Atlantic-Congo · ISO 639-3 yor · yo
Yoruba Language Èdè Yorùbá
Yoruba is an Atlantic-Congo language spoken by about 38 million people in 2 countries. It is an official language of Nigeria. It is written in the Latin script.
Where Yoruba is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
About the Yoruba language
Yoruba (Èdè Yorùbá) is spoken by about 38 million people, which makes it the 46th most spoken language in the world — just behind Sindhi (38 million) and ahead of Sudanese Arabic (37 million). It belongs to the Atlantic-Congo language family and, more precisely, to the Lucumi-Yoruba group within the Benue-Congo branch.
Where is Yoruba spoken?
Yoruba is used in 2 countries. The largest communities live in Nigeria (31 million) and Benin (984,705).
Share of the population that speaks Yoruba: Nigeria 13% (31 million) and Benin 6.7% (984,705).
Yoruba is an official language in 1 country: Nigeria.
Writing system and status
Yoruba is written in the Latin script. It is a safe, widely transmitted language: children still learn it at home as their first language.
Its closest relatives in the same branch of the family are Igala, Swahili, Swahili, Igbo, Lingala, Zulu and 2 more.
ISO codes: ISO 639-1 yo, ISO 639-3 yor.
Frequently asked questions about Yoruba
How many people speak Yoruba?
Where is Yoruba spoken?
In which countries is Yoruba an official language?
What language family does Yoruba belong to?
What is Yoruba called in Yoruba?
Is Yoruba an endangered language?
Data: Languages of the World dataset (MIT) — ISO 639-3, Glottolog (CC BY 4.0), Unicode CLDR, Google LinguaMeta (CC BY 4.0) and Wikidata; country lists: samayo/country-json (MIT). Speaker numbers include first- and second-language speakers where sources report them.