…says Yariba” is not a word— and doesn’t mean anything
By David O Royal
Farooq Kperogi, an Associate Professor of Journalism & Emerging Media at Kenne Saw State University, in a recent publication he made on twitter countered the former minister aviation, Femi Fan-Kayode for saying that he is not Yoruba.
Farooq Kperogi
You would recall that Fani Kayode had rejected the name “Yoruba” in one of his twitter publications on twitter, stating clearly that he is not Yoruba.
In his words ” “I reject that strange name and label. I am not a “Yariba” or “Yoruba” but an “Omo Karo Jire” or an “Oduduwan”. (READ FULL STORY HERE)
However, Farooq has in his publication titled “Fulani Did NOT Invent “Yoruba” and “Yamuri” countered Kayode’s statement.
The publication reads: “Femi Fani-Kayode was reported to have said that he isn’t “Yoruba” because “The name ‘Yoruba’ derives from ‘Yariba’ and it means ‘shady and unreliable’” in d Fulani language.
“That’s not true. The name “Yoruba” was first attested in a treatise by a 16th-century Songhai scholar by the name of Ahmad Baba al-Massufi al-Timbukti to refer to the people of d ancient Oyo Empire, which included present-day Oyo and Osun states—and parts of Kwara and Lagos states.
“The name was adopted and adapted by Muhammad Bello (who later became the Sultan of Sokoto). He referred to Oyo people as “Yariba” in his article on the Oyo Empire. In time, Yariba became the word by which Hausa people called the people of Oyo.
“The people didn’t have a common collective name for themselves; they self-identified by such names as “Oyo,” Ogbomosho,” “ife,” “Ijesa,” “Igbomina,” etc. It was Samuel Ajayi Crowther, a returnee slave who claimed to be descended from Yoruba people, who in the 19th century actively worked to encourage the amalgam of related linguistic groups in western Nigeria to adopt the name “Yoruba” as their endonym. So an exonym (name given to a people by others) was adopted as an endonym (name by which a group self-identifies) through the instrumentality of an outsider who made himself an insider.
“Yariba” is not a word— and doesn’t mean anything in either the Fulani language (also called Fulfulde) or the Hausa language. Nor does it mean anything even in Songhai, as I’ll show in my Saturday column.
“By the way, the Fulani don’t refer to themselves by that name, either. That’s the Hausa exonym for them.
They call themselves by some version of “Fulbe.”
“Hausa” itself, interestingly, is not native to the Hausa! It’s the Songhai word for “southerner.” And “yamiri”? It’s also not a Fulani word. It’s a relatively recent Hausa word for the Igbo, and it’s derived from an imitation of mmiri, the Igbo word for water.
“During the Civil War, Hausa soldiers reported Biafrans as universally asking for “mmiri,” which sounded to their ears as “yamiri.” In time, it became the name for the people.”
Fulani Did NOT Invent “Yoruba” and “Yamuri”–THREAD
Femi Fani-Kayode was reported to have said that he isn’t “Yoruba” because “The name ‘Yoruba’ derives from ‘Yariba’ and it means ‘shady and unreliable’” in d Fulani language. That’s not true. The name “Yoruba” was first attested— Farooq Kperogi, Ph.D (@farooqkperogi) October 22, 2019
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