A MORPHOLOGICAL REASSESSMENT OF THE ETYMOLOGY OF ÌBÀDÀN

• Fayemi Fatunde Fakayode Ph.D.

  Obafemi Awolowo University, Ilé-Ifẹ̀

  Author

Ìbàdàn, as a lexical item, entered the Yoruba vocabulary when Lágelú established his settlement. For centuries, people have believed that the name Ìbàdàn was derived from Ẹ̀bá-Ọ̀dàn, meaning "Edge of the Meadow." However, there appears to be an issue with this linguistic transformation said to have transformed Ẹ̀bá-Ọ̀dàn to Ìbàdàn. This gap is what this paper wants to fill. The data for this work will be drawn from both primary and secondary sources. The primary source include not only oral narratives but also in-depth interviews with elders and royal figures. The secondary source consists of journal articles, theses, books, and the internet. This paper concludes that the claim that Ìbàdàn was derived from the words Ẹ̀bá and Ọ̀dàn by compounding, is inconsistent with phonological and morphological processes in the Yorùbá language. Instead, it finds that Ìbàdàn was derived from the words Ìbà (Pantry) and Ọ̀dàn (Meadow), meaning "Pantry in the Meadow." This finding helps in correcting the age long historical error and contributes to the reconstruction of the history of Ìbàdàn.

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