bigfrancis21:


An Asaba man personally told me that himself. They used it to refer to the people east of the Niger who sold themselves off as slaves. That that was why they found it difficult accepting the name 'Igbo' at first. In Ika Igbo, 'Igbo' also means 'slave'.

Honestly, I don't know where you get all these claims from. Who told you that Benin and Ijaw people are yoruboid? In fact, how old are you to begin with?

I guess I'll avoid your statements from now on because you always make no sense.

I think the term 'igbo' is more likely to be translated as 'slavers'.

Danrizzle:
I think the term 'igbo' is more likely to be translated as 'slavers'.

Mind sharing how you reached this conclusion?

Before the advent of British the word Igbo has been and its not a British creation ...ignos have been living in independent states until British came

What colonialism did was to aggregate and galvanise Igbo and sense of oneness that all I can say

As for others I don't know

ChinenyeN:


Mind sharing how you reached this conclusion?

Check it now, if aros were classified as 'ibos', and from some guesses here 'ibo' meant slave, it simply means not only aros indulged in the infamous act, so various groups merely laid accussing fingers against their neighbours castigating them as 'kidnappers'. The term maybe particularly out of time got erroneously misinterpreted, judging by the 'slave phenomenom'.

I'm not entirely sure I follow. So, if you don't mind, help me understand. Igbo is a term used to refer to a grouping of peoples who speak what we now call 'Igbo language'. Igbon, by all accounts I've come across, is a Bini/Edo word that translates as 'slave' (don't know the cultural context of this). Your explanation seems to somehow mix the two together, when there is no etymological relationship between the them.

That is what I'm finding confusing. For all intents and purposes, they are two separate words.

Peinstein:
Nice write up, and opens up more discussions. I like threads like this, I am sure this issue has been in the OP's mind for long

Yoruba is merely a nomenclature, they could as well have been called romanbas, it wouldn't still change their identity. While you have the Ijebus, Ijesas, Oyos as distinct groups, they all still fraternized under the Omo Odua brotherhood even before colonisation. The yorubas in benin republic might not be classed as yorubas by nomenclature, but by identity they recognise themselves as Oduduwa people and still visit Ife and osogbo. Socio-cultural identity is by acceptance, while colonisation gave us a collective name, identity was still a matter of social-cultural an religious acceptance which really cannot be forced

For the Hausas-Fulani, their alliance was in effect and acceptable to their people before western influence. This acceptance was valid and structural and a reason the british decided on indirect rule. The real hausas and fulani know themselves, it is we in the south who normally call every northerner an hausa/fulani man. An Alago in Nasarawa speaks hausa well but will sternly warn you he isn't Hausa. If the british tried to force hausa/fulani identity on them it clearly didn't work. Taraba and Adamawa are other examples.

As for the Igbos, it still boils down to acceptance. You are Igbo if you believe you are. Obama doesn't call himself a Kenyan, neither does he call himself irish because of his mother's irish roots. He is simply an american because that is where he is accepted. The real igbos know themselves, you can't force it or take it away from them. I don't believe it is a western creation, maybe the name - the nomenclature, but the caricature of the Igbo man easily makes him know if he is one or not.

I agree to an extent that the whites tried to define us with their dictionary, but we know who we really are and what we want to be known for.

Quite on point.

C'mon, the fact that they have common ancestry presupposes they had a common language. The dialects only came about with time, interaction with other ethnic groups etc etc

Lol. Again, the highly revered bishop only anglicised/latinized, majorly, the Oyo spoken Yoruba. Just so you know, this Latinized Yoruba is not the one we speak on the streets of Lagos, it is most similar to that in Oyo, excluding the accent. Suffice to say Ajayi Crowther did not "create" this.

i dont know why some people keep insisting he did.

The written Yoruba as standardized by Ayayi Crowther was based on his own native Oyo dialect with influence from the dialect of the town he worked, Egba thus written Yoruba is 99%Oyo and 10% Egba, that's why you see Ps 23 starting as 'Oluwa l'olusho aguntan Mi'

I am sure there would have been a name for the language they spoke before resettling. The name has unfortunately become lost in history.

C'mon, the fact that they have common ancestry presupposes they had a common language. The dialects only came about with time, interaction with other ethnic groups etc etc

Lol. Again, the highly revered bishop only anglicised/latinized, majorly, the Oyo spoken Yoruba. Just so you know, this Latinized Yoruba is not the one we speak on the streets of Lagos, it is most similar to that in Oyo, excluding the accent. Suffice to say Ajayi Crowther did not "create" this.

Nooo, the bizzared people from 'Igbo' meaning forest who terrorized Ile-Ife then were a subset of the Ilaje peoples (they pronounced it in their dialect as Ugbo). They are now found in present day Ondo State.

I'm sorry ma, you can't claim to know so. Have you heard of Efunsetan Aniwura? Is that her name now? There was this Yoruba woman who volunteered and went as a spy to "Igbo" land when her people were being enslaved left right and center by some scary looking neighbours. I am still looking for the to link. I hope I didn't read it in a book!

Edit: The woman was Moremi of Ife and not Efunsetan of Ibadan. Error on my part.

Don't expect the tone of pronunciation to remain the same when transmuting from one language to another language or from one dialect of the same language to another.

Hmmm, I have neva heard our eastern brodas pronqounced Igbo as yoruba igbo(bush), I have always heard them pronounced it as when a Yorubaman says somebody is using head to fight anoda person( o se ni igbo!)

You are wrong sir, the yorubas had a precolonial empire, OYO Empire which at its peak united most parts (not all) of the present Southwest Nigeria, most parts of Kwara,fringes of Niger State and some parts of Dahomey (the present day Republic of Benin)

Ikengawo:


Like I said, these names and ethnic groups are based on real things, but the keyword is based. The Yoruba have everything in the world needed to call someone an ethnic group. Common language, common culture, common fatih and a common origin belief. I mean as a political unit, even with these things in front of them, they didn't see each other as one united identity until the white man came and put them into a group called Yoruba based on the things i've listen above. Strangers can look at then and see similarities that they didn't see or acknowledge politically in themselves.




Look at europe. The entire continent has the same religion, the same race, the same culture (which minor details), a common origin, and the same course of history, but they among themselves call themselves Germans, French, English, Austrian, Dutch, Dannish etc

They have, culturally, more in common among each other than many tribes in Nigeria but they acknowledge their differences. Had Nigerians colonized europe and declared them to be one single tribe "Oyibo", you will gain more perspective on what I'm saying. They will suddenly say well we all speak latin-germanic derived languages (many of which are more similar than dialects of single languages in Nigeria), we're all white, we all have the same religion, we all have the same culture, we all essentially eat the same food, of course we're one 'ethnicity'.












The truth is most ethnic groups are named by their neighbors and only exist as a result of contrast. It was the Romans than named Germans Germans, English English, and French French, and based on these roman classification, loosely affiliated warring tribes suddenly built foundations on these identifications, and colonist did in Nigeria.

Bros, you fail to understand that in Europe and in West Africa and in every where else, different Kingdoms and empires reign over a territories at different times but the land is the ONLY factor that remain constant.
800 years ago, there were no Countries called Netherlands, Sweden or Russia but the territories and the peoples were already in existence under different Kingdoms/Empires. Even, ethnicity is NOT FIXED!

Ikengawo:
It didn't for 2000 plus years?

Even today there are 8 nations that all speak german and are ethnically german but no united german. Somalia the same. It's not a guarantee and we're not in this discussion to speculate. Even today Yoruba land is not united. Trying to paint APC as a sign of a united Yoruba land is only buying into the propoganda of that political party for it's political ends, same for AGPA and igbos. Why Yorubas feel there needs to be a 'united yoruba' and igbos feel there needs to be a 'united igbo' when neither adds or minuses from anyone's standard of life or help them achieve their life goals is beyond me but there wasn't one before the british and there wasn't one after.


We were able to buy into the British identities of 'northerner' 'westerner' and 'easterner' and today you can say there are people in nigeria that are 'easterners' and so forth but what does that really mean other than a line draw in the air by politicians for politicians? I suppose I am an easterner, but I'm yet to realize how 'south east' or 'east' has impacted my daily life. My village has, a lot, because it's where I'm from, where I own land and where my family is located but outside of that what does "southeast" do for my standard of living or way of life?