Fact: In 1857, an ex-slave of Igbo extraction, Simon Jonas, wrote the first manuscript written in Igbo language, 'Isoama-Ibo Primer'. This was done in Sierra Leone for emancipated slave from Igboland in Freetown, Sierra Leone. The Igbo dialect spoken in Sierra Leone is called Isoama/Isuama-Igbo. Ex-Lagos slave, Samuel Crowther, published it as a book. Both Jonas and Crowther stayed together in Lagos before being shipped to Sierra Leone.

hartopher76:
for your information the igbo bible was translated by one archedecon dennis.

Ofodirinwa:
Myth: It is widely believed that Yoruba Ex-slave Samuel Crowther was the first to write the bible in the Igbo language. The truth has been revealed that it was written by Simon Jonas, an Igbo ex-slave from Sierra Leone who gave Crowther the book due to Crowther's interest in translating the bible into african languages. It is now known that Crowther oversaw the translation of the English bible into the Yoruba language and this was the only translation he completed before dying a few months after the book was completed.




The mission to Onitsha which led to the translation was led by a group of ex slaves which included Simon Jonas (Igbo), Samuel Crowther (Yoruba) and Rev Taylor (Igbo). This is prompted by Crowther convincing the Anglican commission in Freetown and Lagos that it would be more effective to use natives to convert natives as opposed to europeans. Crowther was in Onitcha for a matter of weeks before heading off to Lokoja. Rev Taylor stayed in Onitsha and did the work that Nairalanders often credit to Crowther, who's only translation work was the Yoruba bible which he finished just before his death.

Source
http://anglicanhistory.org/africa/ng/dike_origins1957.html

totit:

1856 == Crowther and Jonas stayed together in Lagos, where Jonas taught his master Igbo (Oraka p. 24).
1857 == Crowther produced the first book in Igbo, with Jonas's help. Isoama-Ibo Primer has 17 pages, with the Igbo alphabet, words, phrases, sentence patterns, the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and translations of the first chapters of Matthew's Gospel. Thus Crowther became the first to use the Lepsius "Standard Alphabet" (Oraka p. 25).
http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00fwp/igbo/igbohistory.html

ak47mann:
Archdeacon T J Dennis translated english bible to igbo version.His memorial was honored by other missionaries that came after him,they open a missionary school on remembrance of him which is my former school DMGS, then principal teachers was pure white english people.When ever you visit my former school check the name of our hostels names like Clark,Togwell,Livingston,Stanley etc those are our former principals

The missionaries, J. F. Schön, a
German, and Samuel Crowther, a Yoruba, had already been working with the many Igbo
among the freed slaves in Sierra Leone and had carried out some preliminary study of the
language and translated various materials into Igbo. It is surprising then that almost sixty
years passed before a major translation of the Igbo Bible was completed, and that the first
Igbo Bible to be circulated widely was not published until 1913.

Weedcrusher:
And why is the name of this strange Sierra Leone igbo just popping up now. Why is there no literature acknowledging his work?

Liar liar pants on fire.



Thanks for enlightening them with facts. Who would have taught the Jonas guy was even a servant to Bishop Crowther

totit:



1856 == Crowther and Jonas stayed together in Lagos, where Jonas taught his master Igbo (Oraka p. 24).

1857 == Crowther produced the first book in Igbo, with Jonas's help. Isoama-Ibo Primer has 17 pages, with the Igbo alphabet, words, phrases, sentence patterns, the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and translations of the first chapters of Matthew's Gospel. Thus Crowther became the first to use the Lepsius "Standard Alphabet" (Oraka p. 25).

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00fwp/igbo/igbohistory.html

ak47mann:
Archdeacon T J Dennis translated english bible to igbo version.His memorial was honored by other missionaries that came after him,they open a missionary school on remembrance of him which is my former school DMGS, then principal teachers was pure white english people.When ever you visit my former school check the name of our hostels names like Clark,Togwell,Livingston,Stanley etc those are our former principals

mrjangaweed:


lux fiat

from lugard house

totit:



1856 == Crowther and Jonas stayed together in Lagos, where Jonas taught his master Igbo (Oraka p. 24).

1857 == Crowther produced the first book in Igbo, with Jonas's help. Isoama-Ibo Primer has 17 pages, with the Igbo alphabet, words, phrases, sentence patterns, the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and translations of the first chapters of Matthew's Gospel. Thus Crowther became the first to use the Lepsius "Standard Alphabet" (Oraka p. 25).

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00fwp/igbo/igbohistory.html

ayindejimmy:



#Fact

JaredNomak:

1891 == Bishop Crowther died (over 80), and the Isuama-Igbo period died with him. By this time two young men, the Englishman T. J. Dennis and the Sierra Leonean Henry Johnson, had joined the mission (Oraka p. 27).
1892 == Julius Spencer, an Onitsha-based Sierra Leonean missionary, published An Elementary Grammar of the Igbo Language. This was revised by Archdeacon Dennis in 1916 (Oraka p. 30).

EasternActivist:
Nice one op...
Yorubas likes to rewrite peoples history why??

xharder:



Dont mind them,just like they are doing with the benins...but trust the benins are not dulling too, they have brilliant scholars that can tell their history too

https://www.nairaland.com/2938573/benin-kingdom-vs-yoruba-race#42985639