Yoruba people
Enable an agent to recognise Yoruba people as a diverse ethnocultural collective, assess evidence about its communities and continuity, and determine appropriate uses of collective descriptions without assigning identity or traits to individuals.
Research draft, second pass
A second pass drafted this model: the structure a model of this thing needs, and what is known about it in the world. The line under this one says how the second half was obtained - researched against sources, or recalled without web access, in which case nothing here was read anywhere and every claim is a lead to verify. Unreviewed either way.
recalled by Codex without web access - no source was read
Researched by: Codex
Purpose and description
Enable an agent to recognise Yoruba people as a diverse ethnocultural collective, assess evidence about its communities and continuity, and determine appropriate uses of collective descriptions without assigning identity or traits to individuals.
The Yoruba are an ethnolinguistic people whose historical homelands lie chiefly in southwestern Nigeria and adjoining parts of Benin and Togo, encompassing diverse communities connected by Yoruba languages, histories, and cultural traditions.
It can be Resolve references to Yoruba people while distinguishing language, nationality, religion, and regional identity.; Link documented communities and diaspora connections without automatically assigning identities to their members.; Compare population estimates after checking their geographic coverage and definitions of belonging.; Locate relevant community institutions for a specific consultation and verify their constituency and mandate.; Describe cultural transmission and change with attribution to particular communities and periods.; Flag unsupported generalisations, disputed historical accounts, and restricted cultural knowledge before reuse..
Distinguishing features
The referent is a collective identified as Yoruba, rather than merely everyone who speaks a Yoruba variety.
The referent is not interchangeable with Nigerian nationality or residence in a place associated with Yoruba communities.
A town, regional identity, or historical polity may relate to Yoruba collective identity without being synonymous with the whole people.
Participation in an orisha-related religious tradition does not by itself establish Yoruba ethnic belonging.
A claimed diaspora connection must distinguish ancestry, self-identification, community recognition, and cultural affiliation.
Scope
+ Yoruba collective self-identification, names, and context-dependent boundaries of belonging
+ Relationships among Yoruba communities, regional identities, and diaspora communities
+ Connections between collective identity and Yoruba languages and speech varieties
+ Historical narratives, migration connections, and relationships to places
+ Institutions, cultural practices, and processes through which communities maintain or reinterpret Yoruba identity
- Individual people and determinations of their ethnicity
- Yoruba language grammar, dictionaries, and technical linguistic classification
- Nigeria, Benin, and other states as political or territorial entities
- Individual kingdoms, towns, associations, and governing institutions as independently managed entities
- Religions, deities, rituals, artworks, and festivals as standalone subjects
- Genetic ancestry classifications or claims that ethnicity determines individual behaviour
Characteristics
- Collective names and naming context
- Attested names, spellings, language, self-designation or external designation, period, and source Allows recognition of Yoruba references while preserving differences between historical labels and present community usage.
- Basis of belonging
- Reported self-identification, community recognition, ancestry, linguistic affiliation, or cultural affiliation; multiple or unspecified Prevents any single proxy from becoming a universal test of Yoruba identity.
- Regional and community affiliation
- Named community or regional identity, its relationship to Yoruba identification, source, and period Preserves internal distinctions instead of treating the collective as culturally or politically uniform.
- Language relationship
- Named Yoruba variety or other language; reported use, heritage connection, transmission, or institutional role Separates language practice from ethnic membership and makes multilingual settings visible.
- Geographic and diaspora connection
- Place linked through residence, origin narrative, migration, ancestry, or cultural affiliation, with dates and evidence Supports distinct descriptions of homeland connections, migration, and diaspora identification.
- Population estimate
- Persons, with reference year, geography, inclusion criteria, collection method, and uncertainty Makes clear whether a figure counts ethnic identification, speakers, residents, or another population.
- Representation mandate
- Institution or representative, constituency, subject, jurisdiction, duration, and evidence of mandate Prevents local, religious, or associational authority from being extended to all Yoruba people.
- Cultural transmission status
- Community-reported continuity, change, revitalisation, interruption, contestation, or unknown, specific to a practice and period Allows assessment of particular traditions without assigning one cultural condition to the entire collective.
Also called
Where this came from
wikidata · CC0 1.0
Drafted structure
Bundle to layer to finding to question, as the second pass will find it: 6 bundles · 11 layers · 17 findings · 27 questions.
Yoruba belonging and names Records how Yoruba collective identity is named and how belonging is described in particular settings.
Recognising the collective requires distinguishing self-identification from labels or membership criteria imposed by outsiders.
Collective naming
Examines names used for Yoruba people across languages, sources, and periods.
Name and referent
Record the population a source means by Yoruba and whether its terminology reflects self-designation, external classification, or retrospective usage.
- Who uses this name, in which language and period, and for which communities? provenance
- Does this occurrence of Yoruba name the people, a language, a cultural tradition, or another referent? definition
Belonging and internal identities
Relates Yoruba identification to community, town, regional, and overlapping identities.
Contextual belonging
Keep accounts of Yoruba belonging attributable and context-specific; investigate how identities such as Egba, Ijebu, and Ekiti relate to the collective without creating separate registry entries.
- How do members of the community describe the relationship between their local or regional identity and Yoruba identity? boundary
- Which criteria of belonging are reported, by whom, and where are those criteria disputed or insufficient? provenance
Yoruba language and transmission Models the relationship between Yoruba collective identity, speech varieties, multilingual life, and heritage learning.
Language can connect Yoruba communities, but speaking ability and ethnic belonging require separate evidence.
Speech varieties and use
Records community descriptions of language use and relationships to standard and local Yoruba varieties.
Language and identity distinction
Identify the varieties and settings a source describes while keeping speaker counts separate from counts of Yoruba people.
- Which Yoruba speech varieties and other languages are used in this community, and in which settings? measurement
- Does the source identify Yoruba people through self-identification, language use, or an unstated substitution between them? boundary
Intergenerational language continuity
Examines how Yoruba language knowledge is transmitted in households, education, media, and diaspora settings.
Heritage learning evidence
Assess documented opportunities and barriers to learning Yoruba without treating reduced fluency as loss of ethnic identity.
- What community-specific evidence describes changes in Yoruba use or learning across generations? measurement
- Which community-led teaching resources or institutions can an agent accurately reference for this setting? action
Yoruba places, histories, and diasporas Connects Yoruba communities to places, historical accounts, movement, and diaspora identification.
A collective spanning places and periods cannot be represented adequately by a single country, territory, or origin story.
Places and historical accounts
Distinguishes settlement evidence, political histories, origin traditions, and later interpretations.
Ile-Ife, Oyo, and local histories
Investigate the roles assigned to Ile-Ife, Oyo, and other places while distinguishing origin traditions from claims about settlement or political authority.
- What kind of evidence supports each claimed connection to Ile-Ife, Oyo, or another place, and which period does it address? provenance
- Does the account concern all Yoruba people, a particular polity, a lineage, or a local community? boundary
Diaspora connections and counts
Examines documented movement, descendant communities, cultural affiliations, and the populations included in estimates.
Diaspora affiliation scope
Distinguish migration and forced displacement histories from present ancestry claims, ethnic self-identification, and religious or cultural connections.
- How does this diaspora community describe its connection to Yoruba people, and what evidence documents that relationship? provenance
- Does a population estimate include migrants, descendants, self-identified Yoruba people, speakers, or cultural participants, and for what year and territory? measurement
Yoruba institutions and representation Identifies institutions associated with Yoruba communities and the limits of their authority.
An agent needs to know which institution can address a particular matter without assuming that Yoruba people form a single governed organisation.
Kingship and local authority
Examines titles, offices, and customary institutions in their specific communities and jurisdictions.
Oba office and mandate
Where a source identifies an oba or another traditional office, record its particular constituency, functions, recognition, and period.
- Which community and matters fall within the documented role of this office, and what supports that account? provenance
- Where do customary standing, state recognition, ceremonial function, and practical decision-making authority differ? boundary
Associations and consultation
Relates community associations, cultural bodies, and diaspora organisations to the people they represent.
Issue-specific representation
Treat claims to speak for Yoruba people as mandates requiring evidence about membership, subject matter, and accountability.
- Who authorises this organisation or spokesperson to represent which Yoruba constituency on this issue? provenance
- Which additional community perspectives are needed before presenting a consultation as representative? action
Yoruba cultural life and stewardship Records relationships to religious traditions, expressive practices, and cultural knowledge with attention to variation and permission.
Yoruba identity must remain distinguishable from particular beliefs or practices, while cultural materials need appropriate attribution and handling.
Religious and cultural plurality
Examines community-specific relationships among Yoruba identification and different religious or secular commitments.
Religion and collective belonging
Investigate relationships to orisha traditions, Islam, Christianity, and other commitments without making any religious affiliation a test of Yoruba identity.
- How do the people described relate their religious or secular commitments to their Yoruba identity? provenance
- When a source calls a practice Yoruba, does it mean community origin, present practitioners, ritual lineage, or ethnic membership? boundary
Expressive practices and knowledge access
Links practices such as oriki and Ifa-related knowledge to particular practitioners, settings, and transmission conditions.
Attribution, transmission, and permission
Record who maintains a practice, how it changes, and which materials are public or subject to community, practitioner, or legal restrictions.
- Which practitioners or communities substantiate the description of this practice and its transmission? provenance
- What attribution, consent, access conditions, or rights must be checked before reproducing, translating, or adapting the material? action
Evidence and external alignment What the world already says about this thing, gathered so the model can be checked against it.
A model that cannot be lined up against existing standards, identifiers and practice cannot be adopted by anyone who already uses them.
Reported evidence
Findings from the breadth pass, kept separate from the structural claims.
Check these first
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- This is recalled knowledge without source consultation; no population estimate is supplied.
- The listed kinds are examples of regional or historical Yoruba subgroups, not an exhaustive or formal taxonomy.
- Researchers should verify local names, subgroup boundaries, and how any dataset operationalizes ethnicity, ancestry, or language.
- Which of these check these first hold for the sense of Yoruba people this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Kinds and varieties
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Oyo
- Egba
- Ijebu
- Ijesha
- Ekiti
- Ondo
- Which of these kinds and varieties hold for the sense of Yoruba people this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Identifiers and schemes
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- ISO 639-3 - yor - Identifies the Yoruba language, not the Yoruba people or an individual's ethnicity.
- ISO 639-1 - yo - Identifies the Yoruba language; it is not an ethnic classification code.
- Which of these identifiers and schemes hold for the sense of Yoruba people this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Real-world use
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Self-identification and recognition of shared heritage and community membership.
- Historical and anthropological study of Yoruba kingdoms, communities, migration, and diaspora formation.
- Planning Yoruba-language education, broadcasting, translation, and cultural preservation.
- Demographic analysis where ethnicity is explicitly defined and distinguished from language, nationality, and ancestry.
- Which of these real-world use hold for the sense of Yoruba people this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Failure modes and hazards
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Treating Yoruba identity as an occupation because of the supplied batch context.
- Equating ethnicity with language proficiency, nationality, birthplace, religion, or genetic ancestry.
- Presenting regional communities as fixed, mutually exclusive subdivisions.
- Assuming all Yoruba people practise Yoruba traditional religion; religious affiliations are diverse.
- Conflating diaspora participation in Yoruba-derived traditions with Yoruba ethnic self-identification.
- Which of these failure modes and hazards hold for the sense of Yoruba people this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Regional variation
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Within Nigeria, regional histories, dialects, political institutions, and local affiliations vary across Yoruba communities.
- Yoruba communities in Benin and Togo share cross-border connections while having distinct national and local histories.
- Diaspora communities include descendants of people displaced through the Atlantic slave trade and more recent migrants; language retention and forms of identification vary.
- Which of these regional variation hold for the sense of Yoruba people this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Yoruba language - A language rather than a people; speaking it and identifying as Yoruba are related but distinct.
- Yorubaland - A historical and cultural region rather than an ethnic population; residence there does not determine ethnicity.
- Nigerians - A national category encompassing many ethnic groups; Yoruba communities also exist outside Nigeria.
- Yoruba traditional religion - A set of religious traditions rather than an ethnic identity; neither category entails membership in the other.
- Which of these neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart hold for the sense of Yoruba people this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
What the second pass must settle
- Does an existing Vercy world model already cover Yoruba people and therefore provide the authoritative publication for this registry entry?
- Which community-authored and scholarly sources best establish the changing scope of the Yoruba name and its relationship to regional identities?
- Which population estimates distinguish ethnic self-identification from language use and document coverage across countries and diaspora settings?
- How should differing diaspora uses of Yoruba affiliation be represented without collapsing religious lineage, ancestry, and ethnic belonging?
- Which accounts of origins, institutional authority, and cultural access remain contested, and whose perspectives are missing from the available evidence?