Probz:


The very same grounds that differentiate Yoruba from Ishekiri/Igala (shared traditions/customs and religion, food, etc.).

YourNemesis:


Yorubas and Igalas don't share the same culture though.
Even language wise, Yorubas can't really understand Igala, they can only pick out some words when they are speaking deeply, otherwise, it is hard for a Yoruba to understand an Igala person, except maybe some very few phrases.
Itsekiri is sooo much easier.

iSlayer2:
Run along child,I ain't got sweets

Probz:




@RedboneSmith, the things that differentiate Yoruboid from Yoruba proper are the same things that differentiate Igboid from Igbo and (at least in my opinion) constitute Igbo culture (traditional belief system, arts, cuisine, etc.). I wasn't dodging any question.

Probz:


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igboid_languages

My question is, are Ikas and Ukwuania culturally Igbo or not?

RedboneSmith:


We could have an interesting discussion about Igbo culture and what it really is, and then determine if it is possible to distinguish Igboid from Igbo based on culture. But sadly, you are not really engaging my question.

Traditional belief system? What are those elements of Igbo belief system? Are they really pan-Igbo (i.e., do they exist exclusively in all the so-called Igbo areas) and non-existent in the so-called igboid areas?

Cuisine? Can you name a dish which is common to all the so-called Igbo areas --- all of them --- but which the so-called Igboid areas do not indulge in?

Arts? Are there art forms which ALL the so-called Igbo people practise which the so-called Igboids don't?

I want to know if we can really articulate a common Igbo culture which can be demonstrated as separating the Igbo from those you would called Igboid. Put Yoruboid matter aside; this may not be a "London is to England, as Paris is to France" situation.

Probz:
Is everything epic to you, laudete?

AmuDimpka:


But the Igbo man in Anambra can understand the ukwuani man


And also ukwuani and oguta speaks exactly same

So ukwuani is Igboid language
Oguta is Igbo dialect


Ikwerre and ohaji speaks almost same dikaects
So ikwerre is an Igboid language
Ohaji is an Igbo dialect


Your definition is so faulty so faulty


If the Anambra man can understand the ukwuani man without the aid of interpreter ..Then ukwuani speaks same language with Anambra but a different dialect



You guys must stop this Igboid madness...Why always Igbo . What about hausaoid language

Linguists, however, do make a distinction between the two based on the concept of mutual intelligibility. Two languages where speakers can understand each other are considered dialects of the same language, whereas two languages where the speakers cannot understand each other are, indeed, separate languages.

This often isn't black and white, since understand can be a hard criterion to pin down. There's no well-established way this has been operationalized.

ChinenyeN:
PabloAfricanus, you're essentially arguing a point that is ultimately outside the scope of my statement. Your point is relevant though. Specifically, it is relevant to the subject of the historical context, but it is ultimately not the point I am making. You are discussing details of the historical context, while I am simply drawing people's attention to the fact that any attempt to draw lines between "Igbo proper" and "Igboid" is essentially an arbitrary exercise. It results in a farce, because the rules one person uses to draw those lines cannot be uniformly applied to all other contexts, and the aforementioned lines neglect the historical context that gave birth to what we know as "Igbo identity".

Eventually, Nigerians will have to learn. Either nobody is Igbo, or everyone who speaks a type of Igbo is Igbo. Anything in between is arbitrary, and an insult to the various peoples involved.

Afam4eva:

Laureta Onochie is from Ika.

@As much as you tried to use objectivity to drive home your point, i don't think using objectivity like you have done can give you a true picture. The only thing i see you doing is that those you classified as Igbos are those that have typical Igbo idiosyncrasies. Notice my usage of the word "typical". I don't know why people tend to define Igbos by popular characteristics of people from the South-East which could have come due to the unique history that they share. It's just like saying someone doesn't look Igbo because they cannot hustle like the average Igbo man without realizing that even hustling really hard is a popular behavior of Igbo people, it's not the only behavior of Igbo people. There are Igbo people that are lazy. there are Igbo people that cannot do business etc.

I think it's pertient that you tell us why you think Ika for example are from Edo as opposed to Enuani? let me guess: is it because they have an Edo influence on their Igboid language? or they could be Edo with Igbo influence. it depends on how you look at it.

it's imperative that Igbo is not a homogenous group and as such all Igbo people should not be exactly the same or have the same political inclination. There are Igbo people and there are people people. There are Igbo people that according to natural order are Igbos based on their language, culture and tradition but they could decide not to go with the Igbo tag. I remember one Ndoni guy on this forum who swore that ndoki was not Igbo but he agreed that all the "BIA" speaking tribes should come together and give themselves a new name but not "Igbo". That's when i realized the fact that the fear of these people isn't necessarily about working the SE Igbos but the fact that being tagged Igbo will swallow their uniqqueness and dissipate them into nothingness. It's just like telling an Annang person to call himself Ibibio.

cheruv:

You deconstructed the fulcrum of his arguments with these...in my view the only Igboid languages are Igbo itself and Ekpeye.
At times I don't get this undue obsession with anything Igbo from Yoruba people especially... I was shocked to find out that some Yoruba now study Igbo history in order to find in which to claim superiority over Igbos

cheruv:
[s]He's one of those flies that are attracted to anything Igbo[/s]

Noneroone:
"Igboid" such is silly political invention.

I wouldnt have bothered to comment if some supposedly enlightened Igbos didnt post in a manner that is patrionizing to Igbo division agenda

All the indigenous cultures from ika down oratta and ikwerre are Igbo. The variations are just dialects. Some that we call dialects are not even variant enough to constitute one.

Imagine a grown-up saying ikwerre and ogba are "igboid languages"

do you even know the meaning of Igboid? What an insult on the sensibility of Igbos!

people should stop engaging in the crass abuse of the word "language"

someone even said that Igbo is not a homogeinous group. What an academic misfit! Do you know that a historian once suggested that the entire Igboland must have had one single ruler in the distant past, since it is difficult to explain why market days, kinship and well entrenched customs are same throughout igboland.

the slave traders who visited the Niger area since the 14th century clearly recorded majority of the slaves they got as having come from the "heebo" country.

The colonialist in their own account documented that two third of lower niger (old eastern region) are Igbo. These whites related first hand with the natives, spent years with them, studied their culture, religion, belief system, mythology, tradition, ritual, market days etc and concluded the igbos are one and even share one history.

We will not allow some intellectual fraudsters to declare that Igbo is not a homogenous group and go further to arrogate on themselves the academic authority of making phantom declaration behind the keyboard that some igbo dialects are 'igboid' and some are igbo.

If you are looking for attention and you think telling Igbo story the way it will please our enemies is the only way to get it then think again.

cheruv:

As an ukwangwa I tend to agree with that idea but aside Biāfra, I don't think any other name appeals as much. Moreover I've noticed that the Anioma tend to be more comfortable with the Biāfra tag than the Igbo one.
What about using "Ola"(treasure) or "Igwe"(celestial/heavenly)

Wulfruna:


"As an UkwaNgwa." Amazing! I wish I had this power to change identity as I like. On this thread you're Ukwa-Ngwa. On the other thread you are Anioma. Brilliant!

Cire80
ehikwe22
gerg

Did you guys see this thread/comment?

(Oh, Ukwa-Ngwa is in Abia State... in case you guys aren't familiar with the term.)

Wulfruna:


"As an UkwaNgwa." Amazing! I wish I had this power to change identity as I like. On this thread you're Ukwa-Ngwa. On the other thread you are Anioma. Brilliant!

Cire80
ehikwe22
gerg

Did you guys see this thread/comment?

(Oh, Ukwa-Ngwa is in Abia State... in case you guys aren't familiar with the term.)

cheruv:


Very amazing indeed
Well having lived in Aba for quite a longtime, don't you think I've the right to claim to be from there
Too bad despite being a woman you don't know these things

Cire80:
thanks. I saw this yesterday and I laughed in my mind because it only confirmed what I already knew. The reason I didn't confront him with it is because I knew he would twist it like he always does. That's what him and his brothers are best at doing.

cheruv:


Very amazing indeed
Well having lived in Aba for quite a longtime, don't you think I've the right to claim to be from there
Too bad despite being a woman you don't know these things

Wulfruna:


Cire80 was right. He said you were going to twist this.

I have been on this forum long enough and have seen your comments long enough to know you have no connnection to Anioma. You are from Imo-Abia axis as your comments bear witness. You only started calling yourself Anioma on the other thread, much to my puzzlement because no be today I don dey see you for this forum.

You better go and start wiping your history, because when I have time i will start digging them up. Including one comment where you clearly insinuated that you are NOT from Delta.

Wulfruna:
Cire80 was right. He said you were going to twist this.

I have been on this forum long enough and have seen your comments long enough to know you have no connnection to Anioma. You are from Imo-Abia axis as your comments bear witness. You only started calling yourself Anioma on the other thread, much to my puzzlement because no be today I don dey see you for this forum.

You better go and start wiping your history, because when I have time i will start digging them up. Including one comment where you clearly insinuated that you are NOT from Delta.

Cire80:
thanks. I saw this yesterday and I laughed in my mind because it only confirmed what I already knew. The reason I didn't confront him with it is because I knew he would twist it like he always does. That's what him and his brothers are best at doing.

cheruv:

You deconstructed the fulcrum of his arguments with these...in my view the only Igboid languages are Igbo itself and Ekpeye.
At times I don't get this undue obsession with anything Igbo from Yoruba people especially... I was shocked to find out that some Yoruba now study Igbo history in order to find in which to claim superiority over Igbos

RedboneSmith:


We could have an interesting discussion about Igbo culture and what it really is, and then determine if it is possible to distinguish Igboid from Igbo based on culture. But sadly, you are not really engaging my question.

Traditional belief system? What are those elements of Igbo belief system? Are they really pan-Igbo (i.e., do they exist exclusively in all the so-called Igbo areas) and non-existent in the so-called igboid areas?

Cuisine? Can you name a dish which is common to all the so-called Igbo areas --- all of them --- but which the so-called Igboid areas do not indulge in?

Arts? Are there art forms which ALL the so-called Igbo people practise which the so-called Igboids don't?

I want to know if we can really articulate a common Igbo culture which can be demonstrated as separating the Igbo from those you would called Igboid. Put Yoruboid matter aside; this may not be a "London is to England, as Paris is to France" situation.

Cire80:
Bro, I respect people like you that are honest and argue out of deep personal conviction irrespective of whose ox is gored. I don't know what side you are on this but I'm certain you know the answer to most of these questions you're asking probz. As for me, I'm not completely on any side.

In my opinion, the op is right to some extent but he's trying to argue from an objective angle which I think is not possible in this topic. And his authoritative generalization is another issue.

And all those saying they understand Ukwani and Ika are not being truthful. You understand some things but you can't understand Ika and Ukwani except you've spent some time in an Ika and Ukwani town.

jericco1:
Even me wey be Ika boy, una don successfully confuse me. Nawa

Probz:


I’m not trying to generalise, believe me. All I said was that, from my experience, most of the Igbo denial in Delta State comes from the Ika-Ukwuani (Bendel) region and that’s for a reason. I know there are Igbo deniers in Asaba environs but they’re noticeably fewer compared to their more westerly neighbours. Riverine Igbos, not just Deltans but select Anambrarians (Onitsha, Ogbaru), have this funny thing about hinterland Igbos anyway. We’ve all heard of ‘nwa onye Igbo.’

Anioma just seems like a pure political creation to me. As far as I can see, Enuani’s the only true Igbo group in the northern Delta State and that’s not even being generalising since most Ika-Ukwuanis that I know vehemently oppose the Igbo label. Cross-border influences are everywhere in the Igbo exterior (Nsukka-Igala, Aro-Ibibio, Abakaliki-Tiv/Idoma) but I can’t help but see Bendel Igbos as nothing other than flat-out Edo-Igbo hybrids. What’s more generalising than any of what I’m saying is lumping them in with true Delta Igbos because they share some linguistic similarities. It seems to me like a pure matter of geographic and political convenience (esp. to an average Nigerian) and partly the reason why people don’t see Delta Igbos as true Igbos, because the Igboid-Edoid groups in that region (who account for the majority) reject the label. That’s why I think the Delta Igbo label should be limited to Aniocha/Oshimili and not including Ika and Ndokwa. Unless someone can tell me that the latter were originally Igbo and not Bini in culture/language and that there’s not just a few of them assimilating into the wider Igbo culture and language for political reasons.

Cire80:
Bro, I respect people like you that are honest and argue out of deep personal conviction irrespective of whose ox is gored. I don't know what side you are on this but I'm certain you know the answer to most of these questions you're asking probz. As for me, I'm not completely on any side.

In my opinion, the op is right to some extent but he's trying to argue from an objective angle which I think is not possible in this topic. And his authoritative generalization is another issue.

And all those saying they understand Ukwani and Ika are not being truthful. You understand some things but you can't understand Ika and Ukwani except you've spent some time in an Ika and Ukwani town.