this is one of the best threads i have seen, are all the contributors nigerian ?

Antivirus92: answer this again. Can igalla,urhobo,tiv,efik,calabar ever come together and take up one language,culture,tradition etc? Who will agree to forfeit his own language/culture for the other? Have u ever heard of dead languages in igboland? Or do those different groups of people migrated with one language miracleously?

there are no dead languages in igbo land. But i guess that was a rhetorical question.
4 pages and we're stil on a wide goose chase.
I'v tried to highlite what we the igbos have in common, our similarities are soo strong that one can easily call us a tribe. But we're not just a tribe. We're a nation with similar language, custom, believe etc. A unique people with various tribes: aro, ngwa, awka, nsuka, ohafia, mbaise, abakiliki etc.

ujchief:
there are no dead languages in igbo land. But i guess that was a rhetorical question.
4 pages and we're stil on a wide goose chase.
I'v tried to highlite what we the igbos have in common, our similarities are soo strong that one can easily call us a tribe. But we're not just a tribe. We're a nation with similar language, custom, believe etc. A unique people with various tribes: aro, ngwa, awka, nsuka, ohafia, mbaise, abakiliki etc.

and what makes the similarities so strong knowing that in the olden days,igbo towns have no knowledge of one another. So those different people migrating miracleously happen to have similar language,culture,tradition etc? Or are there group that colonize others? Please don't take any gabbage history u see on the internet serious. Make use of ur brain.

Let me carry out a lil research and come back to this thread...see you guys when am done.

For example am from Itu in Olokoro, Itu is a village and Olokoro a clan.
I once asked my late father how did ITu come to be? he said to me that he also asked his late father this question, the answer was that the migrated from oboro to settle in Olokoro. The're certain traditional occasion's that the perform in Itu once in a while the will invite people from Oboro but will not invite people from Olokoro. Now there certain places that Itu citizens don't marry in Oboro the will say is there relation.

Now come to think of it the migrated from Oboro to olokoro and olokoro speaks Igbo language the eventually settle here because there language were the same it means there brother's though not documented but to me is actioned and active in operation.

In Olokoro some part of Amakama is close to akwa ibom but the do not speak the same language so the Igbo's in Olokoro don't see the akwa ibom man as his brother and may not refer him as nna. I think the binding force here is the language that connects the Anambra to Imo, Abia to eboyin etc the langauge is the connecting force a prove of a nation

So, the Igbo is not a race?

Igbo is more of a language group. A lot of our heritage was destroyed by different historic and prehistoric events to the extent that the most tangible link left is language and those few cultural factors.

Chi, omenala, Ofo n'ogu, Ada n'opara, ndichie(ancestral worship) and market days. Most other factor varies from town to town. Today one may come out to say Igbo is a paternal society and I will question him about the parts of Abia where Igbo is maternal. You might bring up Nze n'ozo and discover that it is not in most places. Some people have kings and others are republican . The list goes on and on. We are more or less a language group today.

6 pages and there is nothing new I can learn about the igbo, and I am even more confused now. Nobody has been able to tell us specifically the origin of Igbo. Someone is trying to tell me Ngwa is not Igbo. Another is saying some igbos are Isrealites while others are not. May be Chinua Achebe should do research on the origin of Igbos and write å book, instead of spewing crap about Awolowo. The pride that characterizes an average Igbo man has also been displayed on this thread. Nobody wants to agree they share the same origin, despite the fact that they all speak same language (though dialects might vary slightly), and vast majority have identical body structures, everyone is trying to prove they are unique and silently trying to infer that are superior to one another. Na wah o!
@Dayokanu I know say your footprints go dey this thread.

big mo: 6 pages and there is nothing new I can learn about the igbo, and I am even more confused now. Nobody has been able to tell us specifically the origin of Igbo. Someone is trying to tell me Ngwa is not Igbo. Another is saying some igbos are Isrealites while others are not. May be Chinua Achebe should do research on the origin of Igbos and write å book, instead of spewing crap about Awolowo. The pride that characterizes an average Igbo man has also been displayed on this thread. Nobody wants to agree they share the same origin, despite the fact that they all speak same language (though dialects might vary slightly), and vast majority have identical body structures, everyone is trying to prove they are unique and silently trying to infer that are superior to one another. Na wah o!
@Dayokanu I know say your footprints go dey this thread.

guy i like that ur observation that vast majority share identical body structure. Thank God it's a Yoruba that said it. If i were the one, it would have been supremacist tactics to claim overlord.

Abagworo: Igbo is more of a language group. A lot of our heritage was destroyed by different historic and prehistoric events to the extent that the most tangible link left is language and those few cultural factors.

Chi, omenala, Ofo n'ogu, Ada n'opara, ndichie(ancestral worship) and market days. Most other factor varies from town to town. Today one may come out to say Igbo is a paternal society and I will question him about the parts of Abia where Igbo is maternal. You might bring up Nze n'ozo and discover that it is not in most places. Some people have kings and others are republican . The list goes on and on. We are more or less a language group today.

ok

Antivirus92: you don't need to tell me that lie in different culture zones before i know. One is adulterated while one is not. How do you expect them(nnewi and aro ) to celebrate their respective festivals exactly alike? What makes the two festivals the same is that they are being dedicated to yam and not how they are celebrated. Again mindset like urs is capable of causing havoc among igbos cause you focus more on differences(aro and nnewi,south and north,diversities)etc instead of unity. I seriously doubt ur leadership abilities cause you're too cunny.

You my brother are the guilty party to the allegation you stated above. How dare you say some Igbos have a better understanding of what/who it means to be Igbo! You even said some are confused and adulterated. Umunne gi ka i gwara udi okwu a! Nwanna, i kpasuonam iwe.

franchizy: As far as I'm concerned, the igbos can never b classified as a Tribe or Nation. They are just like birds without wings. Insha Allah

It's not your fault. I wount blame you. You even ended it with Insha Allah. Your useless prophet mohammed has taught you people violence and trouble anywhere you go to.
Imagine a thread going on peacefully with people exchanging knowlege and facts. You just want to bring trouble and chaos here.

ChinenyeN:

Well, the discussion doesn't seem particularly geared toward history. If we were discussing history though, then I would agree. "Igbo" is the product of European conceptualization. Regardless of the history, what seems evident right now is that irrespective of how an individual or a community may feel, the "Igbo" classification has become an established ethnic group.

How dare you call my ethnic group a product of European conceptualization?

belltwelve:
How dare you call my ethnic group a product of European conceptualization?

I don't get what the issue is here. Are you unfamiliar with the history of Nigeria from the period of slave trade to colonial rule?

This is as nonsensical as I have read about any discussions on the Internet or elsewhere about Ndi Igbo. It does not even pass for an academic argument. What is the difference between a nation or a tribe? Are the English a tribe or nation? Are English speaking folks in America, American or English? Are Austrialians English? How about the Aboringals? Do you get the drift?

When will Africans stop belittling themselves with silly arguments about semantics and get serious about developing themselves, economically, socially, politically, etc.?

Whoever started this diatribe should go stuff themselves!

This thread only goes to show how unaware Igbo people are of their own ethnographic region and history. I'd bet that if we started this topic again (even after these 4 years since it this topic first started), we would still get nothing more than a bunch of Igbo people feigning knowledge.

saintohia:



^

Stop contributing to the topic if you're sleepy, were did you read that Ngwa didn't originally identify as Igbo? Do know you that Aba is Ngwa?
I may come back to comment on topic.

Let stop beating round the bush .. the truth is that Ngwa is not Igbo... It the europeans colonizers that forced Igbo on us...
From what my father told me... Ngwa is a mixture of desendant of DIOBU and the Ibibio (mbibi)...
Ibibio are the ancestral owners of Ngwa land..
Diobu desendant of Iwhuroha..(Ikwerre)....

As for what Igbo is...
Listen... just as their are people called Ngwa, Ukwani and Ikwerre.. their are also people called Igbo and the are found in the present day Enugu state and some part of Anambra state..
This people were among the first to get civilized so the europeans used their names to label other tribes that the felt should be part of them...
Had it been that the europeans first came to Ngwa land ... maybe south east Nigeria will be answering Ngwa as a name... but that will not mean that the actual Ngwa people does not exist...

*So i will summarize by saying this....
South East NIGERIA is a group of people who few are related paternally, most maternally... ... while others not related at all...
but the are ignorantly answering a name of one of the tribes that makes up the south east...ie IGBO...
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*But if peradventure we are actually same tribe that got disintegrated many years ago (I'm finding it difficult to believe this hypothesis) then the story of IDU NA OBA war should be looked into ... because it might mean that we are actually the Idu people while the Yorubas and the Benin the Oba people...