“Soft and Melodious”- Let Linguists Worldwide Concur with Great Queen Victoria Volume 3 - Issue 5

Mister Seun Ayoade*

• Independent Researcher. Alumnus, College of Medicine University of Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria

Received: March 17, 2021   Published: March 29, 2021

Corresponding author: Mister Seun Ayoade, Independent Researcher. Alumnus, College of Medicine University of Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria

DOI: 10.32474/JAAS.2021.03.000174

Abstract PDF

This is yet another appeal to linguists worldwide to rectify a longstanding blunder [1-3]. About a century and a half ago, Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther met The Empress of India in her palace. He recited The Lord’s Prayer to her in Yoruba. At the completion of the recital Queen Victoria said the Yoruba language sounded “soft and melodious” [4].

The Humming Drum is Tangible Evidence Yoruba is a Language Isolate

Physical evidence that Yoruba is a language isolate exists in the humming drum [gangan]. What is called the “talking” drum should actually be called the humming drum because that is what it actually does-it hums. It produces dohreh mi [drm] tonic solfa sounds. These drum sounds were used in the past for military signaling, panegyric, and of course for entertainment. So the way a person nowadays could hear a tune on the radio or a flautist playing “Yankee doodle” or “Happy birthday To You” and instantly name the song in a similar fashion those humming drums were used. Also leaders of Yoruba armies had their signature tunes much like the way World wr

Peruse the following from History of the Yorubas

“Having learnt how to make their instruments, they begin to learn how to SPEAK with them, an operation to which The Yoruba language readily lends itself, as it consists chiefly in the modulation of the voice; this the instruments try to imitate” [5].

“Earwitness” accounts from none other than The Empress of India, Queen Victoria herself and so many other explorers and missionaries from the past upon hearing The Yoruba Language, not to mention the heterephones all declare Yoruba to be a language isolate. What are today’s linguists waiting for?.

1. SeunAyoade (2018) Argument for The Reclassification of Yoruba as A Language Isolate. Peer Re J Foren& Gen Sci 2(4): 144-145.
2. SeunAyoade (2019) A Few More Heteronyms/Heterophones to Buttress the Argument that Yoruba is a Language Isolate. Ann SocSci Manage Stud 9(2): 555614.
3. SeunAyoade (2019) Homographic, Heterophonic and Heteronymic Evidence that Yoruba is a Language Isolate. Peer Re J Foren& Gen Sci 3(2): 186-189.
4. British Broadcasting Corporation, The Story of Africa.
5. (2001) History of the Yorubas from the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the British Protectorate, George Routeledge and Sons, London, 1921 CSS Nigeria ,p.121, 430, 432.