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	YORÙBÁ

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Learn Yoruba		interested in learning the Yoruba
Alphabet		language. We on our own part are
Phonology		ready, able and willing to help
Morphology		you achieve your objective.
Orthography		Before we begin, we would like to
Readers' Club		first of all give you some pointers
	that will make your learning of
Buy Products		Yoruba on this website easy and enjoyable.
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	Firstly, Yoruba is a tonal language and as such its written form requires placement of the "acute" and "grave" intonation marks on the appropriate letters of its alphabet when indicated to give the correct meaning to any text document. This is essential for learning, but appears confusing to the beginner who sees the formidable array of acute, grave and other diacritical marks in a text and becomes discouraged. We have therefore developed a color-coding technique to facilitate recognition of the tonal structure of the language and alleviate this problem. Thus, syllables pronounced with a high tone (pitch) have an acute sign on the vowel are rendered in red, those spoken with a low pitch have a grave sign on the vowel are rendered in blue and those with a medium tone require no intonation sign and are rendered in green. This, with the time-honored "do-re-mi" musical notes familiar to generations of Yorubas learning the language combines to to give the beginner a very useful tool.
	dò - re - mí
	so, (YO - RÙ - BÁ - re - dò - mí )

	Secondly, the conventional (orthographically correct) way of writing Yoruba frequently differs from the way it is spoken. It is very common to add a terminal slur to some words in a sentence depending on its context. Thus: "Yoruba Language" is written as "Èdè Yorùbá" but pronounced "Èdèe Yorùbá" The extra "e" is necessary to lend fluency to speech. In order to make it possible to learn to speak Yoruba properly from reading Yoruba text and save the beginner from the error of developing "staccato speech", we have introduced an innovation to the written text. The extra vowel at the end of any word that has to be spoken with a terminal slur is indicated in *italics*, and the font size of just the letter reduced to draw attention to it. Thus: "Èdè Yorùbá", pronounced "Èdèe Yorùbá" we write as "Èdèe Yorùbá" We will try to add sound clips as much as possible to the Yoruba text on this site as time permits. In order to derive full benefits from what we have to offer it is recommended that you join our "Yoruba Readers' Club of North America". A password-protected section is currently being developed for members who will enjoy special privileges ( for a small fee) in their quest to learn Yoruba. Email the Webmaster for further details.