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Speaking a foreign language with dexterity and passion is a feature that is quite rare in most youth today. But those are the exact qualities that a group of five American students from the University of Wisconsin displayed after learning Yoruba for a few years and developing a love for the language and culture.

Lauren Halloran (Abike), Caraline Harshman (Titilayo), Kelvin Barry (Kayode), Kelly Moses (Akinwumi) and O’Neil Keegan (Kolade) have been at the University of Ibadan since September 2010 to sharpen their understanding of the Yoruba language and culture through ‘learning by immersion’.

This involves living with Nigerian families for close to one year, who sign an undertaking that they would speak to them in Yoruba and they would encourage them to speak it.

Yoruba names

Before coming to Nigeria, they were been learning Yoruba language at the University of Wisconsin, in the United States of America along with their major courses for between two and three years, and have developed a love for the language and the culture.

At their first day in the Yoruba class in America where they were taught by Professors from Nigeria, they were given a list of Yoruba names to pick, to choose the appellations best suited to them. The adopted names have stuck. They eat Yoruba food, greet in the Yoruba way, and speak the language better than many Yorubas.At the Yoruba Day celebration held at the Vivian Fowler Memorial College for Girls in Lagos, their English names were forgotten and everyone addressed them by their Yoruba names.

Speaking the language

It was hard to get them to chat in English. Once they were approached, they reeled out sentences first in Yoruba before veering off to speak English.

For all five, the Yoruba culture is rich and beautiful, as they encouraged everyone, especially the secondary school students present at the event, to speak the language often.

While Kayode and Titilayo have been learning the language for close to three years, Abike, Akinwumi and Kolade have been along the path for about two years.

Speaking on her journey through the learning process, Titilayo said it was done by taking little steps daily. “We learned little by little,” she said. “After one day, I was greeting people, but after three years, I was speaking in paragraphs, I was telling stories, I was telling jokes.”

Learning the values

For her, living in the ancient city of Ibadan has been an interesting experience, bringing her closer to the Yoruba culture and its components.

“The most important thing I’ve learnt is about the communal society and how everyone look out for each other. If two people get married, it’s not just about the two people who love each other, it’s a mixture of the whole family. The way the family system works, it’s so much about sharing things. ‘Private’ doesn’t really come to play in the Nigerian culture, in the Yoruba culture especially. Everything is everybody’s.”

Abike said she was quite impressed with the Yoruba culture and has learnt a lot from being in the midst the people. For Kolade, Yoruba language is “much more beautiful than English in a lot of ways.” He said he developed an interest in the Nigerian indigenous language through his association with students from Africa while in High School. “In High School in the United states, I had a lot of friends from Africa; from Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, Ethiopia. I really enjoyed hanging out with them and I got to have a good impression about Africa. So when I got to the University of Wisconsin, I knew I wanted to study an African language.”

Nigerians in America

Kayode, who is by far the best speaker of the local language, thrilled the crowd with his commendable Yoruba accent, even going on to beat the talking drum skillfully. He says that he developed an intimacy with the language through watching Yoruba movies, listening to radio stations and reading Nigerian newspapers. “I was always reading newspapers from Nigeria. I always listen to Radio Lagos 107.5FM, from the US. That really helped in getting to know the Yoruba accent. Also the Yoruba films, you can watch any Mainframe movie or any Yoruba film on Youtube from America. There’s also lots of Nigerians in America.” Moses Mabayanje, a professor at the University of Ibadan who has been teaching the exchange students, Yoruba for some time, said that they understand the advantages of learning a foreign language better than Nigerians and are encouraged to do so by their government who gives them research grants. He added that Nigerians must rise up to the challenge of teaching their children their language.

“Nigerian parents have to wake up. The language is learnt by teaching it. When a child understands a language and he can’t speak it, he is less than half way into the language. We have to encourage our children, they must speak it,” he said.