.

clefstone:


Another question for you: is it possible to be an Igbo speaking tribe and not be Igbo?(Igbo defined as an ethnic group today)

Well, "group-consciousness" is one of the criteria for belonging to an ethnic group. If there are a group of people who share a "language" with another group of people, but do not share a sense of kinship or group consciousness with each other, then they are essentially two distinct groups and not one group. More often than not, they will not even perceive their common "language" as being one language.

If we apply this principle to the Ìgbò situation, I will say that yes, I understand the idea of a group speaking an Ìgbò lect but rejecting the Ìgbò ethnicity tag.

What makes this slightly complicated for me is the fact that there exists within Aboh, Enuani, etc vocal minorities who assert that they are in fact, Ìgbò.

clefstone:


Do you agree with me that there was nothing like Igbo ethnic group pre colonialism, that what we had was various tribes that spoke the Igbo language before the White men came to influence the region?

Of course. This is well-known and well-acknowledged in academic circles.

What I will add is that the phenomenon where different groups speaking related dialects or lects coalesced into one ethnic group under European/Colonial influence is not restricted to the Ìgbò speakers. Many modern African ethnic groups were formed in a similar fashion.

clefstone:
It is not how I choose to be identified, it is the truth about who we are.
One common theme in Igbo marriage is the bride giving palm wine to the groom, that is alien to me. We also do not have the culture of the child is not yours if you haven't paid the bride price. We have very liberal marriage rite and tend to mostly marry outside our tribe.

About the bolded:

The practising of the bride giving palm wine to the groom is one of those things that only became pan-Igbo in recent decades. I have spoken to Igbo people from all across the Southeast who have told me that it wasn't part of their old marriage practices.

In my own town of Awka I know for a fact that it wasn't part of our marriage rites. The crucial part of marriage rites in my town was the presentation of a fowl by the groom's family to be sacrificed to the spirit of the bride. Our term for 'traditional' marriage was thus "Igbu Ọkụkụ Onye Ụwa" (i.e., Killing a fowl for a girl's Reincarnating Spirit). But nowadays we have adopted the pan-Igbo term "Ịgba Nkwụ", along with the whole wine-carrying ceremony.

I think it is important in conversations like this to underline the fact that a homogenous Igbo culture, even for the Southeast, is a mirage. Some practices have acquired a real or imagined pan-Igbo spread (for example the New Yam Festival, which my own people also do not practice - though we have a feast called Ịra Otite, which we now say is our own New Yam Festival.) But there are still marked differences in customs and traditions from one part of Igboland to the other.

Why are Dr Aisien's books not available on Amazon? I have often asked this question. It's unfortunate that the works of a resourceful and prolific chronicler (such as he appears to be) are not easily accessible.

Yujin:

There are some surnames that are shared mostly in that Igbo/Igala boundary that don't really sound Igala yet are widespread in southern Kogi. Could it be that those women where from such areas?
Examples of such surnames are: Alumona, Enemona, Enebeli, Ojugbeli, Onah, Ogbole etc.

Enebeli and Ojugbeli are actually Ukwuani/Aboh names. You will also find them among Ogbaru people in Anambra State who are cultural cousins of the Ukwuani. I do not know any Igala person who bears these names. But it there are, they borrowed them ultimately from Ukwuani.

Enemona is Igala. It has an Igala meaning and is used by Igala people till date.

The use of Alumona cuts across Nsukka and into the Oshimili-Aniocha axis of Delta State. I have no idea what it means, but the people I asked pointed to Igala as the source. If the name came from the Igala, then it has been altered in Igbo mouths, because the name in that form does not exist in Igala. The "-mona" ending is strongly suggestive of an Igala providence where a number of names with "-mona" endings do exist, eg., Ilemona and the already mentioned Enemona.

I've been trying to identify the exact identity of those specifically with that surnames if they were a separate Igbo clan from Nsukkas or if they were actually Nsukka people or a separate Igala clan. Personally, I think they were a separate Igbo clan whose smaller identity saw them enveloped by the Igalas and as such took the Igala identity early enough.

Well, the Ibaji people kind of fit what you're thinking here. These were a people on the border area between Kogi, Enugu and Anambra who are essentially a mixture of Igbo and Igala. They spoke both languages with equal facility; and ethnographic information from the last century and the late 19th century suggests that until the hardening of ethnic lines in late Colonial and post-Colonial times, they leaned more towards the Igbo, culturally. Their names seem to have been predominately Igbo (that is changing today), they took Ogbuefi titles and venerated Ikenga. They wouldn't have identified as Igala in precolonial times - but this doesn't mean they would have identified as Igbo either. They were simply Ibaji or Olu - as more hinterland Igbo called them.

So when you speak about some of these "Igala" women already speaking Igbo, you're probably speaking of the Ibaji people. There was a village in Awka that did marry quite a lot from Ibaji: Umubele Village. While Ụmụzocha travelled to Nsukka and the hinterland Igala villages (i.e., the non-riverine parts of Igala), Umubele travelled to the riverine areas north of Onitsha, covering the Anam communities, Ibaji and as far north Idah.

I did meet some of the last of the old generation of Ibaji women married to Umubele name, and I particularly remember one of them who went by a regular old-school Igbo name, but was known to everyone as 'nwanya Igala'.

I will only speak about Umuzocha. If Nsukka people are here, they will speak for themselves.

Umuzocha is not a mixed community in the sense that you seem to be thinking. There is no indigene-vs-settler, Igbo-vs-Igala dichotomy going on among us. We all are indigenes.

A brief background of Umuzocha people to make what I'm saying a little clearer:

Umuzocha is a splinter-group of a larger community in Awka known as Amachalla-na-Ato. Amachalla-na-Ato is wholly indigenous and has no memory of migrating from anywhere outside the boundaries of Awka, ie., they are autochthonous. When a group of blacksmiths from Agbaja-Udi area came and settled in Agulu-Awka, some lineages from Amachalla-na-Ato befriended the settler-smiths, learnt the art of smithing from them and took the name of Umuzocha. Thus of all the lineages in Amachalla-na-Ato, only the Umuzocha lineages are blacksmiths; the other lineages (Amudo and Amachalla) remained farmers.

Later, much later, during the age of itineracy, Umuzocha blacksmiths began travelling to hinterland Igala communities and the neighbouring Nsukka areas where they made and sold metal wares. Some of these travelling Umuzocha men married Igala women from the communities they sojourned in and had children who ( of course) were maternally of Igala descent.

There was no significant settling of Igala men in Umuzocha, apart from these wives that some Umuzocha men married. Igala men did not come here as traders, dyers or warriors - the way they did to some Nsukka communities. Absorption of female foreigners as wives does not give rise to mixed communities, as the tendency is for women to be absorbed and for whatever children they birthed to be raised as full members of their fathers' kingroup. This is why I say Umuzocha is not mixed in the sense you are thinking, and there is no indigene-vs-settler or mixed dichotomy.

I guess the absence of male Igala settlers in Umuzocha also accounts for why there are virtually no imprints of Igala culture on Umuzocha. The only Igala name that I know used in Umuzocha is Attah. Contrast this with Nsukka where there is a plethora of Igala or generic northern names - Asadu, Idoko, Abugu, Abba, Onoja, etc.

There is a masquerade-cum-deity that is said to have been brought by Umuzocha blacksmiths from Igala land. It is called Agunabo. If indeed it came from the Igala, it was repackaged and rebranded, because the name, for one, is an Ìgbò name and not Igala.

Long story short: Umuzocha is not mixed, in the sense of being a mixed Igbo-Igala community, with a group identifying as being of indigenous (Ìgbò) descent and another group identifying as being of settler (Igala) descent . No. It is a homogenous Ìgbò community. It is only mixed in the sense that every community is mixed - through intermarriage.

“Ise” as used in prayers is not related to the number five. That much is clear from comparative linguistics.

Also this thing about five original Igbo groups is without substance.

Fulaman198, odumchi bigfrancis21

Incase you missed it. Some help needed here with unhiding a hidden post.

Interesting, Chinenye. And I do see the logic. I don't know if I am completely sold. It's not that I don't think proto-Igboid was diverse and could have had early branches. It probably did.

But, unless I do not quite understand, what you're proposing is branches of proto-Igboid that were not cognates of each other, so that your reconstructed *ipe and *iṅe would be unrelated words.

Perhaps one of the reasons why I am skeptical is that I have used iye (which according to your theory is descended from *iṅe) for thing all my life. This was how it was said in Enugu where I was raised. I only use "ifve" when I'm speaking Awka, and even then it feels strange on my tongue and I always find myself going back to the more-familiar Township Enugu 'iye'.

Geographically, Enugu is quite a long way from the area one would expect to be within the 'isogloss' of your path #2, at least based on my understanding of how you explained the path #2.

I guess, what I am saying is I see your point. But without other evidence and examples this many not be sufficient for a proposal of multiple non-cognate branches of proto-Igboid. It may be an example of sporadic sound change, which linguists report now and again.

Huh

wesley80:

Hi, yes they were got from KO's dissertation. Searched a long time for the book myself before I got a downloadable copy from a university library. I saw a copy online earlier today on this link https://www.proquest.com/openview/3cba5c03c43566230d419e5eb3d855ed/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y
I'll be happy to mail you my copy if it doesn't work for you.

It seems this link only takes one to the first 24 pages of the thesis.

Could you please mail me your copy here: nnajide-C@ulster.ac.uk

Thank you very much.

wesley80:

The article is wrong. Aboh wasn't founded by Nri elements because the kingdom was only founded in the 16th Century by Benin migrants. What the writer failed to distinguish is the difference between Akarai/Akri and Aboh. While both people occupied same piece of territory at some point, the Akri/Akarai were the initial inhabitants before the arrival of the Aboh people from Benin who subsequently displaced the Akri/Akarai people. What existed before the 16th Century was an Igbo-speaking settlement known as Akarai before the arrival and formation Aboh. There's conclusive historical evidence to prove this (see attached) and both people must be recognized as two separate people with distinct history and origins despite the later acculturation of the Aboh group.

Hi,Wesley80. Do these screenshots come from the work of Kingsley Nwachukwu-Ogedengbe? I've been on the hunt for his work for the longest time, but they seem impossible to track down?

If you have the full piece where you took the shots from, would you mind sharing? I could share my email address.

AbiribaFirstSon:
The pillar of Ikoro Nde Anaga also came down. When they saw what was happening, the surviving Ebem warriors panicked and took to the forests for refuge.

Interesting thread.
OP, could you please provide guidance as to how the word Anaga is pronounced. Like the intonation marks. Is it Ànágá (LHH)?

Is it an indigenous Abiriba name? What does it mean?

Olu317:
You may not had heard but people know their history. State formation is with its dynamism.

And I expect people to do more research here on any information being posted on what I posted on Ohaafia people. It is important to note here that the whole of Ohafia didn't come from Idanre axis.

And importantly, I didn't posit here that Ohafia are Yorubas but that historically, some groups are posited to had migrated from Yoruba axis.

All I got from this rather circuitous part of your response is that there are no such claims of Idanre pedigree in Ohafia, otherwise you wouldn't have had any problems discussing your source(s), or at least defending the 'theory' with anthropological/ethnological/linguistic facts. Thank you.

My question is,how intelligible is Ohaafia dialect is to central Ibo language ?

How many other Ibo/Igbo speaking groups hears Ohaafia(spelling my be wrong )dialects ?

You actually didn't answer my own question about how you came about the claim of Idanre descent in Ohafia. However, I'll answer yours. I am from Awka in Anambra State, but grew up in Enugu, where our next door neighbours were a nice Ohafia family. They spoke the Enugu Township dialect that everyone else there spoke, but when their relatives visited from Ohafia, they spoke the Ohafia dialect with them. Yes, it wasn't easy to understand them, but when they spoke slowly, it was considerably easier. We made fun of some of the differences in the way they said things. For example, when they said "Come and bathe", it sounded like, "Come and drink water". And their word for "sorry" , sounded like "vehicle" to us. All in all, I could converse with their relatives if they spoke slowly and if a random strange word here and there were explained to me.

The thing to understand about Igbo, as with other dialect continuums including your own Yoruba, is that mutual intelligibility decreases as you move away from the centre towards the periphery. Ohafia is on the periphery of the Igbo-speaking space, on the border with the Ibibioid groups. Other Igbo-speaking people in that axis (including Abiriba, Arochukwu, Item, even Bende etc) will have no difficulty holding a conversation with an Ohafia man. As you move from that periphery into the hinterland from the Ohafia axis, mutual intelligibility progressively drops, until mutual intelligibility becomes noticeably low. But nowhere along the line does intelligibility break down completely.

This is not much different from the Yoruba-speaking space, where an Ikale man may not have the easiest of time holding a conversation with an Ibarapa man, but the same Ikale man may converse with greater ease with people from nearby dialect areas like Owo or Ijebu.

Olu317:


Infact there are Abia indgenes (some Ohafia people)who claimed they migrated from Idanre axis many centuries ago to their new homestead.

Who are these Abia indigenes that claim they migrated from Idanre axis? I am aware of more recent claims by Ohafia to have come from Benin. I call them recent claims, by the way, because the claims appeared on record questionably recently, and are not contained in older documentations of the Ohafia origin story.

Idanre origins in Abia, I've never heard before. Where did you source this information from?

Alusiizizi:


Presuming that proto-Igbo may have lacked these "conjoined consonants" is a huge stretch, considering that this pattern permeates virtually all of Igbo as a language and can really only be explained by a very large Lower Cross component in Igbo, large enough to distinguish Igbo as a language, especially when one considers that this conspicuous lower frequency of "conjoined consonants"(linguists can feel free to help out here on the academic term for this "conjoined consonants" language pattern) is shared with peoples mostly west of the Niger, which by Ekpeye oral tradition are said to descend from.

Still on the matter though, I have a toy theory regarding the origin of the Igbo, both language and people. I think that what may have haopened(probably between 100AD~500AD) was something akin to rebellion of some sort in the Benin Kingdom, probably against the then all powerful Oba of the kingdom. This rebellion was probably large enough to displace large populations of people from the Edo Region and into the present day Igbo land, which at the time would have been populated by people that were closely related to Lower Cross people. Over time, these rebels would have inter-mingled, married into each others population thereby developing into the Igbo people of today with their typical culture and their language evolving to bear the noted strong Lower Cross influence. This rebellion in Bini(or series of rebellions as the case may be) would have induced a first wave of migrations to seed the emergence of the core Igbo people. Subsequent, later waves of migrations(perhaps by non-traumatic migration or otherwise and not necessarily from Bini) probably seeded later Igbo populations like the Onitsha or even the Ekpenye.

Here I justify my assumptions:

The first clue is the Igbo language itself. It contains many words that share undeniable similarities with Yoruboid based languages and the neigbhoring Edo is the easiest place that could have been the origin of this characteristic. At the same time we have a strong Lower Cross component in Igbo language, not to talk of the fact that Ibibio land is virtually a stone-throw away from Igbo-land as well as the fact that physically both people resemble each other. So it is reasonable to assume that present day Igbo land was probably strongly populated by an Ibibiod speaking peoples, but the only way to make such large linguistic changes in an extended area and population is large migration in a relatively short period of time(less than 2 generations). At this time the only known power that could have effected such large migration lived in the Benin Kingdom and revolt would present a perfect explanation for a number of reasons.

First, the notorious Igbo republicanism, which is unusual as a governing pattern anywhere in Africa is a typical pattern of recently liberated peoples(think for example how the United States came to be after emancipation from the more powerful English empire and the republican state that they created, or after having disposing themselves of their king, the republican society that ancient Romans built)

Second, the equally notorious rebelliousness of the Igbo people would be just what is expected from a people that arrived at their state by rebellion.

Additionally, regarding the timing of this story, 100AD~500AD, should really be regarded as an educated guess at best. My rationale here is the following: The first Eze Nri was recorded at sometime in the 11th century, and if you know anything about Igbo culture then you should be aware that it is impossible to discuss Igbo culture and Igbo people without a good discourse on Nri kingdom and their influence all over Igbo land, so now that we have an approximate reference point, which is the naming of the first Eze Nri which was supposedly in the 11th century AD all we now need is an established Igbo people to name their Eze and in my thoughts 500 years seems to be more than enough time for a rebel population to inter-mingle and develop a unique culture just in time to name the first Eze-Nri in the 11th century AD.

Although, admittedly these points/reason seem anecdotal I believe it prudent to at least consider the possibility that a story like this played out, leading to the birth of the Igbos, considering that other alternative theories don't present much in terms of evidence or facts.

I do not disagree very much on the influence of Lower Cross on proto-Igbo. I feel that it is almost certain that Igbo contains a Lower Cross substratum. I have written and spoken about this a couple of times. I have even mentioned it on this thread.

On everything else, we disagree. The dates you give (100AD to 500AD) are way too recent for the entry of proto-Igbo to the area where modern Igbo dialects are spoken. You seem to want to link these movements to events in remembered oral traditions and history. Oral traditions cannot help us at all with this subject, because we are dealing here with events of deep-time history, beyond the scope of oral traditions. Only archaeology and historical linguistics can help.

Alusiizizi:


Gh, Gw, Gb Bh, Kh is common in most sub-saharan languages. Igbo and Ibibio employ significantly more, like Nk, Nw, Nkw, Ikw just to name some very limited few.

As for the Onitsha considering themselves more Bini than Igbo, I think you had better get your answer directly from the horses mouth and ask Onitsha people themselves rather than some unselected Igbo historian. Better yet, as an Onitsha historian.

A few Ekpeye words and their cognates in "Central" Igbo.

1. Dog.
Ekpeye: akita
C. Igbo: nkita

2. Ear.
Ekpeye: ete
C. Igbo: nti

3. Soap
Ekpeye: ịcha
C. Igbo: ncha

4. He-goat
Ekpeye: ikpi
C. Igbo: mkpi

5. Shout
Ekpeye: ikpu
C. Igbo: mkpu

6. Mother
Ekpeye: ine
C. Igbo: nne

7. Spoon
Ekpeye: igaji
C. Igbo: ngaji

8. Faeces
Ekpeye: ishi
C. Igbo: nshi

9. Shade
Ekpeye: udo
C. Igbo: ndo

10. Nail
Ekpeye: ubo
C. Igbo: mbo

11. Raffia wine
Ekpeye: bhugo
C. Igbo: ngwo

12. Grasscutter
Ekpeye: buchi
C. Igbo: nchi

13. Sharp
Ekpeye: bụkọ
C. Igbo: nkọ

14. Life
Ekpeye: budụ
C. Igbo: ndụ

All the Ekpeye examples here are clearly just variants of the Central Igbo examples. They are not "different" words, i.e., they are not non-cognates. But you see how none of them has the "conjoined consonants" structure of their Central Igbo related lexicons.

If you get a word list of Ekpeye words you will not find a single word there that has an nC or mC structure (where C is a second consonant). You will see words that you will recognise as an Igbo speaker, but all of them will avoid an nC/mC situation by using a vowel or a 'bu-' instead of the n/m.

Now given that Ekpeye is said to have preserved some archaisms that have been lost in the rest of the Igboid lects, who is to say that Proto-Igbo may not have lacked these "conjoined consonants" as you call them, and only picked them up at a letter date (after the cleaving off of Ekpeye from the Proto-Igbo stock) from Lower Cross languages?

Alusiizizi:


The mechanics are a much stronger indication of genetic heritage than a few loan words. Igbo and Ibibio share much more in common mechanically than other languages. The frequent use of conjoined consonants, words and mechanics. Apparent similarities between Igbo and Yoruboid languages are not only likely to be of Edoid influence but the influence is limited in the dialectical(Onitsha) level that trace a lineage to Benin. The rest of Igbo land do not speak Onitsha and our dialects are quite distinct.

Ekpeye, which is an Igboid language that scholars say has preserved some proto-Igboid archaisms do not have these "conjoined consonants".

Have you thought of the possibility that this feature might have passed from Lower Cross [ancestor of the Ibibio language] to Igbo after Ekpeye split from the proto-Igboid stock?

It appears to me (after coming back here and reading some comments that I missed earlier) that the main reason many of our people reject the idea of proto-languages and sister languages is that they do not understand what it really means.

For some clarity, this information doesn't necessarily mean that the Igbo as a people and the Yoruba as a people were formerly one 'ethnic' community that later split, while maintaining genetic purity. That will be an oversimplification of the process of language spread. The only thing it really means it that the languages that both groups speak originated from one single linguistic community. Language relatedness does not necessarily mean that the people who speak these languages were more than marginally related.

The Angas people of Nigeria, the Oromo people of Ethiopia and the Berber people of Kabyle in Algeria all speak Afroasiatic languages. What it means is that the languages that all three groups speak descended from one common language called Proto-Afro-Asiatic. The Angas, Oromo and Berber Kabyle peoples are not necessarily one people that split in three. Racially/phenotypically, they look very different and the idea of them diverging from a common human stock within the timescale that Afro-Asiatic languages are believed to have existed is improbable. What the language relatedness means is that Proto-Asiatic developed in one area and then by different means spread to other areas where it was not formerly spoken, and assimilated communities that earlier spoke other languages. For example, there are people who believe the ancestors of the Hausa originally spoke a Nilo-Saharan language before being assimilated into the Afro-Asiatic family.

The same is most likely true for us who speak Volta-Niger languages (Yoruba, Edo, Igbo, Idoma, Nupe, Gbe etc). Archaeology and linguistics suggest that the people who first domesticated yam and therefore first adapted to a rainforest agricultural life thousands of years ago were proto-Volta-Niger speakers. Genetic studies suggest that the Guinea yam was first cultivated in the broad region from just east of Ghana to Western Nigeria. This broad region was where the proto-Volta-Niger homeland is suspected to have been.

Armed with superior agricultural technologies, they had an advantage over whoever may have preceded them in the forested areas of Southern Nigeria, and who were probably still hunter-gatherers. Additionally, in contrast to most other Niger-Congo communities who were matrilineal, the Volta-Niger people were patrilineal. Historically, patrineal societies have tended to have more assimilatory abilities than matrilineal societies. As their agricultural skills were acquired by other people, there was the tendency to also acquire their Volta-Niger language and culture as well. In this way (as well as by migration of people) proto-Volta-Niger spread to new areas and with the passage of time split into dialects which continued to diverge until they became distinct languages.

UGBE634:
I think Edo related more with yoruba than Igbo, and as such that must have increased the lexical similarity in both languages,(we surprisingly have far more words borrowed from Yoruba than Igbo) the other hand, yoruba and Igbo do not share any border at all as such,the 51 percent was not borrowed and showed some relationship between both tribes, many words in Edo today were borrowed from Yoruba and you can't find it in Igbo, that must have increased it to 56 percent, it might not have even be up to 50 percent before this time. Look at all the words there, if you place Edo side by side you will be shocked, it is either Edo has morphed so hard or it is totally unrelated to

I will give you an example of basic words that is on this list adding Edo to it, and you will see the stark difference, words related to part of the body that might not have been borrowed.

Igbo-nti-ear
Yoruba-eti-ear
Edo-Ehor-ear

Ura-sleep -Igbo
Orun-sleep-yoruba
Ovbe-sleep-Edo

Igbo-Ire-tongue
yoruba-Ede-tongue
Edo-Ahawmen-tongue

Olu-neck-yoruba
Orun-neck-Igbos
Eyean-neck-Edo

Igbo-aka-hand
Ika-yoruba-Finger
Edo-Obo-hand

Ulo-house in Igbo
Ile/Ule-house in yoruba
Owa- house in Edo

ọría = disease-Igbo
arun/aarun = disease-Igbo
also related to yoruba aarẹ and arirẹ
Edo-emiawmen-Disease

Igbo-agu
Yoruba-ekun
Edo-Atalakpa

Igbo-bia-come
Yoruba-wa-come, this seems to pass as cognate with the Igbo word for come which is bia
Edo-re,the root word for come in Edo is re. In Edoid languages the dominant seems to be "re" laire for Edos, yan"re" for the Urhobos, vbai"re" for the Esans and so on


and so on

Edo seem like a language that was not originally of the yeai branch but however was influenced into by socialization and association

when I have the time I will post others,

Thanks for the examples. But what you've demonstrated can also be demonstrated from the other perspectives as well. i.e., examples can be found where the Edo and Yoruba lexicons are cognate and Igbo is different; and examples can also be found where the Igbo and Edo lexicons are cognate and the Yoruba is different.

At the end of the day, it is total cognacy counts that illustrate relatedness, not isolated examples of differences.

UGBE634:
linguistically there are so many similarities in words between yoruba and Igbo that are not there in Edo

Interesting take. Do you care to illustrate further on this, with examples?

According to linguists, Edo and Yoruba are closer to each other than either of them is to Igbo. Lexical similarity between Yoruba and Edo is calculated to be 56%, and only 51% for Yoruba and Igbo.

But I'll still like to know what informs your position.

Napata77:


eze and eyin are linkable.

Simply loosening the consonant z produces a sound similar to eyin whose 'n' is unpronounced.

It appears the Yorubas and Igbos shared the word 'eze', and after the separation, the word slowly morphed into 'ehe', then 'ehin' or eyin' in Yorubaland, while the Igbos retained the original version of eze.

I see no regular sound correspondence between both languages that support the sort of sound change you're proposing. For example, are there other examples where a 'z' in Igbo varies as 'h' or 'y' in Yoruba?

Here is a short list of the words for 'tooth' in a number of closely related languages, classified as either NOI (Nupoid-Oko-Idomoid) languages or as YEAI (Yoruboid-Edoid-Akokoid-Igboid) languages:
Yoruba - Eyin/Ehin
Igala (a Yoruboid language) - Enyi
Akokoid - Eyin
Ebira - Anyi
Idoma - Ainu
Edo and Edoid languages - Akon
Nupe - Ika
Gbagyi - Nyikna.
Igbo - Eze

The Igbo word is the ONLY odd word in this cluster. It is, in its form, very distant from all the rest; and is very probably not directly cognate with them. Taking it away, it is possible to propose a hypothesis that the rest of the words descend from a common ancestral word, which probably sounded close to the Gbagyi form, *Nyikna. One can quite easily see how eyin/ehin, anyi and enyi could be formed from the loss of the second syllable in *nyikna; and how ika and akon could develop from the loss of the initial sound of the same ancestral word.

But eze? That word most probably came from a different source. In an old discussion here with ChinenyeN, I suggested that there was a very old relationship between Proto-Igboid and the ancestral language(s) of the Lower Cross Language Family (this family includes Obolo/Andoni and the Ibibioid languages), and that some words in modern Igbo which are not cognate with their counterparts in modern Yoruba, Edoid and Akokoid languages may be early loans from Proto-Lower Cross. One example I gave was the Igbo word for canoe or boat (ugbo), which is not cognate with the word for this item in Yoruba/Edoid/Akokoid, but seemingly cognate with Ibibioid words for the same item (*ubom). Another example is the Igbo word for vulture (udele) which is cognate with Ibibioid words for the same bird, but not with words for it in Yoruboid/Edoid/Akokoid and even Nupoid/Oko/Idomoid, which all have a -gu- root.

Eze seems, to me, to be another Lower Cross loan. The reconstructed proto-Lower Cross word for tooth is *edet, and is more than likely to be cognate with 'eze'. From a preliminary survey of just a few Lower Cross words, it does appear to me that 'd', or 'di' in Lower Cross can vary as/change to 'j' or 'z' in Igbo.

*idiok (bad/ugly in Ibibioid) is probably cognate with ajo/njo in Igbo { di/j sound correspondence}, and
*idiok (chimpanzee in Ibibioid) is probably cognate with ozo dimgba in Igbo

To this one may add:
*edet (tooth in Ibibioid) is probably cognate with eze in Igbo.

(I'll note here that Roger Blench reconstructs tooth in proto-Igboid as eje. A lot of words with z in their modern forms were reconstructed to their ancestral forms by him with a j. This may have been true of the ozo example as well; and a later change of some j's to z's may have occurred.)

It's almost 2023, and there are educated Nigerians who do not know that all the languages spoken in Nigeria, except for Hausa (and its small brothers in the Chadic family), Kanuri and one or two other language isolates ultimately descended from a single proto-language called Proto-Niger-Congo?

How is this not common knowledge yet? Everybody in Europe knows that most European languages together with a bunch of languages in South Asia and Iran are sister languages. This is information that is taken for granted. But here, university graduates are still arguing and fighting over whether Igbo and Yoruba are related. Our education system can do a lot better.

By the way, all the words on that list are not cognates.

I fail to see how azụ (Igbo) and eja (Yoruba) are related. Or how eyin/ehin (Yoruba) and eze (Igbo) are related. Obi (Igbo) certainly has a very different root from ọba (Yoruba). Sister languages branch off and acquire new unrelated words by various means, and this has been the case with Igbo and Yoruba.

IgbuduMonkey,

You actually did say the Igbo didnt leave their homeland before colonialism. Just say you have backpedaled a little rather than denying what is right there in black and white.

Also, incidents of Igbo leaving their homeland before colonialism was most certainly NOT "rare", as you said in your later comment. You're just not aware of the literature.

Ifu ije, ije mbia, ije n'uzu (all of which are terms for long-range travelling in different Igbo clans) is well-dyed into the fabric of the Igbo clans I earlier mentioned, including others I didn't mention such as the Nri and the Umudioka. Heck, there was an entire deity devoted to travelling among the Nri, the Umudioka and the Awka, called Ukwu-na-Ije (which literally means "the journeying feet"; and among the Aro there was a deity of commerce called Inyamavia. I don't think it is necessary for me to reiterate that Awka blacksmiths were active and respected, from Nembe in the Delta, all the way north to Bassa Komo. Or that Arochukwu traders were active in Idoma (Middle Belt) markets like Igumale, not to mention all the groups behind the Cross River reaching into what later became the British Cameroon. We have early colonial records detailing how the Oracle at Awka was a Mecca of sorts for groups throughout a significant chunk of southern Nigeria. A British visitor who visited Awka in 1899 saw Isoko, Urbobo, Itsekiri and Ijaw who were led by Awka travellers to visit the Agbala Oracle at Awka. Similar throngs of non-Igbo visitors from areas as far as Nembe-Brass were also led to visit the Chukwu Oracle at Arochukwu. So much for an isolated and insular people.

Yes, colonialism, with its pax Britannica, modern roads and rails and motor transportation broadened everyone's horizons and far widened the range that the traveler could go. It wasn't just the Igbo who benefited from this.

You said that evidence of Igala cultural footprints can be found all along the Lower Niger and that similar Igbo footprints are not found outside Igboland, and for you this is your evidence that Igbos did not travel.

This is a rather odd way to think, and also demonstrates that you perhaps do not understand the nature of cultural and political influence. Throughout history, there has always been a tendency for groups who developed states/kingdoms of considerable strength to cast a longer shadow than neighbours who live in smaller polities. The culture of people who had developed states and kingdoms tended to acquire prestige status and be emulated by neighbours in smaller polities. The result is an imbalance in intergroup relations in favour of the State/Kingdom people.

[*One should add at this point that there is also a tendency to think that small-polities people are incapable of innovations and to ascribe cultural innovations they might share with kingdom/state people, to the latter.]

Anyway, this is largely why Igala and Edo cultural imprints are admittedly more easy to see among their Igbo-speaking neighbours than Igbo cultural imprints are to see among these two Kingdom peoples. It has nothing to do with both people being "better" rangers/travellers than the Igbo. It is about the power and prestige that a state structure attached to their culture relative to their neighbours.

To discerning scholars and linguists, Igbo cultural influence did penetrate the neighbouring linguistic zones, even when you do not hear a lot of it in the current state-centric histories on the shelves. Ikegobo (Edoid) and Ikega/Okega (Igala) are clear Igbo cultural imprints on their neighbours. Manfredi, a linguist-historian in a paper demonstrated that Iha Ominigbọn (one of the two divination systems of the Edo) was developed on an Igbo template, probably introduced by a travelling dibịa. In fact among the Urhobo, Epha Ominigbo is clearly said to have been introduced by a personage known as Dibie. If one wanted to, one could actually write a full paper on Igbo cultural imprints on the neighbours of the Igbo.

I've actually interjected into this conversation far more than I've intended to. My entire point is: you, like most people who haven't given Igbo historiography much attention grossly underestimate precolonial Igbo society.

IgbuduMonkey:
The Igbos did not venture out of their homeland for commerce before colonialism.

These days I prefer to be an onlooker on NL, but everytime I see people make this particular or similar comments, I can't help but want to say something. It's frustrating that despite the strides that have been taken since the '70s in the area of Igbo studies, despite what scholars now know about their involvement in long-range commerce (See for example, David Northrup's classic "Trade without Rulers", Nairalanders continue to repeat the nonsense that Igbos did not move out of their homeland before colonialism.

The vast majority of Igbos were subsistence farmers, and as such were not very mobile. But everyone who knows the first thing about precolonial Igbo history knows that clans and towns which specialized in long-distance travelling for the purpose of trade, medical practice or craftsmanship were developed among the Igbo.

The Awka, the Nkwerre, the Abiriba, the Aku of the Nsukka area, the Aro, et cetera, all ventured beyond the borders of what we recognize today as Igboland, plying their trade and practising their craft.

Christistruth00:



Please read up on the Arochukwu British War especially the reasons for it

It was the War that opened up Igboland to the outside World

I'll say it again: you're unfamiliar with Igbo history and it shows. Reading a couple of online paragraphs on the Anglo-Aro war that gloss over the details doesn't mean you know much about the situation in Igboland in precolonial times. You actually don't.

I'd suggest you read Robert D Jackson's "Twenty Years' War". It a well-written thesis and goes into important details. You could also read the relevant Aro chapters in Professor Afigbo's "Ropes of Sand".

The British over-estimated and misunderstood the nature of Aro trading network in the Igbo hinterland. The Aro were not a political empire who could in any way keep such a stranglehold on the Igbo that they could not access the Coast. The British were to find out how badly mistaken they were about their phantom "Aro empire" after the end of their war with the Aro, when they found out that the defeat of Arochukwu didn't give them control of more than a few miles beyond Arochukwu. The British spent the next two decades fighting people they (wrongly) assumed had been conquered with the Aro.

Throughout the time Aro hegemony was at its peak, adventurous Igbo elements from the interior had access to the Coast. The Aro were not in any position to block that access. There were Ohafia elements in Andoni. There were Nkwerre elements in Ogoni and all over the Eastern Delta area. Ngwa or Ndoki elements were moving south and played an important role in the settling of Bonny. Awka and Abiriba blacksmiths were in Calabar. And blacksmiths from Agulu-Umana in Enugu even went beyond Calabar and made their presence felt in the southern Cameroon area.

That the borders of Igboland did not stretch down to embrace the coastline has nothing to do with any Aro stranglehold. It has more to do with two factors:

1. There were other ethnic groups already in occupation of the area, who were in any case better adapted to living in mangrove swamps and creeks than the landward Igbo.

2. The coastline of the Eastern Delta was really not attractive to a terrestrial agricultural people like the Igbo.

Christistruth00:
It was the Arochukwu Confederacy that prevented Igboland from reaching the Sea in order

to preserve their Monopoly on the Slave Trade otherwise Aba was less than a days Journey to the

Sea on foot

Arochukwu Territory was wedged between Igboland and the shortest route to the Coast

They used their Ubini Shrine Fraud to Scare those that would have migrated there naturally

Your theory is wrong, and betrays a lack of familiarity with Igbo history.

Maazieze:


Which town could claim to be the ancestral home? Ik this is usually a mythological statement, but i know reality dictates proto-igbos came from migrations from the green sahara settled where we are now, assimilated,encultured and evolved to where we are now

To me the question has a really simple answer: None. To try and identify a single extant town from which an ethnolinguistic grouping of millions of people descend is a futile exercise.

I put the enquiry in the same realm as questions that look for one ancestor, a man that birthed an entire ethnic group. Unless you're looking for mythical stories (that probably won't even be accepted by every member of said ethnic group) there is not going to be any serious answer.

Inasmuch as I find the constant need of people who have not had an encounter with the Osu system to 'discuss' the subject tiring and mildly irritating (in part because all it does is provide fodder for tribalists to troll Igbo people), I am always on the lookout for discussions that examine the topic from a historical perspective.

And something you said in the video about the origin of the Osu Institution caught my interest. The thing about a man who went into the forests and invoked the gods to end a drought (or is it pestilence). Please where did you obtain that piece of tradition from? Is there an online link? I would love to read more on that and other origin stories you might have encountered in the course of working on your video. Thank you.

Neither town is the ancestral home of the Igbo in any sense. At best, Aguleri can cIaim headhsip of the subset of the Igbo called the Ụmụ-Eri clan. But even that headship is contested by Ụmụleri, another town in the clan.

I don't think any of them has logged in in quite a while.

Also, I'll imagine that they all get mentioned multiple times a day, so it's easy to miss one or two. Or three.