Every nation of the world has its culture or tradition of naming her new born baby. Among the white race, their style of naming is quite different from that of the Africans .A white man can name his child, Stone, Wood, Green, White, Wall and what have you. With the Africans, especially Nigeria and Yoruba race in particular; names given to children at birth are very significant and depend on the circumstances at birth.
In Yoruba grammar, a name can be spelt as the bearer of such name wants it. For example, the name-Abimbola can also be spelt Abinbola,Olayiwola can be spelt Layiwola without altering their meanings. This applies to a host of other Yoruba names. The examples of Yoruba names given above and their orthography(spelling) have meanings in relation to the circumstances of birth or lineages such people originated from. Their spellings notwithstanding, have not altered the meanings attached to them and they are not ambiguous or misleading.
To go to the pre-occupation of this piece, something ugly, demeaning and frustrating has crept into the way Yoruba people spell their names nowadays. They have changed the original and generally acceptable way of spelling Yoruba names which will portray them as Yoruba people. We don’t know what is the matter with these set of people, who still believe that until they interpolate English alphabets into their Yoruba names, they are not yet civilized. The question is –Is this civilization or self imposed colonization?
The alarming rate at which these Yoruba people change their names at will especially on facebook, twitter, etc is too worrisome. Please go through the following to see how insulting and misleading the spellings are: OLUWAFEMI- changed to-HOLLUWAPHEMY,OPEYEMI to-HORPEYYEMMY, ABOSEDE to-HABOZEDEY,OLADAYO to HAWLERDAYOH, the list is in exhaustive.
The above Yoruba names put in English spellings are not only wrong, but misleading not only to the young Yoruba folks but to foreigners interested in the language. It is too misleading to Yoruba folks who are just getting to understanding the Yoruba language and how names are correctly spelt.
Where are we heading to in Nigeria about our culture? What is wrong with these set of Yoruba people who had thrown away our culture and language for the foreign one? An Englishman or woman would rather acquire a Yoruba name instead of bastardizing it. A glaring reference is the late Yoruba culture Icon, SUZAN WENGER. Because of the affinity and respect she had for Yoruba culture, allowed herself to be called ‘’Adunni Orisa’’.
Yoruba language is gradually going into extinction viz-a-viz her culture and these set of people are not helping matters. They are enemies of culture and Yoruba race in particular.
China, is one of the fastest growing countries in the world in terms of technology.Yet, they use their indigenous languages as language of instruction in their schools. The same can be mentioned of Japan, one of the highly industrialized countries in the world. What is wrong with Nigerians? We don’t value what we have but prefers looking outside. It is high time the language experts and the education ministry did something about this ugly trend .We should value our language and culture and not trying to be other people. We should desist from being English more than the English people. Those involved in mutilating our language should have a re-think.