Our podcast has been quiet for a while but we are excited to turn the sounds back on with a trip to Lagos, Nigeria for conversation with linguist, folklorist, artist, and storyteller Adéṣínà Ayẹni.
Recognized in 2025 with an Open Education Award for Excellence as a Leader, Adéṣínà shares an insightful perspective into the richness and complexity of language in a country that counts more than 500 of them spoken, the cultural importance of localization to ones such as Yoruba. Enjoy our conversation that ranges from the language we think in to learning via music and puppets to the limits of Artificial Intelligence for translation of languages the large corporations are not including in models to the role of mentorship.
Our recording on June 15 was intended to highlight Adéṣínà’s achievements recognized by the OEAwards as nominations were still open at the time. And in the time since, as a previous awardee, Adéṣínà’ was generous to serve as a member of the review committee for the 2026 Awards.
Also listen closely to this episode’s musical intro track.
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In This Episode
FYI: For the sake of experimentation and the spirit of transparency, this set of show notes alone was generated by the AI “Underlord” in the Descript editor we use to produce OEGlobal Voices.
Preserving Nigeria’s Languages and Oral Traditions Through Open Education: A Conversation with Adésinà Ayeni
Host Alan Levine previews an OEGlobal Voices conversation with Adésinà Ayeni (Omo Yoruba), a Lagos-based creator and 2025 Open Education Award for Excellence winner, recorded June 15. Ayeni discusses Nigeria’s linguistic diversity (over 500 languages), the roles of Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, English, and Nigerian Pidgin, and concerns about minority language decline amid urbanization and education policy favoring English. He argues people think first in their mother tongue, citing a Yoruba-vs-English teaching study, and emphasizes translation/localization as essential for inclusive education and Open Education. Ayeni describes projects translating stories, children’s oral literature using puppetry and music, and archiving Yoruba folklore as elders and oral “libraries” pass away. He critiques AI translation for lacking African-language data and promotes creating indigenous-language datasets and mentoring advocates via conferences and large WhatsApp groups.
- 00:00 Intro Music and Highlight Quote
- 00:59 Podcast Welcome
- 02:00 Meet Adesina Ayeni
- 03:24 Growing Up Lagos
- 05:42 Culture Sparks Linguist
- 08:08 Nigeria Language Landscape
- 11:25 Pidgin English Examples
- 14:07 Mother Tongue Thinking
- 16:12 Translation for Education
- 20:06 Stories Music Puppetry
- 23:11 Oral Tradition Folklore
- 27:39 AI Translation Limits
- 36:08 What Open Education Means
- 38:45 Mentoring Language Advocates
- 40:35 Closing Credits Music
(end of AI generated show notes)
Additional Links and Quotes for Episode 99
- Adésinà Ayeni (web site)
- Kultur River (Keeping African Heritage Alive)
- TermLog (Nigerian term database)
- Nigerian Pidgen English (Wikipedia)
- Nigerian English (Oxford English Dictionary)
- Nigeria scraps mother tongue education policy (Global Voices)
- History of The Six-Year Primary Project in the Use of Yoruba as the Medium of Primary Education (Yoruba Studies Review)
- StoryWeaver (Childrens Story in their Mother Tongue
- African Storybook
- Nigerian Institute of Translators and Interpreters
- ÌMỌ̀Ọ́ D’ÒYE: A Literacy Resource On Climate Change for Non-English Speakers Of Yorùbá Origin (project completed for Open Education for a Better World,OE4BW)
- National Open Education University of Nigeria
- Nigeria Open Education (OER World Map)
- Nigerian Languages Data & Sci-Tech Conference
- Firebird Research
- Nsibidi (Wikipedia)
And I have two WhatsApp groups, where I have over eight hundred linguists where I mentor them, on how to be language advocates, how to be cultural heritage promoters, so as to ensure that what I started, continues. Even when I’m no more, there are still people handing on the baton, like that. So yes, it continues. Just like I was talking about, cultural heritage and folklore. I’m a folklorist and almost everything I do is about folklore, because you get the folktale from someone, then you pass it on.
So they too become folklorists in the long run.
Adésinà Ayeni
Join us September 2 for the revealing of the winners of the 2026 Open Education Awards for Excellence, who are likely to be future guests on the podcast.
The open licensed music for this episode is a track called Conga Adepro created and shared by our guest Adésinà Ayeni that he has shared under a Creative Commons Attribution License.
A photo of the Adésinà‘s location in Lagos, Nigeria included as background in the featured image for this episode is Wikimedia Commons image Aerial view of Victoria island in Lagos, Nigeria by Ayorinde Ogundele shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
