Y K U B A GRAMMAR. 



PART FIRST. 



OETHOEPY AND OETHOGRAPHY. 



§ 1. The system of orthography adopted in this work is essentially the same 

 that has been widely employed for African languages. In it an endeavor has been 

 made to give a true expression of all the well distinguished sounds of the language. 

 To each simple fundamental sound there is assigned a single character; and each 

 compounded sound is represented by the charactera which stand for the elements 

 of such compound sound. 



§ 2. The reader should be reminded that the sound of each letter, in this as in 

 other languages, is subject to slight modifications from accent and connexion. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE ALPHABET. 



§ .^. The characters that represent the simple sounds of the Yoruba language are, 

 a, a, b, d, e, e, f, g, h, I, k, 1, m, n^ t), o, o, p, r, s, s, t, u, w, y, i. 



VOWELS. 



Simple Vowels. 



§ 4. The simple vowels are as follows : 



a is sounded long, as in the English word fatlwr ; and short, as in fat. 



Examples: ha, to meet; lati, from. 

 a has the obscure sound of u in but, o in motlier, &c. Ex. : bani, in tlie hand. 

 e is sounded like a mfate, or ey in grey. Ex. : de, to come. 

 e is sounded like e in met. Ex. : fe, to love. 

 i is sounded long, like ee in fee, or i in ravine; and short, like i mfg. Ex.: 



di, to bind ; igo, a bottle. 

 o is sounded as in go, tone. Ex. : f6, to fiy. 

 o is sounded long, like a in ^oater, all; and short, like o in not. Ex.: fo, to 



wash ; oni, a crocodile. 

 u is sounded long, like oo In fool, or u in rvle ; and short, like %i mftdl. Ex. : 



lu, to -strilce ; bule, to lis dmcn. 



