I was watching this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_h0di1JW1g

And it seems like the guy was really struggling to pronounce Igbo words. It was quite funny in some parts

Grammatically Igbo is not that difficult to grasp, but the pronunciation can be tricky?
It would be interesting to hear peoples opinions.

I like this

staytravel:
I was watching this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_h0di1JW1g

And it seems like the guy was really struggling to pronounce Igbo words. It was quite funny in some parts

Grammatically Igbo is not that difficult to grasp, but the pronunciation can be tricky?
It would be interesting to hear peoples opinions.

DejiSantos:
I like this

Yeah, it's a fun concept.
Do you speak Yoruba?

I think Hausa is the easiest of all, the most difficult must be either yoruba or igbo

Tallesty1:
I think Hausa is the easiest of all, the most difficult must be either yoruba or igbo

actually none seem hard it'd just depend on the person in particular

heendrix:


actually none seem hard it'd just depend on the person in particular

That's true. I learnt Yoruba and Igbo when I was younger, I always found it much easier to pronounce than Igbo.
Igbo has a lot of special sounds, it's very tonal. But it's simple to grasp once you get the tone.
Yoruba is much more complex and richer (vocab) as a language but easier (for me) to pronounce. I've never really tried to learn Hausa, but it's interesting to listen to.

Igbo is hard AF

Igbo isn't too hard.

troubleseller:
Igbo is hard AF

staytravel:


That's true. I learnt Yoruba and Igbo when I was younger, I always found it much easier to pronounce than Igbo.
Igbo has a lot of special sounds, it's very tonal. But it's simple to grasp once you get the tone.
Yoruba is much more complex and richer (vocab) as a language but easier (for me) to pronounce. I've never really tried to learn Hausa, but it's interesting to listen to.

I used to think hausa was hard not until I onced moved to sokoto in 2006 and learned hausa under 3 months then later moved to iBadan after a year and until 2015 I still couldn't speak Yoruba really fluently tho trying

I guess it depends what you have an affinity for

heendrix:


I used to think hausa was hard not until I onced moved to sokoto in 2006 and learned hausa under 3 months then later moved to iBadan after a year and until 2015 I still couldn't speak Yoruba really fluently tho trying

OrangeOlamide:
Igbo isn't too hard.

Nwané. I disagree.

What is difficult about it more than Hausa or Yoruba?

troubleseller:
Nwané. I disagree.

What is difficult about it more than Hausa or Yoruba

troubleseller:
Nwané. I disagree.

staytravel:


That's true. I learnt Yoruba and Igbo when I was younger, I always found it much easier to pronounce than Igbo.
Igbo has a lot of special sounds, it's very tonal. But it's simple to grasp once you get the tone.
Yoruba is much more complex and richer (vocab) as a language but easier (for me) to pronounce. I've never really tried to learn Hausa, but it's interesting to listen to.

A richer vocabulary is supposed to make a Language easier not harder, because you have a wider array of ways to express yourself and you can make a statement and express your opinions with a a repertoire of a much bigger terminology list.
Besides, what makes you think Yoruba is more complex than Hausa? You don't even speak Hausa yet you are making judgements based on how it sounds to you? Is it Hausa that does not have special sounds?
There is no way you will learn Hausa as an adult and speak it to a Kano inner city born and bred person, that your non native accent in the pronunciation won't be picked up immediately.

That being said,

I once read somewhere that the Igbo language has a restricted list of adjectives, only 8 basic adjectives or there abouts.
Njo in Igbo can mean bad, it can mean Ugly, it can mean wicked, it can mean evil, it can mean so many things as long as it is a generally undesirable trait.

Now, that seems to me like a limiting language, especially given the fact that adjectives are the spice of Language oral and written literature.

YourNemesis:


A richer vocabulary is supposed to make a Language easier not harder, because you have a wider array of ways to express yourself and you can make a statement and express your opinions with a a repertoire of a much bigger terminology list.
Besides, what makes you think Yoruba is more complex than Hausa? You don't even speak Hausa yet you are making judgements based on how it sounds to you? Is it Hausa that does not have special sounds?
There is no way you will learn Hausa as an adult and speak it to a Kano inner city born and bred person, that your non native accent in the pronunciation won't be picked up immediately.

That being said,

I once read somewhere that the Igbo language has a restricted list of adjectives, only 8 basic adjectives or there abouts.
Njo in Igbo can mean bad, it can mean Ugly, it can mean wicked, it can mean evil, it can mean so many things as long as it is a generally undesirable trait.

Now, that seems to me like a limiting language, especially given the fact that adjectives are the spice of Language oral and written literature.

You clearly didn't read what I said. My only comment on Hausa was that it's interesting to listen to. So I didn't make a comment as to whether it was easier or harder than the other two.
My only comparison was between Igbo and Yoruba.

For me, this is me speaking from my own experiences, so imposing your experience on me is offensive.
Yes, Igbo is restricted in terms of the vocab, which makes it hard for those who don't get the expressive nature of the language. Things are explained. The tone of Igbo makes it hard, similar to the English words there, where they're, all which sound the same but mean different things. Igbo words like Akwa and Igwe have several varying meanings depending on the tone.

Yoruba tenses used to be challenging for me when I was learning as well as changes when addressing different hierarchies/status of people.
Look a the boy in the video:

The most challenging thing for him is grasping the tonation.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_h0di1JW1g

staytravel:


You clearly didn't read what I said. My only comment on Hausa was that it's interesting to listen to. So I didn't make a comment as to whether it was easier or harder than the other two.
My only comparison was between Igbo and Yoruba.

For me, this is me speaking from my own experiences, so imposing your experience on me is offensive.
Yes, Igbo is restricted in terms of the vocab, which makes it hard for those who don't get the expressive nature of the language. Things are explained. The tone of Igbo makes it hard, similar to the English words there, where they're, all which sound the same but mean different things. Igbo words like Akwa and Igwe have several varying meanings depending on the tone.

Yoruba tenses used to be challenging for me when I was learning as well as changes when addressing different hierarchies/status of people.
Look a the boy in the video:

The most challenging thing for him is grasping the tonation.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_h0di1JW1g

Well, you weren't specific, they way you structured your reply also made it seems like you were talking about all three languages. My bad.
Yoruba is more tonal than Igbo as Yoruba has three tones as opposed to Igbo that has two (high and low), so for a two syllable word, whereas Igbo could hypothetically have up to 4 combinations for that word, Yoruba could have up to 9. Then there are Open and closed vowels on top of the tonal combinations, so for example, O vs Ọ, E vs E̩ (Igbo has those as well). So I could argue that with regards to tonality, Yoruba might be more confusing for a non native speaker on that front.

Honorary pronouns are not too much of a problem in my opinion, in-fact English seems to be an exception as one of the major global languages not to have it. In Spanish it is Tu vs Usted or Toi vs Vous in French. Not sure if Hausa has it (anyone who understands Hausa could shed some light),

At the end of the day every language seems to have its own crop of challenges, I think even you acknowledged it in your previous reply in the comparison btw Yor and Igb, and while I think some laguages are more expressive, beautiful or better sounding than others, the ease (or difficulty) associated with learning each ultimately depends on the interest.

[quote author=YourNemesis post=67924875]

A richer vocabulary is supposed to make a Language easier not harder, because you have a wider array of ways to express yourself and you can make a statement and express your opinions with a a repertoire of a much bigger terminology list.
Besides, what makes you think Yoruba is more complex than Hausa? You don't even speak Hausa yet you are making judgements based on how it sounds to you? Is it Hausa that does not have special sounds?
There is no way you will learn Hausa as an adult and speak it to a Kano inner city born and bred person, that your non native accent in the pronunciation won't be picked up immediately.

That being said,

I once read somewhere that the Igbo language has a restricted list of adjectives, only 8 basic adjectives or there abouts.
Njo in Igbo can mean bad, it can mean Ugly, it can mean wicked, it can mean evil, it can mean so many things as long as it is a generally undesirable trait.

Now, that seems to me like a limiting language, especially given the fact that adjectives are the spice of Language oral and written literature.
[/q

Very few Igbo native speakers can say they understand Igbo in the perfect sense of the word because of its multiplicity of dialects. A word can have up to 20 synonyms in Igbo. I bought a non-exhaustive Abriba (a dialect spoken in Abia) dictionary from the internet a while ago, and it was almost like a different world of Igbo, with many words that were foreign to me ( and this is only one dialect). General Igbo, is generally lazy and heavily diluted and suffering from neglect by the a lot of Igbos hence its often one-dimensionality. But if it means to be spoken there are deep taps of words or expressions at the disposal to the proficient; not to mention new coinages that have come out recently like 'mahadum' (university) . Igbo has lots of adjectives. Bad can mean 'njo' (or 'ajo') 'mpu', 'alu' etc.

Igbo is quite a unique language because there is no centrally "accepted" language. There are several dialects depending on where you're from. I think.


[quote author=hunden post=67928519][/quote]

OrangeOlamide:
Igbo is quite a unique language because there is no centrally "accepted" language. There are several dialects depending on where you're from. I think.

Yes there is no common spoken form as igbos tend to speak their native dialects but there is now a central written and spoken standard used exclusively by the Igbo language media (i.e. BBC Igbo) novelists, poets etc. It was invented during the colonial era to bridge the gap between the multitudes of Igbo dialects and sub-dialects, and has since been improved (still is) by Igbo language enthusiasts and language experts. Due to the many new technical Igbo words that have been coined into it, it is probably the richest strand of the Igbo language. The dialect is known as Igbo Izugbe.

hausa, yoruba and igbo are simple, have u heard ijaw(izon nt kalabari), ogoni, annang, isoko, etsako, u wil fear languages

fero007:
hausa, yoruba and igbo are simple, have u heard ijaw(izon nt kalabari), ogoni, annang, isoko, etsako, u wil fear languages

Yes my uncle spoke Ibibio when he was growing up. He said it was more difficult to speak than Igbo.

Interesting

staytravel:


Yes my uncle spoke Ibibio when he was growing up. He said it was more difficult to speak than Igbo.

YourNemesis:


A richer vocabulary is supposed to make a Language easier not harder, because you have a wider array of ways to express yourself and you can make a statement and express your opinions with a a repertoire of a much bigger terminology list.
Besides, what makes you think Yoruba is more complex than Hausa? You don't even speak Hausa yet you are making judgements based on how it sounds to you? Is it Hausa that does not have special sounds?
There is no way you will learn Hausa as an adult and speak it to a Kano inner city born and bred person, that your non native accent in the pronunciation won't be picked up immediately.

That being said,

I once read somewhere that the Igbo language has a restricted list of adjectives, only 8 basic adjectives or there abouts.
Njo in Igbo can mean bad, it can mean Ugly, it can mean wicked, it can mean evil, it can mean so many things as long as it is a generally undesirable trait.

Now, that seems to me like a limiting language, especially given the fact that adjectives are the spice of Language oral and written literature.

Igbo language does have way more than 8 adjectives. Just counting 18 from my memory:

White - ocha
Black - ojii
Red - mmemme
Yellow - edo edo
Clean - edo (as in clean water, mmili dolu edo)
Green - ndu
Big - nnukwu/ukwu
Small - obele/ntakili
Good - mma
Bad/ugly - njo/ajo
Beautiful - oma
Heavy - aro
Wide - mbada
Sweet - uto
Bitter - inu
Fat - ibu
Strength - ume
Power - ike

And much more.

The unique aspect about expressing adjectives in Igbo is that an adjective may either follow 'di' or it may have a special pre-adjective before it. For example,

O di njo - It is bad
O joro njo - He/she is ugly. Igbo, like many other African languages does not have masculine and feminine forms.

O di nma - It is fine/okay/good
O mara mma - He/she is beautiful/pretty/handsome

Chi di mma - God is good
Chi mara mma - God is beautiful

O di ocha - he/she is fair
O cha ocha - he/she is fair

O di ojii - he/she is dark-skinned
O ji njii/ojii - he/she is dark-skinned

staytravel:


That's true. I learnt Yoruba and Igbo when I was younger, I always found it much easier to pronounce than Igbo.
Igbo has a lot of special sounds, it's very tonal. But it's simple to grasp once you get the tone.
Yoruba is much more complex and richer (vocab) as a language but easier (for me) to pronounce. I've never really tried to learn Hausa, but it's interesting to listen to.

True, Igbo is quite tonal and the main issue new speakers face is accentuating the words properly. Once you are able to do so, the rest comes so easily.

I agree

Once you get the pronunciation correct.

It becomes a lot easier I think.

bigfrancis21:


True, Igbo is quite tonal and the main issue new speakers face is accentuating the words properly. Once you are able to do so, the rest comes so easily.