Sources

Vocabulary of the Yoruba Language

Citation Formats

General Reference

Divinity Atlas. "Vocabulary of the Yoruba Language." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://www.divinityatlas.com/sources/vocabulary-of-the-yoruba-language.

APA Style

Divinity Atlas. (n.d.). Vocabulary of the Yoruba Language. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://www.divinityatlas.com/sources/vocabulary-of-the-yoruba-language

BibTeX

@misc{divinityatlas-vocabulary-of-the-yoruba-language,
  author = {Divinity Atlas},
  title = {Vocabulary of the Yoruba Language},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://www.divinityatlas.com/sources/vocabulary-of-the-yoruba-language},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

Samuel Ajayi Crowther was a Yoruba-born Anglican clergyman and the first African bishop of the Church of England, and this 1843 vocabulary, published by the Church Missionary Society, is his own foundational documentation of the Yoruba language, compiled from his native fluency for missionary use. Its significance for this atlas is specific and well documented: Crowther's rendering of the orisha Eshu as the English word devil is the origin point of an equation that later shaped how Yoruba religion was described and misunderstood in English for generations afterward. Its limit is exactly that missionary purpose, Crowther was building a tool for Christian evangelism among Yoruba speakers, not a neutral academic study of Yoruba religion, so his own translation choices are best read as a documented historical artifact of that project rather than as a disinterested account of orisha religion.

Facts

Citation

Author

Samuel Ajayi Crowther

Publisher

Church Missionary Society

Publication Year

1843

This entry hedged between 1842 and 1843; independent sources (Wycliffe Bible Translators, the Dictionary of African Christian Biography) confirm 1843 for Crowther's Vocabulary of the Yoruba Language.

Source Type

primary-text

Assessment

Reliability Tier

Crowther's nineteenth century Yoruba vocabulary, read here as the primary historical document whose rendering of Eshu as devil originated that later equation.

Notes

Crowther's Yoruba vocabulary, whose rendering of Eshu as devil is the origin of that equation. Dated variously to 1842 and 1843 in the literature; no year asserted here.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

Church of England

This source names Church of England directly: "and the first African bishop of the Church of England, and this 1843 vocabulary, published by the Church Missionary Society, is his own foundational documentation of the Yoruba language, compiled..."

Source Vocabulary of the Yoruba LanguageSamuel Ajayi Crowther

Claims Backed By This Source (39 claims)

This source backs 39 claims across the atlas. As facts: 24 well-attested. As cited relationships: 4 holds, 1 connected. Plus 10 entities citing it as a general reference with no single fact or relationship attached.