Yoruba Sermon Translation

Yoruba is tonal and the wrong AI will break it

Yoruba has three lexical tones (high, mid, low) plus contour tones, and the wrong tone produces a different word — sometimes a wildly different word. 'Igba' alone can mean calabash, two hundred, time, or rope depending on tone. A mis-toned Yoruba sermon at scale is not preaching, it is confusion. Most generic translation platforms produce flat or wrong-toned Yoruba. Acts 2 was trained on the Bibeli Mimọ (Yoruba Bible), the Crowther tradition of Yoruba Christian vocabulary, contemporary preaching from RCCG, Christ Embassy, Mountain of Fire, and Deeper Life congregations, and Yoruba diaspora worship streams from Houston, London, and Atlanta. Tonal accuracy is preserved in the captions through full diacritics. Theological vocabulary — Olúwa (Lord), Ẹmí Mímọ́ (Holy Spirit), ìgbàlà (salvation), oore-ọ̀fẹ́ (grace), ẹ̀ṣẹ̀ (sin) — is handled in the register Yoruba Pentecostal preaching expects.

Built for Nigerian Pentecostal diaspora churches

RCCG alone has over 14,000 parishes globally. Christ Embassy, Winners Chapel, Mountain of Fire, and Deeper Life have planted thousands more across Houston, Atlanta, Dallas, London, Birmingham, Toronto, and Brooklyn. The pattern is consistent: charismatic preaching that reaches a multi-generational Yoruba-speaking congregation, with English-only second and third generation youth, and grandparents who are Yoruba-dominant. Acts 2 lets the senior pastor preach one sermon with parallel English and Yoruba streams — English dubbed in his cloned voice, Yoruba as live captions. Mama reads Yoruba in the front row, the youth hear English in the back, the family stays in one sanctuary. For multi-Nigerian congregations with Igbo and Hausa members, we support parallel Igbo and Hausa caption streams from the same pulpit.

Built for Nigerian mission churches and sending teams

Nigerian sending churches are among the most active in Africa, planting back into West Africa (Togo, Benin, Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire) and into Europe and North America. Acts 2 supports those sending pathways — a Yoruba-language sermon preached from Lagos streams in English to a UK congregation and in French to a Beninese congregation simultaneously, both dubbed in the original pastor's cloned voice, with Yoruba captions for Yoruba-dominant listeners. The reach finally matches the ambition. For Yoruba-speaking mission work into rural southwest Nigeria, Acts 2 streams over basic 2G/3G cellular without requiring a foreign interpreter to be physically present.

Cost compared to human interpretation

Qualified English-Yoruba church interpreters in Houston, Atlanta, and London run $80 to $200 per hour. Skilled bilingual preaching interpreters who can handle Pentecostal theological vocabulary correctly — Holy Ghost fire, anointing, prophetic word, breakthrough — are genuinely scarce. Acts 2 runs at roughly $0.005 per minute. A 60-minute Sunday service translates for $0.30. A full year of weekly Yoruba preaching plus midweek prayer meetings costs less than two Sundays with a human interpreter. The economics finally match the scale of the global Nigerian Pentecostal church.

Live captions, not a synthetic voice

Acts 2 does not ship a voice it cannot do well. Yoruba has no production-grade text-to-speech we would put in front of a congregation, so we do not fake one. What you get instead is live Yoruba captions on every phone in the room, generated as you preach — your own voice carries the room out loud, and the translation runs in text alongside it. Tone is the whole game in Yoruba — igba alone can mean calabash, two hundred, time, or rope — and a mis-toned synthetic voice would preach a different sermon than the one you gave. Captions carry full diacritics, so the tone survives exactly. English and French do carry voice dub, so a diaspora service can run both. When Yoruba voice synthesis reaches a standard we would stake a pulpit on, we will ship it and say so plainly.

Frequently asked questions