A podcast by your favourite Creole Polyglot Ife Thompson talking all things Black British English, Language justice & joy and Black Language practices.
A Yoruba Museum Without Yoruba: Language, Erasure & My Trip to Lagos 🇳🇬🖼️
In this episode, I reflect on my recent trip to Lagos and my visit to the John Randle Yoruba Museum, a space dedicated to Yoruba history and heritage, yet one that left me with a pressing linguistic question:
Where is the Yoruba language?
As a Lawyer who loves African languages , I went in expecting to see Yoruba not only represented culturally and spiritually, but also recognised as a living, complex linguistic system, one that carries history, identity, memory, and its global influence, including its role in shaping Afro-Creole languages across the Caribbean and Latin America.
Instead, I was struck by what felt like a quiet absence.
From the tonal richness of Yoruba, to its deep connection with musical speech and the Dùndún (talking drum) where language is encoded into sound and rhythm and the linguistic dimension of Yoruba felt under-centred in the storytelling of the museum.
I also reflect on another moment that stayed with me: the framing of Nigerian Pidgin as “broken English.” For many speakers and linguists, this raises deeper questions about how language is classified, valued, and represented in institutional spaces.
This episode is not just about critique but it’s also about asking broader questions:
How do we curate African heritage without excluding African languages?
And what gets lost when language is treated as secondary to culture?
Join me as I unpack language, representation, and what I noticed in Lagos.
24 May 2026
Silencing Patwa? My Thoughts on Jamaica’s Parliament Language Ban 🇯🇲
In this episode, I share my honest thoughts on the controversy surrounding Jamaican Patwa being restricted in Jamaica’s Parliament. From culture and identity to classism, colonial influence, and accessibility.
This isn’t just about language preference, it raises deeper questions about power, identity, class, and whose voice is considered “legitimate” in formal spaces.
3 May 2026
Africa Stayed Multilingual… The Diaspora Needs to Catch Up
In this episode, we’re talking about the power of language and why Black people across the diaspora should embrace becoming more multilingual. Across Africa, it’s normal for many people to speak 3, 4, 5 languages and some even 9 or more. That ability creates connection, opportunity, cultural pride, and unity.
Meanwhile, many of us in the diaspora were disconnected from our ancestral languages through history. But now it’s time to rebuild.
Imagine Black people worldwide connecting through Yoruba, Igbo, Swahili, Haitian Creole, Patois, St Lucian Creole and more.
Language is power. Language is culture. Language is identity.
The more languages we learn, the more doors we open together and the closer we become globally.
Start learning today:
Learn St Lucian Creole online free: https://www.twossaints.com/
Learn Yoruba and Igbo: https://lingawa.com/
#BlackDiaspora #AfricanLanguages #Multilingual #Yoruba #Igbo #Creole #PanAfrican #BlackUnity
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