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In this episode, host Bidemi Ologunde follows the Yoruba language across continents: from Nigeria to Brazil, Cuba, the Caribbean, the U.K., and the U.S., and asks what happens when AI enters the story circle. Can a “virtual council of elders” help preserve òwe (proverbs), tone, and tradition in diaspora homes? What do we gain when technology records folktales, builds Yoruba chatbots, and supports heritage learners? What might we lose if screens replace living mentorship? How can families use AI to strengthen intergenerational transmission instead of outsourcing it? And what can Yoruba learn from other global languages working to survive and thrive in the digital age?

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In this episode, host Bidemi Ologunde traces how Yoruba cosmology understands contact with “sky beings”—from Ọ̀run and Ayé, Odùduwà’s chain, Ọ̀ṣun’s skyward journey, and Ṣàngó’s thunderstones to folk accounts of night-flying àjẹ́—then connects those themes to contemporary UFO/alien talk. He explores how these ideas traveled through the Atlantic slave trade and live on in the diaspora (Cuba’s Lukumí/Santería, Brazil’s Candomblé, in Haiti, Trinidad, and beyond), including spiritist currents that speak of otherworldly guides. Along the way, Bidemi highlights how Ifá verses, proverbs, and Egúngún traditions frame “visitation” as ancestral or divine rather than extraterrestrial—and how modern Yoruba communities sometimes bridge both lenses. A concise, story-rich look at continuity, adaptation, and why Yoruba thought treats the boundary between worlds as porous.

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Send Bidemi a Text Message!

In this episode, host Bidemi Ologunde analyzed five Yoruba proverbs.

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Send Bidemi a Text Message!

In this episode, host Bidemi Ologunde analyzed five Yoruba proverbs.

Support the show

Send Bidemi a Text Message!

In this episode, host Bidemi Ologunde analyzed five Yoruba proverbs.

Support the show

Send Bidemi a Text Message!

In this episode, host Bidemi Ologunde analyzed five Yoruba proverbs.

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Send Bidemi a Text Message!

In this episode, host Bidemi Ologunde analyzed the following Yoruba proverbs:

• ó di ojó alé k’ábuké tó mò pé iké kì í somo.
• O kò mo èwà lónje à-je-sùn.
• ò nje àgbònrín èsín lóbè, o ní o ti tó tán.
• O ru ládugbó ò nrerá; kí ni ká so féni tó ru òrìsà-a Yemoja?

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In this episode, host Bidemi Ologunde analyzed the following Yoruba proverbs:

• Nígbàtí à nto okà a ò to ti emó si.
• Nígbàtí o mò-ó gùn, esin e-e se sé orókún?
• Nígbàwo làpò ekùn-ún di ìkálá fómode?
• ó bó lówó iyò, ó dòbu.
• O dájú dánu, o ò mo èsán mèsán-án.

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