Interrogation in Owé Yorùbá: A preliminary investigation

Abstract

Whereas the Okun people and dialect group constitute a sizable division amongst the Yorùbá stock residing in areas such as Ìjùmú, Yàgbà, Kàbà, Qwórò, Bùnú, Ikiri and Gbede, Owé people and language is limited to Kaba and its satellite villages and farmsteads. There are umbilical links between each of these villages and farmsteads and their parallel compounds in Kaba. The Obaro is the paramount ruler of Kaba and these satellites. Okun derives its legitimacy from the specialmutual linguistic intelligibility amongst the various dialects that form it, distancing them from other Yorùbá dialect groups, and the denominatory cultural dynamics recognizable in the various peoples’ living and beliefs.

Linguistic literature is scarce on Owé Yorùbá. Apart from Adéniyi and Médùbi in Olukoju et al (Ed) 2003, we are not aware of any other Owé specific linguistic study. In fact, the aforementioned is a phonological analysis.

For the sake of emphasis, Owé speaking people are also referred to as Owé. Even though the nucleus city of the Owé people is Kàbà, the town is also unarguably referred to as Owé. Kàbà used to be the headquarter of Kàbà province in the old Northern region before the creation of Kwara State and subsequently Kogi State from Kwara. They could be assumed to be Northern Yoruba. Their neighbours, include amongst others the Bùnú, Ìjùmú and Èbìrà. We disagree with Oyelaran in Oyelarah (Ed) 1977:624-651) in classifying Kakanda as part of North Eastern Yoruba alongside Ìgbómìnà, Ìgbolo, Owé, Qwórò and so forth. Kakanda is not Yoruboid, it is definitely a Nupoid language.