbàdàn and the Mbárí Mbáyọ̀ in Òṣogbo were centres of visual art renaissance. The work of Ulli Beier, discussed in my essay for the BL blog,Footnote ²² provides insight into the art movement of this time, as well as some of its literature. Wọlé Ṣóyínká, for instance, published some of his first short plays under the Mbari imprint. So did some non-Nigerians such as Dennis Brutus from South Africa who was, by then, in jail. The artists of the Mbari school were often creating in both English and their own languages. Mbari, after all, is an Igbo concept of art and renewal, and the Ìbàdàn-based club was co-founded by Achebe, Ṣóyínká and Ulli Beier, three writers in English with deep roots in their native cultures. But the Mbari movement, prominent as it was, could not account for all the creativity of the 1960s. At the same time as it was thriving, writers who did not (at least publicly) associate with the Mbari group were making their own names in their own spaces.

Daniel O. Fágúnwà (1903–63) is rightly considered the father of the Yorùbá modern novel because of his contribution to the genre with at least five original novels written in a style that draws heavily from fantasy, supernatural elements, folktale, idioms, and magical realism. His first novel, Ògbójú Ọdẹ Nínú Igbó Irúnmọlẹ̀ (1938) is also considered the first Yorùbá language novel, just like I. B. Thomas’s,Footnote ²³ but Fágúnwà’s claim rests mainly on the fact of his novel never having been first serialized in a newspaper, and its stylistic originality. He followed that first novel, which was widely acclaimed and has been translated into English by Wole Ṣóyínká as A Forest of a Thousand Daemons (1968), with Igbó Olódùmarè (‘The Forest of God’; 1949), Ìrèké Òníbùdó Footnote ²⁴ (1949), Ìrìnkèrindò Nínú Igbó Elégbèje Footnote ²⁵ (1954), and Àdììtú Olódùmarè Footnote ²⁶ (1961).

Other novelists of note in the Yorùbá language include Adébáyọ̀ Fálétí, Ọládẹ̀jọ Òkédíjí, Akínwùmí Ìsọ̀lá, Lánrewájú Adépọ̀jù, Láwuyì Ògúnníran, Afọlábí Ọlábímtán, Ọlágòkè Òjó, Olú Owólabí, Túnjí Ọ̀pádọ̀tun and Kọ́lá Akínlàdé, among others. Fálétí was mostly a poet and playwright, though he wrote one or two novels as well. Òkédìjí was primarily a novelist, with dozens of works to his credit.

A list of some notable Yorùbá titles currently at the BL, and some of the missing titles from each author, is included in the Appendix to this article.

The writers were all men. Yorùbá literature has been male-dominated. The records at the BL reflect this. And though women are now extremely well represented in modern literature in English (and in Nigerian literature-in-English) across the world, this has not been the case for Yorùbá writing.

There are a few authors whose works are documented in the catalogue but who either did not publish more than one title, or who just happened to show up only once in the record. They include Délé Adégbèmí, Débọ̀ Àwẹ́, Elijah Ọlákànmí, Ọlálékan Oyèkọ́lá, Lásún Adéwọlé, Adéfúnkẹ́ Fámojújọ etc. Some, like Àrìnpé Adéjùmọ̀, did not show up at all.

Notable Yorùbá short stories

The reputation of a writer like D. O. Fágúnwà in Yorùbá language/literature history usually rests on his five notable novels. But aside from the novels, Fágúnwà and many of his contemporaries wrote short stories, some of which were published as pamphlets, and many of which are now at the BL. Here are some of them:

• Òjó Asọ̀tàn (Òjó the storyteller)

• Ońjẹ fún ohun ọ̀sìn (Food for pets)

• Mímúra ìpàdé (Meeting preparations)

• Babaláwo ńdá ifá fún Ọba (The priest is divining Ifá for the king)

• Àjọyọ̀ àríyá fún erin pé ó ńlọ jọba lé orí ènìà (Celebration for the elephant on its way to become king over humans)

• Alágogo ńmúra ilé (The ringer of bells prepares to go home)

Academic and research

I found some relevant historical academic research publications on Yorùbá in the collection, from proceedings from the Ọdúnjọ Memorial Lectures of the late 1990s to academic papers and language monographs published on relevant subjects in Yorùbá research.

Examples are The Early Study of Nigerian Languages (1967) by P. E. H. Hair; Bilingualism: an inaugural lecture delivered on Foundation Day, November 14, 1978 by Paul Christopherson; Yorùbá Othography (1965) and Yorùbá: a language in transition (1986) by Ayọ̀ Bámgbóṣé; Ìdàgbàsókè Ẹkọ́ Ìmọ̀ Ìjìnlẹ̀ Yorùbá (The growth of deep Yorùba studies), from the J. F. Odunjo Memorial Lectures, 1988, among others.

The 1980s to date

I speak often of the period of Yorùbá language publishing from the late 1980s to the present as one that has been marked by a dearth of new work by writers in the language and notably by the absence of publishing houses dedicated to publishing in Yorùbá.

There are historical (and economic) reasons for this. In the 1980s the Nigerian economy took a nosedive, leading to the exit of many of the big publishers from the market, some through bankruptcy – a progression from earlier exits conditioned by nationalization of the publishing industry and capital flight on the part of earlier colonial publishers like Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press. Military rule also played a role both in the economic dimension (people would rather spend money on food than on books) and on the civil and political environment in which people were more reluctant to put their names to controversial fiction or poetry for fear of death or disappearance.

The economic issues obviously did not affect only Yorùbá language publishing output. Many English language writers from Nigeria fled the country to Western universities where they continued to publish. But for the English language environment, it was just a temporary lull. In 2003, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie launched a new generation of writers with her debut novel Purple Hibiscus, and the industry has continued to grow. It has not been the same with Yorùbá language publishing, where the few books one finds on the shelves are mostly self-published. The critical industry that sustained the work of Fágúnwà, Délànọ̀, Ògúnníran, etc. is no longer there, disappearing either because of economic issues or a dwindling readership as demand shifted to literature in English.

I cannot say for sure if the problems in Nigerian language publishing are mostly a matter of readership attitude or rather mostly a conscious (economic or otherwise) decision by the publishing gatekeepers to stop publishing. What is obvious is that over the years output began to decline. The readership declined, too, setting up a vicious cycle. Without a supporting industry of writers, editors, publishers, PR people, reviewers, readers, conferences, and other relevant support from educated society, there is no publishing industry. The English language publishing industry continues to enjoy these forms of support in Nigeria while local language publishing continues to decline, even though there likely remains the same number of literate readers in both languages. This will continue to change in favour of English in the coming years.

Many writers who happen to hold academic posts continue to use their university platforms to self-publish Yorùbá language books, or publish them through the university press. But these books are usually academic or lexicographic tomes, like Adébóyè Babalọlá’s A Dictionary of Personal Names (2003). I cannot point to any breakout fiction, drama, or poetry collections in Yorùbá today comparable to what Fágúnwà, Fálétí or Ọládàpọ̀ wrote and published in their heydays.

The issues of tone marking and search

Yorùbá, being a tonal language, depends on tone marking to disambiguate words. This means that a wrongly-placed tone mark can totally change the intended meaning of the words. This proves to be an interesting challenge while looking through a collection that spans the entire stretch of the Yorùbá publishing industry, from the earliest days of the writing script when there was no uniform standard of writing to the present after at least two orthography updates, and an internet age that has not properly empowered the writing of the language on computer systems. The first challenge was accepting that items have been catalogued with incomplete and sometimes incorrect tone marks as originally published by the author, for example one by Bakare Gbadamosi (1961) published as ‘Oriki. Ti a kojọ́ lati ọ́wọ́ Bakare Gbadamọṣi. (A si ya awọn aworan rẹ̀ lati ọ́wọ́ Susanne Wenger.)’. Any literate Yorùbá reader can immediately tell that not only are words supposed to be tone marked (oríkì, láti, Bákàrè, etc) left unmarked, but the words that are marked carry the wrong tone notations (ọ́wọ́ instead of ọwọ́; kojọ́ instead of kọ́jọ).

The BL follows international cataloguing rules, which state that the 245 field should show the title exactly as found in the original. The 246 field can then be used for a parallel title, in this case a corrected one. I had hoped to create the 246 field for all of the titles with the wrong or incomplete diacritics, but time was not sufficient. It is a possible work project for a future fellow or researcher.

Some examples of this type of problem can be found in Table 2, with original and corrected titles.

Table 2:

Orignal and corrected titles

The way some names are written has evolved over time. For instance, the writer Sóbọ̀ Aróbíodu’s name on an earlier book of his work, Footnote ³⁷ published in 1906, had his name written as Ṣóbọ̀ Aró-bí-odu. The author’s name is linked to a name authority file which should give a standard agreed format to be used by cataloguers.

The second, more intractable, challenge was dealing with entries with diacritics wrongly placed in the process of cataloguing because of inadequate software. The BL cataloguing system is restricted to certain trusted software in order to avoid vulnerabilities. Unfortunately for me, these are established mainstream applications that favour already well-resourced languages of the world (English, German, French, Arabic, Mandarin, Hebrew, etc.) and not African languages like Yorùbá. The YorubaNames tone marking softwareFootnote ³⁸ could correct many of these errors. I have written about this problem in the past, with reference to a new writing system Ndebe.Footnote ³⁹

It is very likely that when many of these earlier works were catalogued, Yorùbá characters were written by combining Latin vowels with symbols, placed either below the vowels or above them. Things have changed a lot since then; for vowels with dots underneath them, there are now pre-composed vowels that can be typed with modern keyboards, removing the need for individual application. And so, letters like ọ and ẹ and ṣ no longer need an extra stroke to add the dots (or ‘lines’ as they were in those days). They are just typed directly, thanks to new advances in computer script making. I was instrumental in some of this, through the Yorùbá Names Keyboard Project in 2016.Footnote ⁴⁰

What this meant for the BL catalogue was that cataloguers had to improvise while writing Yorùbá texts that needed tone marks or sub dots, which are not always available on Unicode. The result of this is that several of the works in the record have titles that do not bear faithful resemblance to the text on the item itself. To the lay observer, the texts are the same. But to a Yorùbá reader, ‘Imọlẹ̀ rẹ̀’ and ‘Imọlẹ ré’ are not the same. The work on which this mistake was made in the record is Ifá by Alufa E. M. Lijadu from 1901.Footnote ⁴¹ There are many other items like this.

In some instances, the mark is used appropriately, but then jumps around due to the changing technology. The sub dot diacritic which used to be accepted/written as a vertical line under the vowel has been changed to the dot. Some entries have both the problem of wrong diacritic markings and jumping diacritics due to inadequate technology.

So today, all entries with names like Iwé kikà ȩkȩrin li ède Yoruba need to be normalized as Iwé kikà ẹkẹrin li ède Yoruba without compromising the printed title of the book. (The changes here are the ẹ.) Likewise Iwe ko̩mo̩nwe keji… which should now be Iwe kọmọnwe keji… (the change is on the ọ).

But the titles, even with diacritic normalization, are also still not properly written because of incomplete tone mark use and old orthography. So I recommend that modern orthography, and proper tone marking, be put in the 246 field as well, if possible, to read Iwé kikà ẹ̀kẹrin ní ède Yorùbá (the proper diacritics have been added, and a word normalized to modern writing) and Ìwé kọ́mọńwèé kejì… respectively.

A related challenge comes with searching. It turns out that unless one is absolutely exact with the search terms, one will not come across the right work. For instance, the author Ṣóbọ̀ Aróbíodu has been published under both ‘Sobo Aro-bi-odu’ and ‘Sóbọ̀ Aróbíodù’, but searches on BL Explore with either of these terms bring out different search results. This is one more reason to ensure that the 246 fields contain the appropriate spellings and modern orthography as a benefit for future researchers.

Yorùbá orthography and the future

As a coda to the fellowship year, I helped coordinate a webinar on the subject of Yorùbá orthography, looking at current problems and proposing solutions for the future. It was held on 2–3 September 2020, and featured panelists including Karin Barber, Túndé Adégbọlá, Adélékè Adéẹ̀kọ́, Adéọlá Àrẹ̀mú, Mosúnmọ́lá Adéọjọ and Carli Coetzee.Footnote ⁴² Some of the issues facing Yorùbá language writing and publishing – especially for modern times – were addressed there.