CHANGING VALUES AND IDENTITY CRISIS: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF YORUBA INDIGENOUS NAMES
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Date
2020-03
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A Journal Publication of the Faculty of Arts, Nasarawa State University, Keffi-Nigeria
Abstract
The Yoruba are culturally minded people; hence, the act of naming a child is an inherited and indispensable culture in Yorubaland as children are the soul of Yoruba culture. This study examines the trends/changes in the value system (incidentally more in the negative direction than positive) with special focus to personal names in the 21st century Yoruba society. The researcher is thus interested in finding out the typology of Yoruba Personal names, the premium placed, new dimensions introduced into the Yoruba naming systems and danger signals. In carrying out this study, the researcher complemented primary and secondary sources with the social media, inscriptions on souvenirs and lists of registered students in selected schools. The researcher’s findings reveal that the worrisome state of affairs leading to identity crisis has a lot of historical, cultural and educational implications on the Yoruba nation and African society at large. Many of these modifications have no restriction to language, religion and gender. The study concludes that while every culture borrows, modifies and integrates in a dynamic world; it is pertinent for the Yoruba to avoid hook, line and sinker embrace of alien values or else face historical erosion, loss of identity and cultural bastardization. Therefore, while cultural globalisation is inevitable, some interactions need to be resisted abinitio and where entrenched, reversed.
Description
The act of naming a child among the culturally minded Yoruba people is an inherited and indispensable culture in Yorubaland as children are the soul of Yoruba culture. Over the years, so many traditions are stuck in between the past and present due to several factors, which is a bad signal to future sustenance. Hence, the trends/changes in the value system (incidentally more in the negative direction than positive) with special focus to personal names in the 21st century Yoruba society is examined. Owing to the worrisome state of affairs leading to identity crisis and the undeniable fact that every culture borrows, modifies and integrates in a dynamic world; it is pertinent for the Yoruba to avoid hook, line and sinker embrace of alien values or else face historical erosion, loss of identity and cultural bastardization.
Keywords
Changing Values, Identity Crisis, The Yoruba, Indigenous, Personal Names
Citation
APA, Pp. 269-280