You can become fluent in Yoruba, just watch.
It’s baby steps at first, and then it becomes major accumulated gains. The most important skill you must master in learning Yoruba is confidence. You have to trust that your DNA knows how to speak this language. Relax and trust that the right sound will find it’s way out of you.
Do your best to engage with Yoruba on a daily basis. That might be through music, film, news, media but most importantly, speak to a Yoruba speaker as often as you possibly can.
Two of the students of the Yoruba Cultural Institute who did eventually become fluent in Yoruba did so by partnering with each other and speaking Yoruba with each other everyday. I was astonished by their commitment to learning this language. They came over for classes with Yetunde’s father sometimes multiple days a week.
Before you knew it, they were visiting Nigeria. One is now married to a Yoruba woman with whom he has children. He spends most of his time in Nigeria these days.
It’s stories like these that confirm for me that we can reclaim our identities successfully, and the powers that emanate from us when we are able to get in touch with that highest vibrational part of us are truly supernatural. We have access to a greater world through African language mastery.
This means scripts as well. We in the New World, y’all.
Here are some of the resources I promised to you all, our students of Learn Yoruba with GPT:
Yoruba Keyboard
There are many keyboards out there.
I have played with the below at different times in the past and I believe they worked ok. It’s nice to see that Keyman has been recently updated.
Egbo Yoruba Keyboard (iPhone)
Keyman Yoruba 8 Keyboard (macbook/imac)
Below is how I found out that my iphone had a Yoruba keyboard already. We weren’t able to find it on my daughter’s ipad tho.
GPTs I use
(I may add more below as I try them):
The Morpheme download will be available next week for $5.99
Ok. I’m thinking about using this page as a resource and coming back to drop things I find. Either that or I’ll create a Yoruba tag on the platform.
I’m resharing the alphabet and tone videos shared with the students on Sunday:
If you haven’t signed up for the next class yet, you can do so here.
Much love and talk soon,
Olori
