Adoption of Electronic Techniques in Teaching English-Yoruba Bilingual Youths the Semantic Expansion and Etymology of Yoruba Words and Statements

Abstract

Yoruba is one of the Nigeria’s four hundred languages linguistically threatened with extinction considering the language attitude of its native speakers especially the youths. The youths’ flair for English is making them lose interest in the use of Yoruba. This study was designed to introduce and teach the Yoruba youths the origin of some Yoruba words and statements using electronic devices like video tape recorder, phones, and power points presentation. Twenty Yoruba words, phrases, clauses, and statements were dramatized, recorded in CDrom and practically demonstrated in the classroom setting. We elicited our data through various Yoruba discourses with their historical origin traced to past happenings. The major sources of data collection for this study include records of discourses in Yoruba, waxed musical records and conversations among Yoruba natives especially in Urban areas in Nigeria. Twenty of the collated words, phrases, clauses and statement were also linguistically analyzed. The study encourages the use of electronic gadgets in teaching Yoruba. It is also a valuable attempt among others in saving Yoruba language from going to extinction as a result of its native youth speakers’ lack of interest and knowledge of the origin of many of its words, clauses, phrases, statements and usage.