| Name | Igbo |
|---|---|
| Nativename | Asụsụ Igbo |
| States | Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon |
| Region | West and West Central Africa |
| Speakers | 18–25 million |
| Familycolor | Niger-Congo |
| Fam2 | Atlantic-Congo |
| Fam3 | Volta-Niger |
| Fam4 | |
| Fam5 | Igboid |
| Nation | Nigeria |
| Agency | SPILC |
| Script | Latin alphabet, Nsibidi ideograms, Mbari, Aniocha |
| Iso1 | ig |
| Iso2 | ibo|iso3=ibo |
Igbo (Igbo: Asụsụ Igbo) is a Niger-Congo language with around 20 million speakers that are mostly in Nigeria and are primarily of Igbo descent. Igbo is an official language of Nigeria and is also spoken natively in Cameroon. It is written in the Latin alphabet, which was introduced by British colonialists. Secret societies such as the Ekpe use the Nsibidi ideograms which were invented by the Ejagham and were used to represent other languages like Efik.
There are over 20 Igbo dialects. There is apparently a degree of dialect leveling occurring. A standard literary language was developed in 1972 based on the Owerri and Umuahia dialects, though it omits the nasalization and aspiration of those varieties. There are related Igboid languages as well that are sometimes considered dialects of Igbo, the most divergent being Ekpeye. Some of these, such as Ika, have separate standard forms.
The first books to publish any Igbo words was Geschichte der Mission der Evangelischen Bruder auf den Carabischen (), published in 1777. Shortly after wards in 1789, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano was published in London, England, written by Olaudah Equiano, a former slave, featuring 79 Igbo words. Things Fall Apart- Chinua Achebe Things Fall Apart which concerns influences of British colonialism and Christian missionaries on a traditional Igbo community during an unspecified time in the late 19th or early 20th century, was published in 1959 written by Chinua Achebe. The bulk of the novel takes place in Umuofia, one of nine villages on the lower Niger. It possibly is the most popular and renowned novel that deals with the Igbo and their traditional life.
Central Igbo, the dialect form gaining widest acceptance, is based on the dialects of two members of the Ezinihitte group of Igbo 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.
The wide variety of spoken dialects has made agreeing a standardised orthography and dialect of Igbo 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.
Many names in Igbo are actually fusions of older original words and phrases. For example, one Igbo word for vegetable leaves is akwükwö nri, which literally means "leaves for eating" or "vegetables". Green leaves are called akwükwö 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 akwükwö. Akwükwö originally means "leaf" (as on a tree), but during and after the colonization period, akwükwö also came to be linked to "paper," "book," "school," and "education", to become respectively akwükwö édémédé, akwükwö ogugu, ulo akwükwö, mmuta akwükwö. 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, akwükwö can take on many forms; for example, akwükwö ego means "printed money" or "bank notes," and akwükwö ejị éjé ijẹ means "passport."
The language features vowel harmony with two sets of vowels distinguished by pharyngeal cavity size described in terms of retracted tongue root (RTR). These vowels also occupy different places in vowel space: (the last commonly transcribed , in keeping with neighboring languages). For simplicity, phonemic transcriptions typically choose only one of these parameters to be distinctive, either RTR as in the chart at right and Igbo orthography (that is, as ), or vowel space as in the alphabetic chart below (that is, as ).
In some dialects, such as Enu-Onitsha Igbo, the doubly articulated and are realized as a voiced/devoiced bilabial implosive. The approximant is realized as an alveolar tap between vowels as in árá. The Enu-Onitsha Igbo dialect is very much similar to Enuani spoken among the Igbo-Anioma people in Delta State.
{| class="IPA wikitable" |+caption | Consonant phonemes of Standard Igbo ! colspan="2" rowspan="2" | ! colspan="2" rowspan="2"| Bilabial ! colspan="2" rowspan="2"| Labio-dental ! colspan="2" rowspan="2"| Dental/Alveolar ! colspan="2" rowspan="2"| Post-alveolar ! colspan="2" rowspan="2"| Palatal ! colspan="4" | Velar ! colspan="2" rowspan="2"| Labial-velar ! colspan="2" rowspan="2"| Glottal |-align=center !colspan="2"|plain !colspan="2"|labio. |- align=center !colspan="2" |Nasal | colspan="2" | m | colspan="2" | | colspan="2" | n | colspan="2" | | colspan="2" | ɲ | colspan="2" | ŋ | colspan="2" | ŋʷ | colspan="2" | | colspan="2" | |- align=center !colspan="2" |Plosive | p | b | colspan="2" | | t | d | colspan="2" | | colspan="2" | | k | ɡ | kʷ | ɡʷ | k͡p | ɡ͡b | colspan="2" | |- align=center !colspan="2" |Affricate | colspan="2" | | colspan="2" | | colspan="2" | | tʃ | dʒ | colspan="2" | | colspan="2" | | colspan="2" | | colspan="2" | | colspan="2" | |- align=center !colspan="2" |Fricative | colspan="2" | | f | | s | z | ʃ | | colspan="2" | | | ɣ | colspan="2" | | colspan="2" | | ɦ |- align=center !rowspan="2" |Approximant !central | colspan="2" | | colspan="2" | | colspan="2" | | colspan="2" | ɹ | colspan="2" | j | colspan="2" | | colspan="2" | | colspan="2" | w | colspan="2" | |- align=center !lateral | colspan="2" | | colspan="2" | | colspan="2" | | colspan="2" | l | colspan="2" | | colspan="2" | | colspan="2" | | colspan="2" | | colspan="2" | |}
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 do not 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 .
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center" |+ Igbo Latin alphabet |- ! style="text-align:left" | Letter ! style="width:5em"| A ! style="width:5em"| B ! style="width:5em"| Ch ! style="width:5em"| D ! style="width:5em"| E ! style="width:5em"| F ! style="width:5em"| G ! style="width:5em"| Gb |- class="IPA" ! style="text-align:left" | Pronunciation () |/a/ || /b/ || /tʃ/ || /d/ || /e/ || /f/ || /ɡ/ || /ɓ~ɡ͡ɓ/ |- |colspan="8" style="font-size:3px;line-height:1"| |- ! style="text-align:left" | Letter ! Gh || Gw || H || I || Ị || J || K || Kp |- class="IPA" ! style="text-align:left" | Pronunciation | /ɣ/ || /ɡʷ/ || /ɦ/ || /i/ || /ɪ̙/ || /dʒ/ || /k/ || /ƥ~k͡p/ |- |colspan="8" style="font-size:3px;line-height:1"| |- ! style="text-align:left" | Letter ! Kw || L || M || N || Nw || Ny || Ṅ || O |- class="IPA" ! style="text-align:left" | Pronunciation | /kʷ/ || /l/ || /m/ || /n/ || /ŋʷ/ || /ɲ/ || /ŋ/ || /o/ |- |colspan="8" style="font-size:3px;line-height:1"| |- ! style="text-align:left" | Letter ! Ọ || P || R || S || Sh || T || U || Ụ |- class="IPA" ! style="text-align:left" | Pronunciation | /ɔ̙/ || /p/ || /ɹ/ || /s/ || /ʃ/ || /t/ || /u/ || /ʊ̙/ |- |colspan="8" style="font-size:3px;line-height:1"| |- ! style="text-align:left" | Letter ! V !! W !! Y !! Z |- class="IPA" ! style="text-align:left" | Pronunciation | /v/ || /w/ || /j/ || /z/ |}
The graphemes ‹gb› and ‹kp› are described both as coarticulated and and as implosives, so both values are included in the table.
‹m› and ‹n› 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 ‹a› → ‹à›, and high tones with an acute accent over the vowel, for example ‹a› → ‹á›.
The word Bim, a name for Barbados, was commonly used by enslaved Barbadians (Bajans). This word is said to derive from the Igbo language, derived from bi mu (or either bem, Ndi bem, Nwanyi ibem or Nwoke ibem) (), but it may have other origins (see: Barbados etymology).
Category:Igbo language Category:Agglutinative languages Category:Languages of Nigeria Category:Igboid languages
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