Everything about Ibo Language totally explained
Igbo is a language spoken in
Nigeria by around 20-35 million people, the
Igbo, especially in the southeastern region once identified as
Biafra. The language was used by
John Goldsmith as an example to justify deviating from the classical linear model of
phonology as laid out in
The Sound Pattern of English. It is written in the Roman script. Igbo is a
tonal language, like
Yoruba and
Chinese.
Dialects
Igbo has a number of dialects, distinguished by accent or orthography but almost universally
mutually intelligible, including the Idemili Igbo dialect (the version used in Chinua Achebe's epic novel,
Things Fall Apart), bende, Owerri, Ngwa, Umuahia, Nnewi, Onitsha, Awka, Abriba, Arochukwu, Nsukka, Mbaise, Abba, Ohafia, Agbor, Wawa and Okigwe,
Ukwa/Ndoki. It is considered to be a
dialect continuum. There is apparently a degree of
dialect levelling occurring.
The wide variety of spoken dialects has made agreeing a standardised
orthography and
dialect of the Igbo language very difficult. The current Onwu orthography, a compromise between the
older Lepsius orthography and a newer orthography advocated by the
International Institute of African Languages and Cultures (IIALC), was agreed in 1962.
The dialect form gaining widest acceptance,
Central Igbo, is based on the dialects of two members of the Ezinehite group of Igbos in Central Owerri Province between the towns of Owerri and Umuahia, Eastern Nigeria. From its proposal as a literary form in 1939 by Dr.
Ida C. Ward, it was gradually accepted by missionaries, writers, and publishers across the region. In 1972, the
Society for Promoting Igbo Language and Culture (SPILC), a nationalist organisation which saw Central Igbo as an imperialist exercise, set up a Standardisation Committee to extend Central Igbo to be a more inclusive language.
Standard Igbo aims to cross-pollinate Central Igbo with words from Igbo dialects from outside the "Central" areas, and with the adoption of
loan words.
In 1999,
Chinua Achebe, the most internationally famous Igbo speaker, passionately denounced Standard Igbo and its ancestors as colonial and conservative impositions on the rich range of Igbo dialects. To illustrate his point, he delivered his lecture in a dialect peculiar only to Onitsha speakers, which was almost unintelligible to more than half the audience.
Usage
Igbo is both spoken and written language mainly in eastern Nigeria.
Vocabulary
Igbo, like many other West African languages, has borrowed many words from English. Example loanwords include the Igbo word for blue ("blu") and operator ("opareto").
Many names in Igbo are actually fusions of older original words and phrases. For example, one Igbo word for
vegetable leaves is "akwukwo nri," which literally means "leaves for eating," or "vegetables." Green leaves are called "akwukwo ndu", because "ndu" means "life".. Another example is train ("ugbo igwe"), which comes from the words "ugbo" (vehicle, craft) and "igwe" (iron, metal); thus a locomotive train is vehicle via iron (rails)
, a car "ugbo ala" ; vehicle via land and an aeroplane "ugbo elu" ; vehicle via air.
Words may also take on multiple meanings. Take for example the word "akwukwo." "Akwukwo" originally means "leaf" (as on a tree), but during and after the
colonization period, akwukwo also came to be linked to "paper," "book," "school," and "education", to become respectively "akwukwo edemede", "akwukwo ogugu", "ulo akwukwo", "mmuta akwukwo". This is because printed paper can be first linked to an organic leaf, and then the paper to a book, the book to a school, and so on. Combined with other words, "akwukwo" can take on many forms — for example, "akwukwo ego" means "printed money" or "bank notes," and "akwukwo eji eje ije" means "passport."
Proverbs
Proverbs and idiomatic expressions are highly valued by the Igbo people and proficiency in the language means knowing how to intersperse speech with a good dose of proverbs.
Chinua Achebe (in
Things Fall Apart) describes proverbs as "the
palm oil with which words are eaten". Proverbs are widely used in the traditional society to describe, in very few words, what could have otherwise required a thousand words.
Sounds
Igbo is a
tonal language with two distinctive tones;
high and low. In some cases a third, downstepped high tone is also recognized. The language features
vowel harmony with two sets of vowels distinguished by
pharyngeal cavity size and can also be described in terms of "advanced tongue root" (ATR).
In some dialects, such as Enu-Onitsha Igbo, the doubly articulated /g͡b/ and /k͡p/ are realized as a voiced/devoiced bilabial
implosive. The approximant /ɹ/ is realized as an
alveolar tap [ɾ] between vowels as in
árá.
Syllables are of the form (C)V (optional consonant, vowel) or N (a
syllabic nasal). CV is the most common syllable type. Every syllable bears a tone. Consonant clusters don't occur. The semivowels
j and
w can occur between consonant and vowel in some syllables. The semi-vowel in CjV is analyzed as an underlying vowel 'ị', so that
-bịa is the phonemic form of
bjá 'come'. On the other hand, 'w' in CwV is analysed as an instance of labialization; so the phonemic form of the verb
-gwá 'tell' is /-gʷá/.
Writing system
The most commonly-used orthography for Igbo is currently the
Onwu (/oŋwu/) Alphabet. It is presented in the following table, with the
International Phonetic Alphabet equivalents for the characters:
Igbo Alphabet
(Onwu) |
IPA |
|
Igbo Alphabet
(Onwu) |
IPA |
| a |
/a/ |
|
ọ |
/ɔ/ |
| b |
/b/ |
|
p |
/p/ |
| gb |
/ɓ/ ~ /ɡ͡b/ |
|
kp |
/ɓ̥/ ~ /k͡p/ |
| d |
/d/ |
|
r |
/ɾ/ |
| e |
/e/ |
|
s |
/s/ |
| f |
/f/ |
|
sh |
/ʃ/ |
| g |
/ɡ/ |
|
t |
/t/ |
| gh |
/ɣ/ |
|
u |
/u/ |
| h |
/h/ |
|
ụ |
/ʊ/ |
| i |
/i/ |
|
v |
/v/ |
| ị |
/ɪ/ |
|
w |
/w/ |
| j |
/ʤ/ |
|
y |
/j/ |
| k |
/k/ |
|
z |
/z/ |
| l |
/l/ |
|
ch |
/ʧ/ |
| m |
/m/ and /m̩/ |
|
gw |
/ɡʷ/ |
| n |
/n/ and /n̩/ |
|
kw |
/kʷ/ |
| ṅ |
/ŋ/ |
|
nw |
/ŋʷ/ |
| o |
/o/ |
|
ny |
/ɲ/ |
The graphemes
and are described both as implosives and as coarticulated /ɡ/+/b/ and /k/+/p/, thus both values are included in the table.
and each represent two phonemes: a nasal consonant and a syllabic nasal.
Tones are sometimes indicated in writing, and sometimes not. When tone is indicated, low tones are shown with a grave accent over the vowel, for example → <à>, and high tones with an acute accent over the vowel, for example → <á>.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Ibo Language'.
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