Symbols
86Click a symbol to copy it and open its page.
Yoruba alphabet
One row per letter, in Yoruba alphabetical order, with the high-tone (acute ´) and low-tone (grave `) forms lined up beside the plain letter. Ẹ ẹ comes right after E, Ọ ọ after O and Ṣ ṣ after S. The 25-letter alphabet also counts GB gb as one letter between G and H; it is written with plain g and b. There is no c, q, v, x or z. Unicode has no ready-made ẹ́, ẹ̀, ọ́ or ọ̀: type ẹ or ọ and then a tone mark from the next group.
Tone marks and dots to add
Combining marks attach to the letter typed just before them: ẹ then ´ gives ẹ́, ọ then ` gives ọ̀. The vertical line below is the older way of printing the dot (e̩ o̩ s̩), still seen in older books and some fonts.
Quotation marks
Yoruba follows Nigerian English punctuation: double curly quotes, single ones inside them, and ’ as the apostrophe.
Currency
The Nigerian naira, written before the amount: ₦2,000. Benin uses the West African CFA franc, written F CFA or FCFA; it has no sign of its own.
Where it's spoken
South-western Nigeria above all, and south-eastern Benin.
Yoruba culture
The dùndún talking drum, which 'speaks' Yoruba by copying the tones of the words.
On the map
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The Yoruba alphabet a to z: 25 letters
Standard Yoruba is written with 25 letters in this order: A B D E Ẹ F G GB H I J K L M N O Ọ P R S Ṣ T U W Y, and in small letters a b d e ẹ f g gb h i j k l m n o ọ p r s ṣ t u w y. C, Q, V, X and Z are not used. Each dotted letter has its own place right after its plain partner, so dictionaries list ẹja (fish) after every word in e, and ṣọ́ọ̀ṣì (church) after every word in s.
GB counts as a single letter even though it is written with two. It and P are both pronounced with the lips and the back of the tongue closed at the same moment, a sound English does not have: Yoruba p is really kp, so pápá (field) does not sound like English papa. The other consonants are close to their English values, with j as in jam, y as in yes and Ṣ ṣ as English sh.
Yoruba has seven plain vowels, a e ẹ i o ọ u, and five nasal vowels written with an n after the vowel: an, ẹn, in, ọn, un. That n is not pronounced as a separate consonant; it tells you to say the vowel through the nose.
Yoruba accent marks: tone marks and the dots below
Ẹ ẹ is an open e, close to the vowel of English bet; plain e is closer, nearer the vowel of French é. Ọ ọ is an open o, close to the vowel of British law; plain o is as in go. The dot is part of the letter, not an accent: ẹ̀kọ́ (lesson) and ọmọ (child) are different words from anything spelled with plain e and o.
Yoruba is a tonal language with three level tones, and the accents on the vowels mark them: the acute is a high tone (á é í ó ú), the grave is a low tone (à è ì ò ù), and the mid tone is left unmarked. Tone changes the word: ọkọ is a husband, ọkọ̀ a vehicle or boat and ọkọ́ a hoe. Even the name of the language carries them: Yorùbá.
The marked consonants Ń ń, Ǹ ǹ and Ḿ ḿ are syllabic nasals, an n or m that makes a syllable of its own and so carries a tone, as in Mo ń lọ (I am going) and the town name Oǹdó. A long vowel is written double, each half with its own tone: Ẹ káàárọ̀, good morning.
In texts, chats and on social media many people drop the tone marks and sometimes the dots too, and readers fill them in from context. Schools, dictionaries, Bible and literature, names on documents and anything read aloud use the full marks. Older books print the dots as a short vertical line under the letter (e̩ o̩ s̩); the combining vertical line below is in the grid for copying those spellings exactly.
How to type Yoruba letters and tone marks
On a phone, add a keyboard that supports Yoruba: Gboard on Android supports Yoruba, and dedicated Yoruba keyboard and tone-mark apps exist for Android and iPhone. Otherwise copy the letters from the grid above.
On a Windows PC or laptop, add the Yoruba keyboard layout that ships with Windows (Settings, Time & language). In Microsoft Word you can also type a code and press AltX: 1EB9 gives ẹ, 1EB8 Ẹ, 1ECD ọ, 1ECC Ọ, 1E63 ṣ, 1E62 Ṣ, 0144 ń and 01F9 ǹ. For a tone on top of a dotted letter, type the letter and then 0301 AltX for the high tone or 0300 AltX for the low tone. The classic Alt codes cover only the plain accented vowels: Alt0225 á, Alt0224 à, Alt0233 é, Alt0232 è, Alt0237 í, Alt0236 ì, Alt0243 ó, Alt0242 ò, Alt0250 ú and Alt0249 ù.
On a Mac with the standard US or ABC layout, OptionE and then a vowel types the acute (é), and Option and then a vowel the grave (è). For the dots, switch to the ABC – Extended layout, which has a dead key for the dot below, or to Unicode Hex Input and hold Option while typing the codes above.
Unicode has ready-made letters for ẹ, ọ and ṣ, but not for ẹ́, ẹ̀, ọ́ or ọ̀: those are always the dotted letter followed by a combining tone mark, which is why some fonts place the accent slightly off. In HTML, write ẹ for ẹ, ọ for ọ, ṣ for ṣ, and add ́ (high) or ̀ (low) after a letter for its tone.
Where Yoruba is spoken
Unicode's CLDR estimates about 32 million Yoruba speakers. About 31 million of them are in Nigeria, where Yoruba is the main language of the south-west: Lagos (Èkó), Ọ̀yọ́, Ògùn, Ọ̀ṣun, Oǹdó and Èkìtì states, and parts of Kwara and Kogi. Cities such as Ìbàdàn, Abẹ́òkúta, Òṣogbo and the ancient Ilé-Ifẹ̀ are Yoruba-speaking, and millions of other Nigerians use it as a second language.
Across the border, about 1 million people speak Yoruba in south-eastern Benin, around towns such as Kétou and Savè, and there are Yoruba communities in Togo too. Yoruba also crossed the Atlantic: it survives as the sacred language of Lucumí worship in Cuba and of Candomblé in Brazil.
Yoruba belongs to the Niger–Congo family; its closest relatives are Itsekiri and Igala. For the other big languages of Nigeria see the Igbo, Hausa and Nigerian Pidgin collections, for Benin's Fon see Fon, and for flags, currency and the countries' emoji see Nigeria and Benin.
The naira , the flags and the talking drum
Prices in Nigeria are written with the naira sign before the amount, 5,000; the naira is divided into 100 kobo. In Benin the money is the West African CFA franc, written F CFA or FCFA, which has no symbol of its own. The flags are for Nigeria, green-white-green, and for Benin.
The long drum is the closest emoji to the dùndún, the hourglass-shaped talking drum of the Yoruba. By squeezing the cords the drummer raises and lowers the pitch to follow the tones of spoken Yoruba, so the drum can call names, praise and recite proverbs that listeners understand as words. People searching for Yoruba symbols are often after Ifá signs or the emblems of the òrìṣà; those have no Unicode characters, so on screens they are written out in words.
How to use them
6 situationsClick to copyYoruba Alphabet combos
14Worth knowing
- Precomposed ẹ and ọ are in Unicode mainly because Vietnamese uses them, where the dot below marks a tone. Vietnamese never needs an acute on top of them, so ẹ́ and ọ́ were never given codes of their own.
- The dùndún talking drum can 'speak' Yoruba because the language is tonal: the drummer copies the rise and fall of the words, and listeners hear names and proverbs in the beats.
- Samuel Ajayi Crowther, a Yoruba man taken as a boy by slave traders and freed by the Royal Navy, worked on the early written Yoruba and its Bible translation, and became the first African Anglican bishop in 1864.
- Ifá, the Yoruba system of divination with its vast body of verses, was proclaimed by UNESCO in 2005 as a masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity.
Questions people ask
8How many letters are in the Yoruba alphabet?
25: A B D E Ẹ F G GB H I J K L M N O Ọ P R S Ṣ T U W Y. GB counts as one letter, and there is no c, q, v, x or z.
What are the Yoruba alphabets a to z?
Capital: A B D E Ẹ F G GB H I J K L M N O Ọ P R S Ṣ T U W Y. Small: a b d e ẹ f g gb h i j k l m n o ọ p r s ṣ t u w y.
What are the Yoruba vowel letters?
Seven oral vowels, a e ẹ i o ọ u, and five nasal vowels written with n: an, ẹn, in, ọn, un.
What are the tone marks in Yoruba?
The acute marks a high tone (á, ọ́), the grave a low tone (à, ọ̀), and the mid tone is normally unmarked, though an overbar can mark it when needed. Acute and grave marks also go on syllabic nasals, for example ń, ǹ and ḿ.
How to type Yoruba in Microsoft Word?
Add the Yoruba keyboard in Windows, or type a code and press AltX: 1EB9 for ẹ, 1ECD for ọ, 1E63 for ṣ, then 0301 AltX for a high tone or 0300 AltX for a low tone on the letter before it.
How to type Yoruba characters on Android or iPhone?
On Android, install Gboard, add Yoruba as a language and switch to it; on iPhone, install a Yoruba keyboard app. Look on the keyboard for the dotted letters and tone marks, or copy them from this page.
Why does ẹ́ look different from é in some fonts?
Unicode has no single character for ẹ́: it is ẹ followed by a combining acute accent, and fonts that do not position combining marks well can put the accent a little off. Fonts built with African languages in mind, such as Noto Sans, draw it cleanly.
What is the difference between Ẹ and E in Yoruba?
They are two separate letters and two different vowels: E is like the e of French é, Ẹ is more open, like the e in English bet. Ẹ comes after E in the alphabet.
