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National Research University Higher School of Economics Journal of Language & Education Volume 5, Issue 1, 2019
Dalamu, T.O. (2019). Decoding Encoded Yoruba Nomenclature: An Exercise of Linguistic Competence and Performance. Journal of Language and Education, 5(1), 16-28. doi: 10.17323/2411-7390-2019-5-1-16-28
Decoding Encoded Yoruba Nomenclature: An Exercise of Linguistic Competence and Performance
Taofeek Olaiwola Dalamu
Anchor University Lagos
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Taofeek Olaiwola Dalamu, Department of English & Literary Studies, Anchor University Lagos, Lagos, 1-4 Ayobo Road, Ipaja, Lagos, Nigeria.
E-mails: lifegaters@yahoo.com; tdalamu@aul.edu.ng
The proficiency of Yorùbâ users has influenced the formation of towns' names, which this study investigated, revealing their haphazard formation processes. Ten towns of Yorùbâ-land in Nigeria functioned as exploratory samples. Ellipsis, serving as the analytical instrument, elucidated the effectiveness of competence and performance, being operational in the clipping of statements to nominal lexemes. The study exhibited flexibility in the development of Yorùbâ names, influenced by users' needs. The historical facts of business, religion, hunting, war, and conquest supported the formations, without seemingly consistent linguistic principles. The study further revealed the deletion of linguistic components (JZè to n fè: = Ilé-Ifèi - a piece of land that expands), twists in pronunciations with a meaningless derivative (Ojà ko tà - business is not picking up = Ojôta), manipulation of English words to Yorùbâ (Bad agric = bà dà giri [Badagry]), and the production of novel lexemes-cum-meanings (AmûkokO - a person who catches a leopard = AmukOkO - someone who smokes his pipe). Although, individuals might attempt to regulate ways that people employ language to formulate words, the study suggested that language communicators should be allowed to deploy language as pleased. As language analyses seem descriptive, utilizing language as one wishes, might yield novel items which can enhance unique language development.
Keywords: arbitrariness, competence, ellipsis, language dynamism, performance
Various elements characterise the cosmic concept known as language. The universality of its features projects language to be different from other forms of animal communications. Chomsky (1972) rightly justifies and affirms that language is the essence of humanity. Perhaps, if language ceases to exist; human beings' existence might invariably be terminated from the Earth because it is a device that provides leeway for harmonious human existence. Among other variables that contribute to human existence, language seems a prime and significant device. Hence, Kuiper and Allan (1996) describe the properties of language in the form of a coded symbol, functional, arbitrarily creative, productively human, socio-cultural and culturally transmitted from one source to another. It is also a system of systems guided by rules and provides optional choices for its users (Dalamu, 2018c). Besides, one could further depict language as a unique phenomenon that is tense bound, substitutable with words, even with discrete phonemic substances. Language responds to changes any time as a response to its developments (Fromkin, Rodman & Hymas, 2003, p. 4-7; Adetugbo, 1997, p. 5-7). Similarly, Yorùbâ responds to fulfill the needs of its users in that regard. Consequently, the concept of nomenclature is worthwhile among Yorùbâ users (Adeoye, 1969). By nomenclature, the researcher refers to organised-cum-cultural manners in which Yorùbâ interactants in Nigeria produce the names of towns and places (Yusuf, Olatunji & Issah, 2014).
Owing to human communicative demands, certain Yorùbâ names and places have been modified from their original linguistic statuses to something novel (Oyelaran, 1987). In other words, those names have turned away from their initial appearances to assume new positions. The purpose of convenience, Oduyoye (1972) asserts, influences the changes that occur to the names and towns. First language speakers (L1) are at liberty to deploy
Intorduction
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
their language at will without a check from authorities or institutions.1 Such freedom-cum-exercise informs the formations and applications of new lexemes in the language's word stock, while some lexicons might also go into extinction (Jones, 1982). The relevance of this study is located in the arbitrary creativity that Yoruba speakers enjoy, producing universal acceptability. The product of such formative mechanisms demonstrates that the language is responding not only to changes but also to development (Pavlinov, 2015). Thus, this study analyses some modifications that occur to names of Yoruba places and towns accompanied by linguistic competence and performance. The argument exhibits how the competence of Yoruba speakers aids their performance to successfully recast referential and historical statements to their current situations. The literature review focuses on the Yoruba sources, codification and development, and terminologies of competence and performance. Ellipsis functions as the device for the analysis.
Yoruba's Source, Codification, and Development
Yoruba might not have an exclusive written history. McLaughlin (1970) recognizes that fact to comment that the search for the beginnings of language development is an unrewarding enterprise. It is always difficult to talk about beginnings in any serious way; it is much easier to talk about evolution at least somewhere in the middle. As such, the Yoruba linguistic history perhaps began somewhere in the middle of the 19th century. That refers to the changes that sparked its development. The study began late for a number of possible reasons. It could be that before the advent of Western traders there had been no reliable written records on Yoruba. It seems that colonial masters and missionaries introduced the Western education that propels tangible written records. Farming seemed more prominent in those days than Western education. Few Yoruba indigenes were able to cross the border of secondary education to obtain university degrees that could trigger research in the Yoruba language matters. The few who attended universities might not be interested in research in Yoruba with a formed-opinion that such might not be lucrative unlike their counterparts that studied English, Law, Medicine, Economics, Engineering, etc. Digging into Yoruba data might be cumbersome because the data available might be in the form of folklore, myths, or historical literature that are not written documents per se. Most of the Yoruba forefathers were not lettered in Western education before colonialism. However, ancient Yoruba people had their own different ways of keeping records. Notwithstanding, the Yoruba race has produced a number of scholars at home and abroad, who have been making significant marks on the development of the language. Beside Ajayi Crowther, who translated the English Bible into the Yoruba version, notable scholars have been observing the language from different perspectives and contributing their opinions to its credit. Among other scholars are Bamgbose, Ayo Banjo, Adetugbo, Ojo, Mustapha, and Oyetade.
Historical records report Yoruba as a Kwa language and one of the 12 Edekiri languages, which belongs to the Yoruboid group (Paul 2009) of Defoid languages of the Benue-Congo, Volta-Congo, and Atlantic-Congo under the Niger-Congo phylum.2 The Niger-Congo is the 1419th most spoken language of both the Central and South Africa (UCLA, 2014). The hallmark of Yoruba, in orthographical tones of three distinctions, forms high, mid, and low characteristic models. Adetugbo (1982) establishes that the high is marked with an acute accent (e.g. a), the low with a grave accent (e.g. a), and the mid tone usually left unmarked. These marks are usually placed on the vowels. In some circumstances the mid tone is indicated with a macron (UCLA, Language Materials Project, 2014). Furthermore, accounts specify that Yoruba is a dialect continuum that accommodates numerous distinct dialects (Bamgbose, 1966). The inherent demarcations in the Yoruba dialects, marked in the domains of its pronunciations, lexis, and grammar, Oyetade (1995) articulates, are designed after the Roman alphabet. The socio-cultural traditions of the Yoruba in the Diaspora inform the differences observed in the available spoken 'Yorubas.' The discovery of the Yoruba speakers being located, apart from south-west Nigeria, in Benin, Togo, UK, USA, the Caribbean - Brazil, Cuba, etc (Awoyale, 2008), might not have happened without colonialism and slave trade.
Despite the vileness of colonialism, its positive effects on the Yoruba language cannot be neglected. One of the gains of colonialism is the pioneering of the codification and studying of the Yoruba language grammar, Aku, in Sierra Leonean territory in 1849 (African Studies Institute, 2010). Odejobi (2005) claims that for a period of about ten years, the Western Region Ministry of Education set up academic groups to examine the Yoruba orthography in order to construct a worthwhile standard for the language. A significant outcome, Odejobi
1 Bloomer, A., Griffths, P., & Merrison, A. J. (2005). Introducing language in use: A coursebook. New York, NY: Routledge.
2 Central Intelligence Agency. (2009). The word fact book - Benin. Retrieved from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/bn.html
exemplifies, was achieved in 1966, which had a formidable impact. Since then, the effect has served as the hallmark of the standard form of Yoruba that is taught is schools for official engagements (Bamgbose, 1966; Afolabi, Omidiora & Arulogun, 2013). The codified Yoruba taught in schools today, Ojo (1977) argues, does not seem similar to any of the Yoruba dialects. This is on the grounds that no one Yoruba ethnic group could lay claim to its originality (Mustapha, 1987). The current Yoruba status is neutral and somehow synthetic. It could also be mentioned that the standard Yoruba does not totally depend on the popular Oyo dialect. The standard Yoruba is scholar made, scholarship oriented, and scholarship endowed.
The African Studies Institute (2010) reported that in 1819 Bowdich published the first Yoruba word list, which introduced the language to linguists. Nevertheless, a substantial Yoruba vocabulary did not appear until 1828 when Hannah Kilham published a collection of vocabularies from 30 African languages, most of which was gathered in Sierra Leone. By around 1843-1849, Yoruba had become one of the first West African languages to have a written grammar and a dictionary (UCLA, 2014). The 'Vocabulary of the Yoruba Language' by Samuel Ajayi Crowther was published in 1843. Further accounts explained (Owolabi, 1995; Ogunremi & Adediran, 1998; Salawu, 2004) that by 1859, a Yoruba newspaper appeared, and by 1875, an orthography for Yoruba had been created by the Church Missionary Society in Lagos, Nigeria. The first written Yoruba poetry was undertaken in 1905 by the prolific and popular writer Sobowale Sowande. By 1920, Yoruba literacy witnessed a rapid spread; and that period served as a facilitator for a steady flow of original Yoruba writing in both prose and verse. The movement to study Yoruba in the United States began in the 1960s as part of U.S. foreign policy initiatives to spread awareness of previously untaught or rarely taught languages (African Studies Institute, 2010; UCLA, 2014).
In the current terrain, there are scholars who have contributed immensely to the development of Yoruba. In sincerity, the study of Yoruba has moved a step forward from its grammatically and phonologicity to information technology applications. Current efforts of scholars are dominated by the cross-fertilisation of ideas especially where there is interplay between the Yoruba language and computational domains. The plausibility of Yoruba in(to) computational horizons is been investigated for possible applications. Of significance is the analysis of Kumolalo, Adagunodo, and Odejobi (2013) on the development of a syllabicator for Yoruba. The quest was borne out of the claim that Yoruba belongs to the cadre of under-resourced languages of the world (De Pauw, Wagacha, & De Schryver, 2007). The study shows Yoruba as a tonal language and a tool for automatic data processing; such quality could be adapted for speech processing technology (Kumolalo, Adagunodo, & Odejobi, 2010). Afolabi, Omidiora and Arulogun (2013) make another innovative effort congruent to computer applications. The attempt is to certify Yoruba as an apparatus for text-to-speech applications. Afolabi, Omidiora and Arulogun observe that Yoruba acceptability and usability to participants are overwhelming. To this end, this study, as a contribution to earlier efforts, reveals word-formation procedures of Yoruba towns and cities from a descriptive perspective, pinpointing ways that events such as war, business, etc. have influenced the formations.
Linguistic Competence and Performance
Noam Chomsky pioneered the concepts of linguistic competence and performance. Chomsky (1965) described linguistic competence as the perfect knowledge that the ideal native speaker-listener (e.g. a Yoruba speaker-listener) possesses in his/her language in a completely homogeneous speech community. An innate and internalised system of language rules, Chomsky (1965, p. 4) stressed, makes possible the untainted knowledge of the language. This is because the L1 naturally understands the tenets of the language from birth, distinguishing well-formed features from deviant ones. Thus, competence is a person's ability to create and understand sentences, including sentences that the individual has never heard before. 3 Competence also includes the person's knowledge of what are and what are not sentences of a particular language (Malmkjaer, 2004, p. 287; De Beaugrande, 1991, p. 150-151). An actual language user, in Chomsky's (1965) discernment, might not be perfect in constructing the language structures although the individual may have perfect linguistic competence. The reason provided is that language performance is somehow inferior to the knowledge of the language; it is mediated by memory limitations and distractions.
A speaker often seems to speak faster than he/she thinks because the speech may not keep pace with his/her linguistic competence, hence, the making of mistakes. It is added that performance is the innate speaker's actual deployment of the language. 'A difference is made between a person's knowledge of the language (competence)
3 Richards, J., Platt, J., & Weber, H. (1997). Longman dictionary of applied linguistics. London, UK: Longman.
and how a person uses the knowledge in producing and understanding sentences (performance)'.4 When two or more innate speakers-listeners of a particular language have recourse to debate on a particular subject, one could observe that there might be variations in the degree of performance. The variations provide room for labeling some people above-average public speakers. The linguistic performance of language users may fall short of competence because of random and characteristic blunders. Often, performance is a probable imperfect reflection of competence. Particularly, Radford (1988, p. 3) argues that the occasional slips of the tongue in people's everyday conversations do not mean that the individuals do not have a fuller understanding or fluency of their native language.
Theoretical Concept: Ellipsis
Modification of names (or words) can be realised through word formation processes. Word formation, in Yule's (1985) articulation, is a process where novel items are created from existing words through the processes of coinage, compounding, blending, clipping, backformation, conversion, acronym, derivation, and affixation (Okoro, 2006). Clipping, as a relevant term of this study, occurs in a word, multi-syllabic word or a clustering of linguistic contents so that the constructs can be reduced to a shorter form (Zapata, 2007). Some examples of clipping are: television = telly; brother = bro; professor = prof; Are you going tomorrow? = Going tomorrow?; You come = Come; Will you read in the night? = Read in the night?; I will be there in two hours = Two hours; You are silly = Silly. And Wálé = Wá sí ilé (return home), Sisé = Se isé (work), and Rérin ín = Rín erín (laugh) are illustrations of Yorubá instances.
Ellipsis is the theoretical concept with which the clipping modifications in Yorubá nomenclature - places and towns - are analyzed (e.g. Áwóri = awó ti ri = the portion where the dish/plate sinks). Pope (1998) explains that the omission of items implicitly understood by the audience is what is known as ellipsis, regularly operational in speeches. The basis is that fragmented structures, in Martin's (2002) manifestation, are effective when the listeners understand the structured text, and are capable of supplying the missing elements in order to link up the speaker's intended meaning. That position is a probable motivation for Pope (1998) to submit that ellipsis is common in about 95% of human interactions because it is much easier to communicate in speech than in writing for communication in speech is faster and immediate (Adetugbo, 1997).
Moreover, ellipsis is a punctuated cohesive device of several shapes in forming a structural unifying whole. Ellipsis, in Halliday and Hasan's (1976, p. 142) description, is substitution by zero. This term is a principle of brevity, economising textual structures (Cook, 2001, p. 171), a tool of sentential fragmentation (Carter & Nash, 2013, p. 260), a language user's fundamental power to punctuate a sentence (Myers, 1994, p. 54-5), and a kind of linguistic shorthand. Goddard (2002, p. 107) projects ellipsis as a deletion of core grammatical forms of subject, determiner, generic 'you' as well as the verbal content (Carter, 1997, p. 91). On that note, ellipsis is an act of removing parts of a linguistic substance of a word, a group, or a clause either of a simple appearance or a complex one for a convenient purpose. McGregor (1997, p. 328) argues that 'Ellipsis involves the omission of something which is actually there in a grammatical structure, presuming retrievable from the linguistic or extra-linguistic content. In my mind, two things are principal in ellipsis. The first is deletion. The second is recovery. Deletion is connected to the addresser's mission; while recovery is linked up to the addressee's goal. The interactant, for the purpose of familiarity, curbing time wastages, focusing the core value of the message, and avoiding textual superfluity, tends to remove parts of the statement.
The principle of ellipsis, Cook (2001) says, has some recognizable impacts on users, which are highlighted as the creation of conversational tones, the demonstration of shared knowledge, and the exhibition of social interest between the participants. The influence tends to build cordial relationships between the interlocutors, indicating an informal setting in the communication realm (p. 172-173).
The linguistic content of a sentence can be distributed into what is known as ranks.5 The rank scale is categorised into the following segments - morphemes, words, groups, group complexes, clauses, and clause complexes (p. 23). Owing to the sentential appreciation, Quirk and Greenbaum (1973) categorise the fragmentation into ellipsis dependent of linguistic content, ellipsis not dependent on linguistic content, ellipsis of auxiliaries and pro-forms, and ellipsis in coordinated clauses, etc. (p. 251-253, 261-267), whereas the classification of ellipsis, in Halliday and Hasan's (1976) sense, is a bit different from the former. This is because the categorisations
4 Ibid., p. 21.
5 Thompson, G. (2004). Introducing functional grammar. London, UK: Hodder Arnold.
are based on the three submissions of nominal ellipsis, verbal ellipsis, and clausal ellipsis. Under the normal, verbal and clausal ellipsis the descriptions of the others are sub-categorised. Nominal ellipsis operates within the confinement of the nominal group (nouns, pronouns, numeratives, epithets, deictic elements, etc.). Verbal ellipsis occurs within the verbal group (operator, polarity, modality, verbal lexis). Clausal ellipsis takes place within modal and prepositional elements, yes/no and wh-questions, indirect responses, etc. (see Halliday & Hasan, 1976, p. 147-222). Such functional positions have inspired the author to ask the following questions: How do Yorùbâ speakers naturally form words in the form of convenience? Can the innate formation processes be justified within the domain of word formation theorisation? Does the word formation processes follow a particular pattern or trend? What are the historical background(s) associated with the formation of Yorùbâ town names? Significantly, these will assist in informing readers about some of the contextual trends and revelations of word formation processes of Yorùbâ nomenclature.
Methodology
This study received inspiration from and was triggered by His Royal Majesty, Oba Enitan Adeyeye, Ojaja II, the Ooni of f - Oonirisa (a paramount Yoruba ruler). This investigation is a product of a statement that the Oba uttered in a live telecast some time in December 2015, after his coronation. The Ooni made known that Ile-Ifo means ile to nfe (as exemplified latter). The statement energised the author to conduct a simple research project on the underlying meaning of the names of other Yoruba places.
Participants
Forty-two individuals participated in the data collection exercise of the research. Thus, the participants could be classified into three distinct categories: the author, the guide/leader, and the narrators. Apart from the guide, who was just one person (Bonke), the narrators were 40 individuals, who preferred to remain anonymous. Bonke was about 36 years old, while the narrators' ages were between 70-80 years old in order to obtain accurate historical information about the towns. The choice of Bonke rested on her driving dexterity and impressive knowledge of the towns and cities of South West, Nigeria where the Yoruba people live (Bamgbose, 1966; Adetugbo, 1982). To reiterate, the 40 narrators were responsible for the histories of the selected towns.
Research Design
Following Litosseliti (2010), Patton (2015), and Dalamu (2017b), the sampling procedure was adopted as a means of making a suitable choice for data analysis. The sampling method permitted me to select 10 relatively handy numbers of towns from a large defined population of 20 towns (Nwagugo & Anumnu, 2003). The sampling technique enhanced the reduction of costs, speed of analysis, and discourse accuracy. The decision to select 10 towns was based on the matter of appropriateness, the nature of the formation, and meaning derivatives of the names of the towns. In that regard, I stratified and delimited the population of 20 names of towns into 10 parts, where one town was chosen from each unit.
Measures
The ten preferred towns, which operated as the strata in the investigation, functioned as illustrations of the production of names' modus operandi in South West, Nigeria. Being a Yoruba person, my knowledge of the language aided the choice of examining the word-formation processes of the towns. I already knew some information, though faint and unreliable, about the histories of the towns. Nonetheless, this research stimulated me to meet some elders, as a surveying exercise, in order to secure the true histories of the towns. I achieved my research goals through interviews, where writing materials such as notebooks and pens were utilised to jot down the information that the elders provided.
Procedure
In reference to the lexemic formation method as well as the meaning making potential, I categorised the names into 10 segments. As stated earlier, it was from each group that 10 names, according to their contents, served as the elements-cum-structures of analysis. The guide, who has been my 'partner in progress' in data collection,
collected an average of N20,000.00 ('N' is the sign of the Nigerian currency) from me as we travelled to places such as igbesa, Ogbomorn and Ilesa. However, the guide received only N10,000.00 as compensation for data collection within Lagos arenas. The funds were for car maintenance and meals. The 40 elders involved in the interviews donated their time to the project. Nevertheless, for reasons of comfort, appreciation, and pleasure, I spent about N12,000.00 to host a set of two elders in each town that we visited during the interviews. Seaman Schnapps®, classified as a drink for elders (Dalamu, 2017a), and other menu items were entertainment provisions for motivating the narrators. The need for concise histories necessitated the choice of two elders in each town. Truly, it was Bonke that located and organised the elders, who were community leaders and very versatile in the historical background of the selected towns.
After the presentation of data, as demonstrated in Table 1, below, in terms of 'statement', 'translation', and 'end product', the terminology of ellipsis (Napoli, 1996) negotiated through the linguistic notions of competence and performance (Chomsky, 1965; Malmkjaer, 2004) in an LI situation, was utilised to process the texts. I approached the results and discussions through word-formation patterns, theoretical connections, and viable historical contexts.6
Table 1
Transition of Yoruba statements into compressed names
STATEMENT TRANSLATION END PRODUCT
Ilè, tö n f A piece of land that expands Ilé-Ifè
Ojà kö tà Business not picking up Ojota
Igbo igi là Gaining blessings while searching for firewood Igbôgllà.
ogbörl Elémôsô, One who cuts Elemoso's head Ogbômôsô
ilè àwon olorîsà ti a sà s'ôtô, fun oris« bibo A place set aside for idol worshippers Ilésà
amu îkokô, ajeegun jeran. One who catches a leopard Amùkôkô
ègbé ôsà, Near the lagoon Igbesà
di ôpè, mu Hold on to opele (Ifa operational tool^ Döpemu
oni awùsa or ala wùsa. A place where walnuts grow Alausa
Bà da gî rî Bad agricultural area Badagry
Results and Discussion
Yoruba society influences, in many ways, the linguistic structures of the language that its speakers deploy to execute certain communicative projects. As mentioned earlier, one observes such functions in the manner that the names of Yoruba villages, towns, and places are formed. Thus, these discussions follow after the ways that social concerns have informed the structural contents and organisations of the formation procedures of the selected names and towns (Cooley, 1902; Mead, 1934). As one understands that traditional behaviours and language are interdependent (Kress, 1981), the notion of competence and performance has influenced the patterns of the Yoruba word formation practices.7 The methods, as explicated below, utilise ellipsis as an explanatory paradigm, revealing to readers the formation systems in the form of elimination, twisting and replacement, as associated with some historical facts. In that course, a whole new name emerges after a long time of conversational usages.
Ile-Ife
Ile, to nfe, refers to "a piece of land that expands". A Yoruba cultural connotation impinges on a belief that a piece of land expands, which could be contrary to logic, philosophy, and natural sciences. The view could have a link with the thought of Yoruba spiritual perception, seeing I/e-I/e, as their origin from where the race migrated to several locations to establish some villages (that tend to become towns) for the purpose of expansion (Bamgbose, 1986). The Yoruba nationality began to expand from the source, I/e-I/e, to many parts of the world. The structure, ile, to nfe, has been clipped by omitting certain linguistic elements to produce I/e-I/e, (Booij, 2007). The choice is a
6 Zapata Becerra, A. A. (2000). Handbook of general and applied linguistics. Merida, Venezuela: Trabajo de Ascenso sin publicar.
7 Thompson, G. (2014). Introducing functional grammar. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
result of removing to n from the middle of the entire structure to form Ile... Ife. For the reason of competence in the language, iis introduced to fe to become Ife. Then, the combination of the items Ile and f is what is popularly known as Ile-Ife, nowadays.
Ile-Ife, seems to be ambiguous in meaning. First, Ile-Ife, could mean "home of expansion" and second, "home of love", that is, Ile Ife (Yuzhannikova, 2015). Irrespective of one's school of thought, two of the potential constructs are culturally meaningful and perhaps appropriate (Gumperz & Cook-Gumpez, 2008). On the one hand, "home of expansion" goes along with the explanation that the new Ooni of f gave after his coronation ceremony. That thought seems sacrosanct for the knowledge of His Royal Majesty on the tradition of Ife, (the short form of Ile-Ife). In fact, the Royal Father is the custodian of the f traditional antiquities. On the other hand, an analyst could portray "home of love" as a strong feeling of caring that somebody has for another person. As much that there are no legislative principles that guide and protect the formation; it is not an understatement to say that ile: to n fe: has been clipped (Bauer, 1983; Nolda, 2014) to produce Ile-Ife,, the Yoruba cradle. Who knows whether in a couple of years, owing to the dynamic nature of language, Ile will be removed from Ile-Ife,, and only Ife, will be required for identifiable communication.
Ojota
Yoruba naming methodology is quite amazing, especially if one digs into the history as a para-historian (Akinnaso, 1980). An analyst might be led to believe that virtually every Yoruba name is a statement. That is why, a Yoruba person is first and foremost identified by his name. Nonetheless, Islam and Christianity have consistently influenced Yoruba names. Every name is syllabically meaningful, and perhaps, connected to a certain event (Owolabi, 1995). Oja ko ta illustrates the argument for being unconsciously systematically converted to Ojota, a town in Lagos State. As displayed in Table 1, above, oja ko ta means "business is not picking up." The historical background correlating to the statement might be that the place named Ojota was a market place in those days. However, farm produce and other invaluable items that were usually brought to be sold in the market could not be sold on time unlike other markets where similar goods were taken. In the course of time, while the language users employed oja ko ta in their daily conversations; it then turned to Ojota. Structural-wise, the clipping formation (Bauer, 2001) of the end product, Ojota, does not in any way follow any theoretical elliptical implement. Convenience dictates the process of formation.
In the statement, oja ko ta, oj is retained from the lexeme, oja (market), and ko is totally removed from the statement (Ajiboye & Armoskaite, 2015). An intrusive o is introduced to fall within the norm of the desire of the language users. The collapsibility of a and ko, and the introduction of o between the remaining element oj' and ta leaves us with Ojota. The structural formation goes thus: oj + o + ta = Ojota. The formation is a result of the vitality that one can expect from language. The product is trilling. Commendations go to both the language users and the characteristics of Yoruba that permit listeners to observe competence and performance in this way.
Igbogfla
Igbo igi la is the next item in this discourse. The statement means "prosperity comes in search of firewood." History has it that a hunter left a place where an individual had been sojourning for a long time in search of firewood. Fortunately for the hunter, the person came across a river, and then the individual decided to establish himself and family near the river. Thus the hunter abandoned his former domain where enough water was not available. That singular act was to the hunter remarkable and a blessing. The water that the hunter saw while in search of firewood became a source of comfort. The individual had no intention of looking for a river, but the search for firewood pushed him to gain an advantage. The activity Igbo igi became a privilege, la (prosperity) for the individual. The clipping system (Arnoff, 1976) indicates that only i is deleted from the middle lexeme, igi and remains 'gi. The lexeme igbogila, is then produced from the combination of Igbo + 'gi + la. igbogfla is a town in Egbado North, Ogun State, Nigeria. In the final production of the name, the sound no longer reflects the meaning. It has become artificial (Okanlawon, 2017). Except for those who are enlightened regarding the historical details of the town, it is a great task to decode the real meaning from the pronunciation of the name. The meaning is (by tone mark) igbogila, however, it is pronounced Igbogila.
Ogbomoso
Ogbomoso, a renowned town in Oyo State, is produced from the clipping exercise that ogbori Elemoso underwent.
Ogbori Elemoso could be translated as someone who carries the head of Elemoso. The profound meaning is perhaps somebody who succeeded in defeating the people's enemy at war (as in the case of David and Goliath in the Holy Bible), cut off the head, and showed it to the fowls of the earth. In Yoruba history, two warriors were engaged in a fight that lasted for some seasons. The more popular between the two was Ele,mo,so, a cunning warrior. Unfortunately, Elemoso was defeated by his antagonist. The antagonist cut off Elemoso's head after the fight and showed it to the people (Chernow & Vallasi, 1993; Gecas & Burke, 1995). The place where Elemoso's head was shown to the people is called ogbori Elemoso. The name is in honour of the killer of Elemoso. It is quite unfortunate that the name of the triumphant warrior is not renowned unlike his act of conquering the enemy, Elemoso. Ogbomoso's word is produced by linguistic shorthand (Haspelmath, 2002) through the removal of ri from the first text, ogbori and retaining ogbo'; and Ele is also deleted from the textual element of Elemoso to remain 'moso. The addition of ogbo + moso = Ogbomoso. In the onomastic outcome, the sound still reflects the earlier intended meaning of ogbori Elemoso.
Ilesa
What is known in Yoruba land as Ilesa today was coined from ile: awon olorisa and by extension, it was ile: olorisa. That is ile[ awon olorisa ti a sa soto, fun orisa bibo. The two statements could be interpreted as "a piece of land separated for worshippers of deities." The idol worshippers that numbered about seven, happened to be powerful people, that were not entitled to become kings (Rymes, 1996). Their sole function informed setting aside a piece of land for the priest, without the interruption of the people, to be conveniently performing spiritual rites. The situation of these idol worshippers in the Yorubaland could be compared to the British Colony, Australia, where convicted criminals were kept and managed (Jackson & Ze Amvela, 2003, p. 124) that later turned into a country of fortune that accommodates responsible people and erudite intelligentsia such as: Halliday, Hasan, Matthiessen, Yallop, etc. Although ile: awon olorisa is longer and more meaningful, courtesy demands that the convenience of the people should be fundamental. Therefore, the statement was clipped to Ilesa. The structural outcome of Ilesa is found in the brevity principle (Kelley, 2006) by the removal of awon olori from the statement. However, the first word, ile in connection with the last component 'sa of the last word olorisa is considered for the production of Ilesa. Meanwhile, the original ile: (land) has turned to ile (house) in the current realization. The twist might serve as a means to achieve expediency.
Amukoko
Amukoko is the name of a town in Lagos State. By listening to the pronunciation of Amukoko, a different meaning is deducible from the way that the town is pronounced nowadays. The current pronunciation will sound like "someone who smokes his pipe". Nevertheless, the true semantic derivation of the lexeme Amukoko is "a person who catches a leopard." The Yoruba original word is amu ikoko. This investigation mirrored earlier findings that language is lively; as time goes on and human beings grow, language also grows and changes (Okoro, 2006). Amu ikoko (hunter) is a good example of a language change that has been turned to Amukoko (smoker). The lexemic fragmentation is not too huge. Two things occurred in the word-formation process. One the i in ikoko is ellipted. Two, both amu and ikoko are clipped together as a single word (Katamba & Stonham, 2006). What is known as Amukoko in Lagos today is a derivative of amu ikoko, ajeegun jeran. A leopard is characterised as a special animal that eats both the bones and flesh of animals.
igbesa
Yoruba seems to be a language that does not construct texts just for structure's sake. Despite that normative quality, our forefathers were not well-lettered in Western education, meanings of phenomena seemed so important to ancient Yoruba people. One observes such behaviours in several constructs of the language. For instance, names in Yoruba are traditionally customised and socially conjectured (Akinnaso, 1981; DePaulo, Kenney, Hoover, Webb & Oliver, 1987). igbesa as an Awori town was fabricated along that line. igbesa was a product of egbei osa, which means 'by the side of the lagoon.' The implication of the name evolved because of a river that has been linked to the Lagos lagoon and by its side a dwelling was established. The tradition is embedded in the relationships between the river and settlement. The writer notices the social conjecture of igbesa in the arbitrary substitution of e in egbe: for an intruder i (Blumer, 1969). The swap turns egbe: to igbe. One also observes that o in osa removed, leaving only 'sa. The combination of the lexemes igbe and 'sa obtains the morphological realization of igbesa. Arbitrariness of this creativity is in the manner in which words are haphazardly substituted, where one linguistic component gives way for another to replace it (Dalamu, 2018a; 2018e).
Dopemu
Di ope, mu is a statement that turns to Dopemu after a continuum, non-spatial usage among the Yoruba speakers. This construction acknowledges an established fact in the linguistic domineering world that one cannot totally separate the culture of the people from their language. This is equivalent to the Sapir-Wholf hypothesis of linguistic determinism (Yule, 2016). One could only trace the recurring change from di ope, mu to Dopemu. However, its conversion validity might be difficult to formalise. The date people began to call it Dope,mu might not be unravel-able, nonetheless, one is only sure that the novel lexeme emanated from di ope, mu. An analyst might posit that di ope, mu is an ambiguous statement (Denham & Lobeck, 2013). The ambiguity resides in the central word ope,. Two meanings evolve here. One, ope, in the Egba dialect means "palm tree." If one goes by that, di ope, mu would mean "hold on to palm tree." The second version that seems more relevant, meaningful, preferable, and practical is to consider ope, as a short form of opele. Without being clipped, opele relates to the Ifa oracle in Yorubaland, which is a prophetic device in the custody of an Ifa priest (Pogoson & Akande, 2011). Opele is a nonliving device (but spiritually living) that assists to unknot future events to the people, who care to know about the future through Ifa. Opele goes further to proffer solutions (remedies) to sorrowful, hardship situations, and unforeseen circumstances that traumatise the people (Adegbindin, 2014). In this vein, di ope, mu means "hold on to Ifa oracle" probably in terms of its prophetic truth, service or worship. Descendants of Ifa worshippers bear names such as this. This willy-nilly word-formation is simple because it is only the i that supports the lexeme di, which has been taken away, leaving the organ as d'. The d' + ope, + mu combinatory utility produced Dope,mu as its result.
Alausa
The unpredictability of Yoruba lexemic formation has also touched the statement oni awusa. A native speaker can understand Oni awusa as ala wusa. Discussants have deduced and earmarked two potential meanings from Alausa. These forms are: (i) the owner (possessor) of walnuts; (ii) a place where walnut trees grow. Thus, the author will not considerably flex his muscles on either of these options because a number of debates have been held via the local electronic media on the matter and tangible corrections have been made several times that Alausa is a place where walnut trees grow and yield fruits. Still on the same line of thought, it is pertinent to state clearly that language is for the people to communicate with one another and not a reversal of it (Dalamu, 2018b). So, that persuasion allows people to dictate forcefully what language is, and operations that the language is meant to perform for interactants. The original meaning of Alausa - a place where walnut trees grow - has been hijacked and overturned through the pronunciation currency, which provides different meanings in its entirety (Okoro, 2006). Now, it is Alausa. This means as a place where the Hausas (a nationality in Nigeria) live or Hausa's abode.
The purpose of studying an event, one can quickly submit, is to have its understanding in order to see how it could positively affect the lives of the people (Swale, 1990). Language concerned institutions ought to let individuals utilise the language the way people want the language to be disseminated, most especially, when such communication contains neither grammatical infelicities nor syntactic errors (Sofola, 1970; Fayeye, 2006). Moreover, what those places are called today does not have a negative effect on the people or on the cities. Languages and discourse communities do not exist as such, as Halliday, Teubert, Yallop, and Cermakova (2004) remark, language and linguistic geography are social constructs. Interactants construe language to suit particular purposes (p. 114). People in authority should allow the liberty of 'the freedom of speech' to thrive in Yoruba nomenclature. There is no amount of correction in the media that can change the people's will concerning their social discourse of interaction and relationship constructions. It is very significant to understand that there is no formula in the world that can compel people to agree on what a language is and what a language community is. It is up to language users to design formulas in agreement with their intentions, experiences, and what seems useful at a given time (ibid., p. 115). There is a need to learn from the challenge that the restrictive legislation of French and Italian languages has posed on their spread, especially when compared to the global spread of English (Jackson & Ze Amvela, 2003, p. 28). The global hegemony of English in world affairs (Dalamu, 2018d) could not have been achieved, perhaps, if not for the application of the Feyerabend Principle of 'anything goes' (Feyerabend, 1970, p. 10). There is wisdom in allowing people to do things in a naturally convenient way; such liberty of communication, in Yule's (1985) sense, could yield remarkable results.
Badagry
A historical report states that the place Badagry is neither an English nor Yoruba token. Badagry is rather a grotesque formation emanated from the two languages (Liseli, 2012). During colonialism in Nigeria, the place was tagged as bad land for agricultural production and in short realised as "bad agric area." The Yoruba speakers, who might not have the English grammatical ethos and ability to realise the place as "bad agricultural area", attempted to convert the same statement to ba da giri. There is elliptical fragmentation in the annihilation of "c area" from "bad agric area" to have bad agri. The nature of Yoruba morphology pinpoints the constant romance of consonant with vowel (Olmsted, 1951). That is, VCV, CVCV, VVCV, CVV, CV, etc. except in situations of m, n, gb and kp, hence, the introduction of i between the consonants g and r, which produces giri to listeners. The clipping of ba da giri together after the processes of substitution by zero (Halliday & Hasan, 1976) and the introduction of i produced badagiri, that is ba + da + gi + ri = badagiri. The continuum usages of badagiri in both spoken and written language emerged as Badagry, without relevant meaning to the lexicon's employment today. The analyst could add that Badagry in its appearance is undertoned in both English and Yoruba. Bada is Yoruba, while gry is English. Gry cannot locate a functioning zone in Yoruba phonology; the structure cannot take Yoruba tone mark because three consonantal elements might not function in Yoruba consonant cluster without an intrusive vowel sound. Gry, in relation to English, is graphologically possible and phonologically realisable. Looking at the lexeme's phonology, there is gry as /gri:/ (Roach, 1991, p. 67-74; Clark & Yallop, 1995, p. 67-9; Adetugbo, 1998, p. 68-75). This comparative brevity shows that the construct, Badagry, seems to emanate from the Yoruba-English distortion capability.
Conclusion
The study has discussed Yoruba nomenclature as an arbitrary social phenomenon. Convenience informed the capricious principles witnessed, nonetheless, leading to language growth and development, as recapitulated in the following expressions. One, observations indicate a form of clipping exercises in the ten names examined. Clipping operates in the form of fragmentation and deletion of linguistic components from the middle. Examples are in Ile-f (Ile. Ife), igbogila (igbo ... gila), and Ilesa (Ile... sa). igbesa is exceptional to this recurrent behaviour because clipping through punctuation occurs from the first linguistic facility and the middle. That is (...gbe... sa). Two, as some linguistic structures are chopped up, others have attracted novel elements to the constituents in order to yield meaningful results. The instances are: Ile ... [ife, (with the introduction of letter i), Oj [o,]ta (with the introduction of letter o) and [i]gbe ... sa (with the introduction of letter i).
Three, there are twists and zigzaggedness in the pronunciation of some of the formations as identified with tone marks, as observed in Igbogila to igbogila, oja ko ta to Ojota, and Alausa to Alausa. Four, although, the historical undertone of Ile-f might be illogical for scientific evidence, the other analysed towns have historical records. Traditional beliefs project the historical content of Ile-Ife, Ojota, and Alausa anchor on business transactions of agricultural produce. The analysis reveals hunting, war, and conquest as the historical reports of Amukoko, igbogila, and Ogbomoso; religious undercurrents produce Ilesa and Dopemu respectively; whereas Badagry displays farming as its viable informative content. Given these observations, it is important to allow the formation exercises of Yoruba users to prevail for proper analysis-cum-codification in order to promote descriptivism. However, further studies could be conducted in the domain of phonological appreciations of word-formation procedures in Yoruba.
Acknowledgements
I love to appreciate Prof. Elena Tikhonova for her patience and decision to ensure that this research is published, in no any other journal, but the reputable Journal of Language and Education (JLE). It is also in a similar spirit that I appreciate Tim Thompson for putting the finishing touches to the work. I will also commend the efforts of the reviewers as well as the entire team of JLE for their contributions towards this article. I am so grateful for all your help.
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