Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún on what it means to be Yoruba
There are few people in the world who have done more to preserve and promote the Yoruba language than Kola Túbọ̀sún. So when I started to think about interviewing Yoruba intellectuals on what it means to be Yoruba today, his name was top on my list.
I first interviewed Túbọ̀sún in 2015, when he was fundraising for Yorubaname.com, a project that has now documented the etymology of more than 10,000 Yoruba names.
Since then he has won the Premio Ostana prize for writing in the mother tongue, consulted for Google to create a ‘Nigerian accent’, and completed a Chevening research fellowship at the British Library.
Our conversation took place over email and spanned a couple of weeks. The transcript below was edited for organisation and clarity.
