ABSTRACT
In his very commendable introductory commentary on John Clarke’s Speci- mens of Dialects, Edwin Ardener (1972: 52, 69) notes that two of the word lists called ‘Nago’ could not be identified. I am unable to shed any light on the first (D104:10), but I am convinced that the second (N296:26) is Yoruba. Ardener correctly identifies four other Nago word lists as Yoruba (N105:20 is dubious), and he notes that Nago ‘refers to the Yoruba of Dahomey.’ It is a name for the Yoruba people that is current in Dahomey (and in Brazil and Haiti), and it was used by some Nigerian Yoruba to refer to the Yoruba language.
