The Search for a Yoruba Orthography Since the 1840s: Obstacles to the Choice of the Arabic Script

It is evident from the quotation above that the question of an orthography for the Yoruba language was all but settled by 1875 when the Church Missionary Society convened a con ference to put finishing touches to the Romanized Yoruba orthography on which Samuel Ajayi Crowther and a host of others (Christian clergymen and specialist linguists) had la boured during the preceding 35 years. In spite of this seeming fait accompli status of the Romanized Yoruba orthography, a subdued feeling of resentment persisted among Muslim scholars, especially those of them who were not immersed in the Western education promoted by Christian missionary en terprise. This subterranean feeling surfaced time and again in form of direct and indirect attacks on the superimposition of Christian/British colonial education over Arabic, the pri mary tool of Muslim education, which preceded the entry of Christianity into Yorubaland in the early 1840s.2 This sub merged feeling has recently surfaced in form of a vigorous campaign for the promotion of Yoruba cajami during the closing years of the twentieth century by a Sufi Muslim scholar based in Ilorin, a bastion of Islamic propagation and education in northwest Yorubaland. This article is intended