Ekiti is monolingually Yoruba but its 'Ekiti dialect' (sometimes called Ekiti-Akoko or Mokole) is among the most distinct Yoruba varieties — so much so that some linguists treat it as a separate language.
Major languages#
- Yoruba (Ekiti dialect) — distinct tonal and lexical features; ~3 million speakers across Ekiti, Kogi-west and northern Ondo.
- Yoruba (Ado-Ekiti urban / Standard) — administrative and school dialect.
Minor and endangered languages#
- No significant non-Yoruba community.
Lingua francas#
Yoruba universal; English in schools.
Notable literary and political moments#
- The Ekiti dialect carries archaic verbal morphology lost in Standard Yoruba — a key data set for reconstructions of Proto-Yoruboid.
Sources & further reading#
- Ethnologue: Languages of Nigeria (SIL).
- Roger Blench, *An Atlas of Nigerian Languages* (3rd ed., 2019).
- Ayo Bamgbose, *Language and the Nation* (1991).
- UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger.