About.

Building what the language needs.

Damilola Adebonojo, known as Ìyá Yorùbá, has spent over a decade doing what institutions have not: building the infrastructure for Yorùbá language and culture to survive in a digital world. She founded Alámọ̀já Languages in 2018, growing it from a single conviction into a fully operational institute reaching learners across three continents.

A Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant, Future Faculty Fellow, and two-time University of Georgia research grant recipient, her work has been consistently recognised and funded at institutional level. She is building YorubaTexts — the most comprehensive digital catalog of Yorùbá-language literature ever assembled, spanning publications from 1938 to the present. YorubaTexts is the foundation of something larger: a digital library where every Yorùbá text ever published can be found and reached, regardless of where in the world you are.

She has been honoured by the African Language Teachers Association, the University of Georgia's Center for Teaching and Learning, and the GIZ AI4D African Language Challenge. Every project she builds answers the same question: what does Yorùbá need to not just survive, but thrive?