By Samuel Sunday
Professor Timothy Akanbi, the inaugural lecturer
A professor of linguistics, Timothy Adeyemi Akanbi, has sounded the alarm on the impending extinction of the Yorùbá language, attributing the threat to neglect by parents, schools, and government policies.
Akanbi gave the warning while delivering the 101st inaugural lecture of the Ekiti State University, Ado Ekiti, titled “Language: A Structural and Aesthetic Exposition of Human Language The Yorùbá Example.”
The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Joseph Ayodele with the inaugural lecturer
According to Akanbi, the Yorùbá language is fighting a two-front battle: in homes and in government policies. Many parents discourage their children from speaking Yorùbá at home, preferring English, even when they lack fluency themselves. This, he said, has led to children speaking neither good English nor proper Yorùbá.
Akanbi also criticized the education system, noting that pupils in several primary schools face punishment or ridicule for speaking their mother tongue. He said this stigmatization, often labeling Yorùbá as “vernacular,” discourages students from using their own language.
The professor condemned the reversal of Nigeria’s National Language Policy, which removed mother-tongue instruction from early education, citing research showing that children taught in their native language perform better academically than those taught strictly in English.
To save Yorùbá, Akanbi recommended practical steps, including making Yorùbá compulsory in primary and secondary schools across the South-West, reintroducing mother-tongue instruction, publishing more Yorùbá textbooks, encouraging parents to speak Yorùbá at home, and requiring a credit pass in Yorùbá for university admission via West African Examinations Council and National Examinations Council.
Vice-Chancellor Joseph Babatola Ayodele praised the lecture as insightful and engaging, highlighting Akanbi’s use of Yorùbá proverbs, idioms, and rhymes.
He also revealed that the university has launched an online programme to help Yorùbá indigenes in the diaspora reconnect with their language.
