人权宣言 - Yoruba (Yorùbá)

总发言人数

按國家使用（官方語言）

Official Language: South West of Nigeria Home Speakers: Benin, Togo, Sierra Leone

背景

Yoruba, with the stress on the first syllable, belongs to the Kwa branch of the Niger-Congo family and is one of the three main languages of Nigeria. There are about 20 million speakers of the language in the south western part of Nigeria. It has about twenty dialects which show phonological and lexical differences. Some of these dialects are also spoken around the border of Nigeria and the Republic of Benin and part of Togo and Sierra Leone, or as a language of immigrants in Ghana and the Ivory Coast. As a result of the slave trade of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, the language has also survived in Cuba (where it is called Lukumi) and in Brazil (where it is called Nago). Aside from these various dialects, there is Standard Yoruba, which is used for educational purposes, (e.g., in the newspapers, on the radio, and in schools). This Standard form is understood by speakers of the various dialects.