IamAtribalist:


He seems to be more of a copy and paste merchant. Not particularly capable of much critical analysis. He engages in one sided arguments - he is more of a lawyer than a scientific intellect. Too biased to engage in serious analytical thought. Nevertheless, its interesting to see you (an amala-eater) getting along with an akpu-eater.

The only article I think i've pasted here is that of Acholonu. The rest were written by me.

IamAtribalist:



By the way the first part of your word vomit suggests a propaganda to save Igbo language from extinction. Any suggestion that Igbo is the oldest African language is ABSOLUTELY laughable. Lets be serious here and stop posting garbage just for the sake of posting.

Some people would want to think of Igbo as one of the oldest surviving languages of the world, or better still a surviving proto-language of our world till today.

ChinenyeN:


You're the one putting words in my mouth. I don't make insinuations. In fact, I make distinct efforts to ensure that I my statements are explicit and unambiguous. If there are any inferences being made, we can rest assured that they are not being made by me. With that said, I believe research and the pursuit of knowledge to be a perpetual activity, regardless of what someone thinks they already know. I also believe speculation to be generally healthy, as a thought exercise. However, I also distinguish between sound and unsound speculation, especially in the face of contradictory evidence.

Thanks for the clarification. I just wanted to get across to you that research is never-ending and established facts are often supplemented, or even totally replaced by newer or totally different established facts. The entire world once thought that the earth was flat such that if humans got to the end of the earth they would fall off. Remember, there was no solid proof or evidence for this theory and it was more of a widely-held and 'established' fact in the minds of humans at one time. This school of thought was held by the 'intellects' and 'great thinkers' of the society then only to be replaced in years to come with the theory that the earth is indeed spherical (i.e. roundish but a bit flattened at the top).

bigfrancis21:


Some people would want to think of Igbo as one of the oldest surviving languages of the world, or better still a surviving proto-language of our world till today.

Some people also would want to think the earth is just 6000 years old - you see how that works?

IamAtribalist:


Some people also would want to think the earth is just 6000 years old - you see how that works?

Yes, if justifiable by concrete evidence. I think supporters of that theory use the bible to justify a much younger earth than science espouses. Afterall, the Egyptian pyramids is recorded to have risen to fore at around 3000BC and we are currently in 2015AD, summing both years up of which gives nearly 5000 years +.

bigfrancis21:


Yes, if justifiable by concrete evidence. I think supporters of that theory use the bible to justify a much younger earth than science espouses. Afterall, the Egyptian pyramids is recorded to have risen to fore at around 3000BC and we are currently in 2015AD, summing both years up of which gives nearly 5000 years +.

Yes except they are flat out wrong. And the age of the earliest Egyptian civilization has NOTHING to do with the age of the PHYSICAL earth. Common are you smoking expired weed?

bigfrancis21:


I didn't mean to insult you, it was only a joke. I have modified my comment. My bad.

Cool. No shii.

I was sure Catherine Acholonu was bound to enter this discourse at some point. Hopefully in future there'll be a more appropriate thread where we can really get into Acholonu's contributions to prehistory and linguistics.

I'm sure she was a brilliant academic - in her own field, which is Literature. Her master's and doctorate degrees were in English and African Literature. So I'm sure she was in a class of her own when discussing and critically analysing the plays of Wole Soyinka and Samuel Beckett, or the poems of Christopher Okigbo and Robert Browning. But when she veered into prehistory, anthropology and historical linguistics, she was more like an imaginative Professor of Physics trying to decode ancient Etruscan inscriptions - out of her depth, 'original' and 'entertaining', rather than intellectually sound.

Taking one of many examples, in one paper where she argued that Igbo was once a global lingua franca and the mother of the Semitic languages, she said things to the effect that: 1. Igbos migrated from the legendary civilization of Atlantis, 2. She implied that Adam was a historical figure predated by the Igbo and the Igbo language, 3. She said that the Egyptian city of Hellopolis was in Punt (ignoring the fact that archaeologists are positive about where Hellopolis was - and it wasn't Punt), and then she went ahead to say that Punt wasn't even in Northeast Africa at all, but in the forested area of West Africa (even though we have contemporary written evidence from Ancient Egypt that places Punt in the general Northeast African area), 4. Then she went even a step further and said Igbo-Ukwu WAS Hellopolis and that Igbo-Ukwu/Heliopolis was the source of both Egyptian and Indian Civilizations.

Bro, I believe in thinking outside the box, but I don't believe in thinking outside the bounds of reason. Catherine Acholonu perfected the art of thinking outside the bounds of reason. She got accolades for her works, no doubt - though those accolades were largely from the literary community (a Flora Nwapa award, a Phillis Wheatley award); the 'Historical Studies' community shunned her basically.

I patiently read the Acholonu article you pasted here. I wasn't disappointed. She quoted some researchers on the origin and evolution of human language, then she proceeded to take their theories out of context. The lack of consistency between what the language researchers postulated and the conclusions Acholonu reached are amazing! You couldn't have missed it if you had read and understood it.

YOU SAY OLUKUNMI ARE ON IGBO LAND? HOW ARE THEY ON IGBO LAND? THEY BORDER FULL IGBOS TO THE EAST! ARE THERE IGBOS BEHIND THEM? OR TO THEIR WEST? WE HAVE EDOID GROUPS BEHIND THEM NOT NECESSARILY IGBOS. SO THEY ARE ON THEIR LAND AND NOT NECESSARILY ON IGBO LAND!


YOU SAY IGBO IS ANCESTOR OF YORUBA LANGUAGE? THAT IS NOT AN ACADEMIC STATEMENT! YOU SAY IGBO IS THE PROTO FORM OR ANCESTOR OF YORUBA? THAT ISNT ACADEMIC! WHY? THERE ARE DIFFERENT IGBO DIALECTS THAT ARE NOT MUTUALLY INTELLIGIBLE, THEN YOU YOURSELF MENTIONED EKPEYE A LANGUAGE YOU SAY IS SIMILAR TO IGBO. SO THAT SHOULD TELL YOU THAT THERE ARE PROTO FORM OF LANGUAGES IN FAMILIES! AND THE ANCESTOR OF EKPEYE AND IGBO ISNT EKPEYE OR IGBO! CANT YOU DEDUCE THAT? SO HOW MUCH MORE YORUBA AND IGBO? THAT IS THE LOGIC.


THEN THE ANCESTORS OF IGBOS MADE A LOUSY DECISION WHEN THEY REJECTED KINGS. THAT WAS A LOUSY DECISION. IT WAS HOW THEY SEPARATED FROM YORUBAS!

LET ME TELL YOU, IGBO UKWU DOES NOT BELONG TO A KINGLESS SOCIETY! THOSE ARTWORKS ARE NOT NRI BUT IFE.

lawani:
YOU SAY OLUKUNMI ARE ON IGBO LAND? HOW ARE THEY ON IGBO LAND? THEY BORDER FULL IGBOS TO THE EAST! ARE THERE IGBOS BEHIND THEM? OR TO THEIR WEST? WE HAVE EDOID GROUPS BEHIND THEM NOT NECESSARILY IGBOS. SO THEY ARE ON THEIR LAND AND NOT NECESSARILY ON IGBO LAND!


YOU SAY IGBO IS ANCESTOR OF YORUBA LANGUAGE? THAT IS NOT AN ACADEMIC STATEMENT! YOU SAY IGBO IS THE PROTO FORM OR ANCESTOR OF YORUBA? THAT ISNT ACADEMIC! WHY? THERE ARE DIFFERENT IGBO DIALECTS THAT ARE NOT MUTUALLY INTELLIGIBLE, THEN YOU YOURSELF MENTIONED EKPEYE A LANGUAGE YOU SAY IS SIMILAR TO IGBO. SO THAT SHOULD TELL YOU THAT THERE ARE PROTO FORM OF LANGUAGES IN FAMILIES! AND THE ANCESTOR OF EKPEYE AND IGBO ISNT EKPEYE OR IGBO! CANT YOU DEDUCE THAT? SO HOW MUCH MORE YORUBA AND IGBO? THAT IS THE LOGIC.


THEN THE ANCESTORS OF IGBOS MADE A LOUSY DECISION WHEN THEY REJECTED KINGS. THAT WAS A LOUSY DECISION. IT WAS HOW THEY SEPARATED FROM YORUBAS!

LET ME TELL YOU, IGBO UKWU DOES NOT BELONG TO A KINGLESS SOCIETY! THOSE ARTWORKS ARE NOT NRI BUT IFE.

lol@ igboukwu artworks are not NRI but ife

catal:
lol@ igboukwu artworks are not NRI but ife

DEDUCTIVE REASONING IS PART OF WHAT MAKES US HUMAN! THE IFE IN OSUN WAS RECENTLY ESTABLISHED. THERE ARE A NUMBER OF OLD IFES CLOSE TO THAT AREA! AND THERE MUST HAVE BEEN IFES ON LAND NOW TAGGED IGBO LAND!. THE IGBO UKWU BRONZES DEFINITELY ORIGINATED FROM IFE IGALA OR IFE IJUMU. BY THE WAY IGBO UKWU MEANS BURIAL FOREST OR DEATH FOREST IN YORUBA LANGUAGE!.

lawani:


DEDUCTIVE REASONING IS PART OF WHAT MAKES US HUMAN! THE IFE IN OSUN WAS RECENTLY ESTABLISHED. THERE ARE A NUMBER OF OLD IFES CLOSE TO THAT AREA! AND THERE MUST HAVE BEEN IFES ON LAND NOW TAGGED IGBO LAND!. THE IGBO UKWU BRONZES DEFINITELY ORIGINATED FROM IFE IGALA OR IFE IJUMU. BY THE WAY IGBO UKWU MEANS BURIAL FOREST OR DEATH FOREST IN YORUBA LANGUAGE!.

lol, you're still sounding stupid.

lawani:
YOU SAY OLUKUNMI ARE ON IGBO LAND? HOW ARE THEY ON IGBO LAND? THEY BORDER FULL IGBOS TO THE EAST! ARE THERE IGBOS BEHIND THEM? OR TO THEIR WEST? WE HAVE EDOID GROUPS BEHIND THEM NOT NECESSARILY IGBOS. SO THEY ARE ON THEIR LAND AND NOT NECESSARILY ON IGBO LAND!


YOU SAY IGBO IS ANCESTOR OF YORUBA LANGUAGE? THAT IS NOT AN ACADEMIC STATEMENT! YOU SAY IGBO IS THE PROTO FORM OR ANCESTOR OF YORUBA? THAT ISNT ACADEMIC! WHY? THERE ARE DIFFERENT IGBO DIALECTS THAT ARE NOT MUTUALLY INTELLIGIBLE, THEN YOU YOURSELF MENTIONED EKPEYE A LANGUAGE YOU SAY IS SIMILAR TO IGBO. SO THAT SHOULD TELL YOU THAT THERE ARE PROTO FORM OF LANGUAGES IN FAMILIES! AND THE ANCESTOR OF EKPEYE AND IGBO ISNT EKPEYE OR IGBO! CANT YOU DEDUCE THAT? SO HOW MUCH MORE YORUBA AND IGBO? THAT IS THE LOGIC.


THEN THE ANCESTORS OF IGBOS MADE A LOUSY DECISION WHEN THEY REJECTED KINGS. THAT WAS A LOUSY DECISION. IT WAS HOW THEY SEPARATED FROM YORUBAS!

LET ME TELL YOU, IGBO UKWU DOES NOT BELONG TO A KINGLESS SOCIETY! THOSE ARTWORKS ARE NOT NRI BUT IFE.

Know your place, kid. bigfrancis will roast you when he sees this nonsense.

Probz:


Know your place, kid. bigfrancis will roast you when he sees this nonsense.

Lol. The kid is a troll. He's well-known here for speculating unreasonable things.

WHEN YOU TALK RUBBISH, IT SHOWS YOUR MENTAL ABILITY AND YOU LOSE CREDIT WITH QUALITY, INTELLIGENT READERS ACROSS THE GLOBE.

lawani:
WHEN YOU TALK RUBBISH, IT SHOWS YOUR MENTAL ABILITY AND YOU LOSE CREDIT WITH QUALITY, INTELLIGENT READERS ACROSS THE GLOBE.

You've just accurately described your posts in a sentence.

How old are you? Straight question.

bigfrancis21:


My views may not be so Igbo-centric after all. Please read below:



http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~legneref/igbo/westafricanorigin.htm

Just re-read this thread and I just had to bring this to the spotlight. I don't believe everything I come across online but you can't let an article like this go by without bringing it to the spotlight. Any further research been conducted on this, bigfrancis?

Well, this is one heck of a speculation. The linguistic evidence doesn't quite support this. What linguistic evidence suggests is that Igbo and Yoruba (plus Idoma, Nupe, Edo, etc) are sister languages that diverged from a common ancestor-language, i.e., one sister language did not grow out of the other (Igbo did not grow out Yoruba, Nupe did not grow out of Idoma, etc, but all sprang apart from this common linguistic ancestor.)

Illustrating with an European example: French, Spanish, Italian and Romanian are also sister-languages that developed out of one proto-language. This doesn't mean that Italian grew out of Spanish, or that Romanian is a 'spin-off' of archaic French. They all separately grew out of one proto-language.

Omi in Igbo also mean Spring Water

lawani:
YOU SAY OLUKUNMI ARE ON IGBO LAND? HOW ARE THEY ON IGBO LAND? THEY BORDER FULL IGBOS TO THE EAST! ARE THERE IGBOS BEHIND THEM? OR TO THEIR WEST? WE HAVE EDOID GROUPS BEHIND THEM NOT NECESSARILY IGBOS. SO THEY ARE ON THEIR LAND AND NOT NECESSARILY ON IGBO LAND!


YOU SAY IGBO IS ANCESTOR OF YORUBA LANGUAGE? THAT IS NOT AN ACADEMIC STATEMENT! YOU SAY IGBO IS THE PROTO FORM OR ANCESTOR OF YORUBA? THAT ISNT ACADEMIC! WHY? THERE ARE DIFFERENT IGBO DIALECTS THAT ARE NOT MUTUALLY INTELLIGIBLE, THEN YOU YOURSELF MENTIONED EKPEYE A LANGUAGE YOU SAY IS SIMILAR TO IGBO. SO THAT SHOULD TELL YOU THAT THERE ARE PROTO FORM OF LANGUAGES IN FAMILIES! AND THE ANCESTOR OF EKPEYE AND IGBO ISNT EKPEYE OR IGBO! CANT YOU DEDUCE THAT? SO HOW MUCH MORE YORUBA AND IGBO? THAT IS THE LOGIC.


THEN THE ANCESTORS OF IGBOS MADE A LOUSY DECISION WHEN THEY REJECTED KINGS. THAT WAS A LOUSY DECISION. IT WAS HOW THEY SEPARATED FROM YORUBAS!

LET ME TELL YOU, IGBO UKWU DOES NOT BELONG TO A KINGLESS SOCIETY! THOSE ARTWORKS ARE NOT NRI BUT IFE.

Please did you attend to any school at all? This is the most unacademic thing I've seen of recent. What course did you study? Who are you quarreling with the you have to descend so low to go against proven studies. Nowadays people are not into this low life ethnic rivalry and politics, we are only interested in studies not outbursts.

@lawani
The people of Olukwumi are Igbo. No doubt about it. They are Igbo. In fact they are the aboriginal Igbos that Moremi married into. If Olugbo claims he married Moremi, then Ugbo also might be one of the Olukwumi, just as Ugbodu, Onicha Ugbo, etc. are.

igbodefender:
@lawani
The people of Olukwumi are Igbo. No doubt about it. They are Igbo. In fact they are the aboriginal Igbos that Moremi married into. If Olugbo claims he married Moremi, then Ugbo also might be one of the Olukwumi, just as Ugbodu, Onicha Ugbo, etc. are.

.

They all speak Igbo as second language after their Yoruba dialect. That puts them under the Igbo umbrella but they are Yorubas. I have explained using the people of Alsace Lorraine in France. Those people are Germans by ethnicity but under France. They are French citizens. ok?

bigfrancis21:


The first Igbo civilization of Igbo Ukwu came into fore in the 9th century when iron casting and bronze casting were flourishing and the Igbo-ukwu artworks were created, at a time when Europe was still in the dark ages with no visible progress, and of such great quality unrivalled by no European artwork of that time. The Igbos also built pyramids which no Yoruba tribe was documented to have built. Ife was to establish itself 300 years later.

When we speak of great African empires, the Bini empire comes readily into mind, with its influence stretching over thousand of miles, across some parts of Yoruba land to Lagos (Eko in Esan dialect). Oyo empire does not even come close to the Bini empire or the influence that it wielded.

So what makes you think Igbo cannot be an offshoot of Ancient Yoruba Language? Why do you always want to measure up to the Youruba in your achievements. Let me tell. it is a sign of inferiority complex.

You are possibly a tribal bigot. How dear you compare the yoruba race to Igbo ukwu or what have you or Bini Kingdom to the world wide acknowledge Oyo empire. Even the Benin Kingdom you mention only became relevant when the Oyo empire was having internal problems. The Benins know this...

So you are claiming a civilization that walks around almost naked just about a 100 years ago is grester than an empire that developed adire almost half a millenium ago and the great art that the Europeans describe as second to non in its time?

You better dont start what you can not finish? You better get your act right before tribal bogotry destroy the little life you have left.

igbodefender:
@lawani
The people of Olukwumi are Igbo. No doubt about it. They are Igbo. In fact they are the aboriginal Igbos that Moremi married into. If Olugbo claims he married Moremi, then Ugbo also might be one of the Olukwumi, just as Ugbodu, Onicha Ugbo, etc. are.

Olukumi are Yorubas. Google it and you can only tell your own story a not tell the story of others. They said they are Yorubas and a tpyical will alwsys be yourubas irrespective of locations. That tells the reason why the Yoruba culture survived even in far away Brazil and the Carribeans.

How can you force a people into a race they said they do not belong?
Common!

lawani:
.

They all speak Igbo as second language after their Yoruba dialect. That puts them under the Igbo umbrella but they are Yorubas. I have explained using the people of Alsace Lorraine in France. Those people are Germans by ethnicity but under France. They are French citizens. ok?

Not really. For most of them, if not all, Igbo is their native language and Olukwumi an extra language to the elderly especially. Asides speaking Olukwumi in addition to the generally spoken Igbo, they are the same culturally and traditionally as other Igbos. There are 6 olukumi villages, out of which 3 have switched to Igbo completely leaving traces of partial bilingualism in Igbo and Olukwumi in the other 3 villages, especially in Ugbodu (one quarter especially in the entire Ugbodu village). As confirmed by many anioma people, Olukwumi identify as Olukwumi or Delta Igbo or Anioma, rarely as Yoruba.

ofe oha ok, ingredients u wee need - mashed potato, 22 hot scotch bonnet pepper, 1 teaspoon cameroon pepe, a medium bunch ora leaves, uziza seed, curry and turmeric, beef and paprika, ogiri ok

mash the potato and grind the uziza seeding. then cook d beef with no wata (d natural juice in beef is enough for stock), you can add wata once e don cook finish ok, den put em distin, eh he ora leafy (ora is tougher than uziza so must come first) with the mash potato, wait until the potato dissolve wello, den put u pepper, condiments and ogiri and let it boil for 7 mins (well dat the time all the ingredients will come together and blend ok). then serve with akamu, pepper soup or (MY FAVE) jollof rice

DAT is how we cook ofe oha in delta state, in the part of delta ibo i from in ogwashi ukwu ok. you can add a little ketchup for colouring but I like my ora soup plain ok. DO NOT PUT PALM OIL.

bigfrancis21:


The first Igbo civilization of Igbo Ukwu came into fore in the 9th century when iron casting and bronze casting were flourishing and the Igbo-ukwu artworks were created, at a time when Europe was still in the dark ages with no visible progress, and of such great quality unrivalled by no European artwork of that time. The Igbos also built pyramids which no Yoruba tribe was documented to have built. Ife was to establish itself 300 years later.

When we speak of great African empires, the Bini empire comes readily into mind, with its influence stretching over thousand of miles, across some parts of Yoruba land to Lagos (Eko in Esan dialect). Oyo empire does not even come close to the Bini empire or the influence that it wielded.

echoligwagee oo k

bigfrancis21:
It is very likely Yoruba language developed out from a spin-off dialect of Igbo long time ago, along the linguistic developmental line of Igbo to Igala to Olukwumi to Yoruba during an upward-westward migration of peoples from East towards the West. There is a reason olukwumi, aka old Yoruba language, isn't found anywhere in modern Yoruba land but right in Igbo land indicating a development of the proto-dialect within Igbo land and a likely migration of the speakers out to modern day Yoruba land where the language evolved to what it is today. This is even more plausible given the fact that Igbo civilization (Igbo Ukwu) is older than the earliest Yoruba civilization (Ife).

@OP...you forgot to include in your list 'abeokuta' which carries a similar meaning in igbo as 'ebe okwute' meaning 'place of rock', indicating a possibility of initial Olukwumi-Igbo settlers that settled in the area coming fresh from Igboland (most likely delta Igbo region) and speaking the oldest version of olukwumi still laced with Igbo words and pronunciations, which changed over time as the speakers lost direct contact with their kith and kin in the east over the years. Some theories say the Olukwumi in delta state were escapees from Ondo or is it Osun state during some war that took place at that time. Even if this were to be true, there must have been a reason these escapees chose to head back east (Igbo land) rather than to other Yoruba-speaking areas they would have easily assimilated into. I guess they chose to return to the land of their ancestors they had originated from where they were most assured of their safety. There could be other possibilities explaining the presence of Olukwumi in Delta Igbo, one of which I have just mentioned, which further research needs to be carried out on.

Another strong fact backing this suggestion is the fact that a deep introspection of similar Igbo and Yoruba words show an often easier or peppered down quality in Yoruba words than Igbo words and it is often known that children languages that evolve from a parent language are often easier to pronounce, speak, spell and/or learn. Take Spanish, Portuguese, Italian etc. (children languages) and their parent language, Latin, for example. During medieval times, Latin happened to be the language of class and the rich. It was a mark of grandeur which only the elite of the society spoke properly well. They had the privilege of going to school where they had Latin teachers teach them how to speak the language properly. However, the low-class and peasants of the society, however, could not speak proper Latin and often spoke bad Latin aka Pidgin Latin such that variants of this Pidgin Latin developed to Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian etc. that we have today. Latin words, when compared with words from its children languages, tend to be longer, deeper and albeit more complicated in pronunciation and writing. Of course old English (early language of the angles, Saxons and jutes) is more complicated than modern English. In the same respect, similar Igbo vs Yoruba words exhibiting the characteristics of Latin vs Spanish/French etc are Egwugwu vs Egungun (a type of masquerade), Ogwu vs Ogun (charm), Mmiri vs Omi (water), Okwute vs Okuta etc. Notice the dropping of the quite difficult to pronounce 'gw' and 'kw' consonants in Yoruba and replacement with letters 'g' and 'k' only and addition of the nasal feature of 'n', thus making the word pronunciation easier. Yoruba language is often said to be easier to learn than Igbo and Igbo is characterized by double consonants such as 'gw', 'kw', 'ch', 'gh', etc. many of which are lacking in Yoruba language but interestingly found in Igala language (Yoruboid), which is a boundary language between the Yorubas to the West and Igbos to the South.

I would love to think of Yoruba as a likely language off-shoot of a very divergent archaic Igbo dialect. Some people may not like what I wrote but we need to start taking at things from a different point of view.

thanks for your long write up.
But oduans didn't migrated from eastern igbo.
on olukunmi stuff; olukumi simply means "my friend"