Igbo language
Igbo language
Main page
2308732

Igbo language

logo
Community Hub0 subscribers
What are your thoughts?
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Igbo language

Igbo (English: /ˈb/ EE-boh, US also /ˈɪɡb/ IG-boh; Standard Igbo: Ásụ̀sụ́ Ìgbò [ásʊ̀sʊ̀ ìɡ͡bò] ) is the principal native language cluster of the Igbo people, an ethnicity in the Southeastern part of Nigeria.

Igbo languages are spoken by a total of 31 million people. The number of Igboid languages depends on how one classifies a language versus a dialect, so there could be around 35 different Igbo languages. The core Igbo cluster, or Igbo proper, is generally thought to be one language but there is limited mutual intelligibility between the different groupings (north, west, south and east). A standard literary language termed 'Igbo izugbe' (meaning "general igbo") was generically developed and later adopted around 1972, with its core foundation based on the Orlu (Isu dialects), Anambra (Awka dialects) and Umuahia (Ohuhu dialects), omitting the nasalization and aspiration of those varieties.

The first book to publish Igbo terms was History of the Mission of the Evangelical Brothers in the Caribbean (German: Geschichte der Mission der Evangelischen Brüder auf den Carabischen Inseln), published in 1777. Shortly afterwards in 1789, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano was published in London, England, written by Olaudah Equiano, who was a former slave, featuring 79 Igbo words. The narrative also illustrated various aspects of Igbo life in detail, based on Equiano's experiences in his hometown of Essaka. Following the British Niger Expeditions of 1854 and 1857, Samuel Ajayi Crowther, published an Igbo primer coded by a young Igbo missionary named Simon Jonas, who travelled with him to Aboh in 1857.

The language was standardized in church usage by the Union Igbo Bible (1913).

Central Igbo is based on the dialects of two members of the Ezinifite group of Igbo in Central Owerri Province between the towns of Owerri and Umuahia in Eastern Nigeria. From its proposal as a literary form in 1939 by Ida C. Ward, it was gradually accepted by missionaries, writers, and publishers across the region.

Standard Igbo aims to cross-pollinate Central Igbo with words from other Igbo dialects, with the adoption of loan words.

Chinua Achebe passionately denounced language standardization efforts, beginning with Union Igbo through to Central and finally Standard Igbo, in a 1999 lecture sponsored by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese in Owerri.

Igbo (and its dialects) is the dominant language in the following Nigerian states:

See all
User Avatar
No comments yet.