5 countries outside Nigeria where Yoruba is spoken and where its culture lives on

• Yoruba is spoken beyond Nigeria, with communities in Benin, Togo, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and Sierra Leone.

• In Cuba, Brazil and Trinidad and Tobago, Yoruba heritage survives through religious traditions, music, language and Òrìṣà worship.

• From West Africa to the Caribbean and South America, Yoruba culture has travelled far beyond its traditional homeland.

If you hear someone speaking Yoruba outside Nigeria, you might assume they are Nigerian. But Yoruba has never been confined only within Nigeria's borders.

The language's traditional territory stretches across southwestern Nigeria and into parts of Benin and Togo, while migration has carried Yoruba-speaking communities farther across West Africa. 

The story becomes even more fascinating across the Atlantic, where enslaved Yoruba people carried their language, religious beliefs, names, music and ideas about the Òrìṣà with them.

Today, Yoruba survives in different forms around the world as an everyday language in some communities and as a heritage or ritual language in others.

Here are five countries outside Nigeria where Yoruba can still be found.

Benin is arguably the clearest example of a Yoruba-speaking country outside Nigeria.

Yoruba-speaking communities in Benin are concentrated particularly in the southern and southeastern parts of the country, including areas around Kétou, Sakété and Pobè.

Yoruba varieties spoken in Benin are sometimes identified as 'Nago' or 'Nagot', depending on the community.

The Yoruba cultural connection is particularly visible in practices such as Gẹ̀lẹ̀dẹ́, a masquerade tradition associated with Yoruba-Nago communities across Nigeria, Benin and Togo. 

In Togo, one particularly interesting Yoruba-speaking community is found around Atakpamé, where Ifẹ̀ is spoken. Ifẹ̀ belongs to the Ede group of languages closely related to Yoruba.

Now, not everyone speaking an Ede language in Togo is speaking the same standardised Yoruba heard in Lagos, Ibadan or Akure.

It nevertheless demonstrates how the Yoruba linguistic and cultural world extends beyond Nigeria into neighbouring countries.

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Ghana has smaller Yoruba-speaking communities, largely connected to migration and regional movement across West Africa.

Yoruba is not one of Ghana's dominant indigenous languages, but language-distribution data identifies Yoruba-speaking populations in the country.

Yoruba communities can also be found in Côte d’Ivoire, although the language is much less widespread there than in Benin or Togo.

The country's Yoruba presence is connected largely to migration within West Africa. For example, a massive portion of the Yoruba diaspora traces its roots specifically to traders from Ejigbo and Ogbomoso in Nigeria, who have been migrating there for over a century. 

Sierra Leone has one of the most remarkable Yoruba connections outside the traditional Yoruba homeland.

During the nineteenth century, Africans liberated from slave ships were resettled in Freetown. 

Among them were people of Yoruba origin. Their descendants became associated with the Aku/Oku community, whose history and language preserve significant Yoruba influence.

The Oku people of Sierra Leone are primarily Muslim descendants of liberated Yorubas, and they retain Yoruba names, cultural practices, and loanwords, even though their primary everyday language today is Krio. 

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The transatlantic slave trade carried thousands of Yoruba people to the Americas. Despite slavery and attempts to suppress African cultural practices, elements of Yoruba religion and language survived and developed into new traditions.

In Cuba, Yoruba religious traditions became deeply associated with Regla de Ocha, commonly known as Santería, while Lucumí developed as a ritual language.

Yoruba-derived names, songs, prayers, concepts and Òrìṣà traditions remain part of religious practice. 

Yoruba traditions became particularly influential in Candomblé, especially Ketu traditions. 

Ritual language, Òrìṣà worship, drumming and other elements preserve links to Yoruba religious culture, although Brazilian traditions developed their own identities rather than remaining exact copies of practices in Nigeria.

Trinidad and Tobago has another remarkable Yoruba religious legacy.

Orisha worship, sometimes called Shango, developed among Yoruba-speaking Africans and their descendants. 

Today it remains a living religious tradition, with Ifá and Orisha practices continuing among communities in Trinidad. 

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In all, Nigeria, Benin and Togo form the core of the Yoruba linguistic world. Smaller Yoruba-speaking communities exist elsewhere, while countries such as Cuba, Brazil and Trinidad and Tobago demonstrate how Yoruba religious traditions survived, adapted and became new cultural traditions across the Atlantic.