OnoVegasBlog, the answer really depends on who you ask and what part of the Owerri/Mbaitoli/Ikeduru axis they are coming from. Personally, if I were to give my own general opinion, I would say that there are three "cultural complexes" at play here. The Uratta cultural complex, the Ngwa cultural complex and the Isu cultural complex. There is no official name for these complexes. I simply called them as Oratta, Ngwa and Isu based on the dominant groups found in the respective complexes.

The Uratta cultural complex consists of the Uratta clan/meta-group what we might consider as other related communities such as Alaenyi, Ulakwo, Okpuala among others. I might even group in Ohaji and Echie here as well, but that is just me personally.

The Ngwa cultural complex consists of the Ngwa clan/meta-group and what we might consider as other related communities such Mbaise, Obowu, parts of Ngor Okpuala, Nsirimo, etc.

The Isu cultural complex consists of the Isu clan/meta-group and what we might consider as other related communities such as Nkwerre, Okigwe, Mbano communities, Isuikwuato, etc.

These three cultural complexes blend into each other at various points. There is the Mbaise zone, where all three came into contact. The Obowo axis where the Ngwa cultural complex and the Isu cultural complex meet. The Ngor Okpuala and Echie axes where the Uratta cultural complex and the Ngwa cultural complex meet, and there is Ikeduru where the Uratta and Isu cultural complexes blend. The Ngwa cultural complex also bleeds into Ikeduru, but relative to Uratta and Isu, it is somewhat negligible and limited to a specific group of communities.

As you can guess, the village dialects in this area can vary a lot. So what does this mean for Mbaitoli and Ikeduru vs Owerri?

What I would say is that Mbaitoli 100% belongs with the Isu cultural complex as far as their dialect affinity and cultural practices are concerned. Ikeduru is a more blended story. The dialects change in sort of a gradient. The further north you are, the more the gradient sounds like it belongs in the Isu cultural complex. The further south-west you go, the more it sounds like it belongs in the Uratta cultural complex. But you can also see the influence of the Ngwa cultural complex in the dialects in Ikeduru (to varying degrees). That said, I think I am inclined to believe that most of Ikeduru probably leans heavily towards the Isu-complex. So, long story short, don't be surprised if you ever come across Mbaitoli or Ikeduru people distancing their identity from Owerri (i.e. Uratta) and vice versa (Uratta loves to distance their identity from Isu).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGOjrIBGV5M

The above link is labelled as "Asaa", but this is not to be confused with Asa in Abia/Rivers. This is rather another lect from the Enugu/Ebonyi axis, and depending on the response I get for this next bit, it could mean another example.

Aside from things already mentioned earlier, such as:

1. Supposedly being part of the labial "be" (they/them pronoun) group as the southern isogloss
2. Potentially using the same glottal /h/ in thing
3. Use of specific lexical features (i.e. whe, liile, te)

There is this...

Between 0:54 and 0:56 (yet again, just one minute in) of the Asaa Words of Life audio, there is an expression used that sounds to me a lot like "e zhii gala cho madu liile ucho." The specific statement of interest to me here is "e zhii gala."

Again, I do not find these Enugu/Ebonyi lects that intelligible, but my understanding of various lects makes me inclined to believe I am at least hearing/interpreting the high level gist of it correctly. If that is also the case in this instance, then I would like to confirm if my interpretation of "e zhii gala" as "have not yet" is correct or inline with the general gist of the statement.

I do not personally know anyone from this axis that I can call up and ask. So if someone else knows someone who is conversant enough with these lects and willing to listen to 0:54 - 0:56 of the audio clip to either confirm or deny what I believe I've heard, then that would be greatly appreciated.

ChinenyeN:
As we have already noted, "whe" is covered already by much of the south as either "whe" or "he". The "te" used by Ezaa and environs correlates exactly with the "ta" used by Ngwa and Mbaise. Furthermore "ta" has additional variants of "sa" and "cha" without the southern axis. Phonologically, it seems reasonable to conclude that "ta", "sa" and "cha" are cognates.

Sorry, I meant "within the southern axis". Not "without".

I am refraining from editing to prevent the hiding and banning.

That said, I would like to add that I am not exactly considering the Enugu/Ebonyi axis to be part of the southern isogloss. I'm more so addressing the issue of geographic discrepancy and how it relates to this theory of two different etymological /h/ sounds used in the word for "thing" as well as the implication of at least two proto-Igboid branches. I am suggesting that it may not be a discrepancy after all, if we consider an east to west, south to north diffusion of Igbo language features.

Yeah, I'm starting to think there's something to this theory.

I was just listening to some of the Words of Life audio for Ezaa (which is the axis of Okocha and Enugu), and one minute in, I had to pause it. https://globalrecordings.net/en/program/12261

I will admit that Ezaa is not 100% intelligible to me, but I believe I get the rather high-level gist of what is being said in the audio. However, anyone who has a better understanding of Ezaa or is an Ezaa speaker should please feel free to correct me if I misunderstood any of the below.

0:19 - 0:21 "whe liile" (everything), which is "whe liile" in Ngwa, Ahiara, Ehilihitta, etc, except this axis maintains nasalization on the "whe".

0:25 - 0:27 "te he le anyi mara" (so that they and us can know) which is also "ta we la anyi mara" in Ngwa.

I note these specifically, because even though it is a small portion of the vocabulary, it reveals both phonological/lexical (whe) and grammatical/syntactical (te/ta) features. As we have already noted, "whe" is covered already by much of the south as either "whe" or "he". The "te" used by Ezaa and environs correlates exactly with the "ta" used by Ngwa and Mbaise. Furthermore "ta" has additional variants of "sa" and "cha" without the southern axis. Phonologically, it seems reasonable to conclude that "ta", "sa" and "cha" are cognates.

Again, I did not go through the entirety of the Words of Life audio. This is just what I immediately noted within the first 1 minute of audio, suggesting that these are core grammatical and lexical features of their lects. Please let me know if this is a reach, but it seems highly unlikely to me that such core lexical and grammatical features were independently innovated. One is a coincidence. Two invites suspicion, and I suspect if we dig deeper, we might find, three, four or more that might suggest a pattern; a pattern suggesting that a notable degree of affinity or continuity between the southern axis and the Ebonyi/Enugu axis.

By the way, by "southern axis", I am referring to our earlier conversation about the Ogba - Ahiara axis that I mentioned in our discussion of the southern entry hypothesis.

In the meantime, while we wait for the moderators to unhide my previous post, I want to touch on one of your concerns, AjaanaOka. I will make this short, so as to avoid another spam bot hammer.

AjaanaOka:
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.

To begin with, for the time being (with respect to the word for "thing" that is), I am labeling this isogloss as the "glottal isogloss".

Now, moving on. I did not think about this until a few days ago, but in any case, I'm sure you remember years ago our conversation about the potential theory of proto-Igbo speakers entering from the south. As part of that theory, it holds that the diffusion of Igbo-type linguistic features would have taken a general east to west + south to north pattern. You may refer to this post: https://www.nairaland.com/6408262/what-proto-igboid-speakers-entered-igboland/1#99337370

In the post I've linked I drew some haphazard arrows on a map to conceptualize of the southern entry hypothesis. NL seems to be struggling to show it, but the links are there towards the middle of the post.

Anyhow, the lack of geographical continuity for my proposed "glottal isogloss" (that is, between the southern Igbo axis and the Enugu axis) might seem like a disparity at first, but can we possibly reconcile it against the backdrop of a south to north dispersal pattern for the southern entry hypothesis?

Fulaman198, odumchi, bigfrancis21

My comment above was hidden. Can we unhide it? Thanks.

RedboneSmith:
Hmm.

Don’t hold back. Kanu m what you’re thinking. I’d like to hear it even if it’s in direct opposition.

Let's look at a more obvious example to contextualize what I mean. We will examine the third-person plural pronoun across lects. For the purpose of demonstration, I will be applying the logic from Ngwa's phonological system. This is only for the purposes of demonstration, because a true analysis would require for us to examine the phonological system of multiple dialects to paint a real picture.

That said, Ngwa constitutes a representative sample of at least the sourthern Igbo-speaking stretch. It's not that much of an outlier (at least, not in my opinion). So this demonstration may be considered relatively applicable, with a grain of salt.

Now, let's recall the phonological system in question.

We have a labial category /m/, a dental category /n/ and a glottal category /ṅ/. These categorizations often come with associated regular sound changes. For example, in the labial category, we can witness a /b/ to /f/ or /v/.

Now, onto the third-person plural pronoun. We are all very familiar with the (in layman's terms) "Anambra Igbo" variant of "fa" and the "Imo Igbo" variant of "ha". They're so popular, but more words exist for the third-person plural and they seemingly show no observable etymological relationship. Let's examine these terms with respect to the labial, dental and glottal categorizations.

The various terms that exist in the Igbo-speaking region for "they/them" are as follows, "ha", "fa", "wa", "we", "ve", "be", "hwe", "epfe" or "ephe", "uwe", "he", "wọ", "wo", "ṅṅwo", "ṅwo" and "kwe". Yes, such beautiful diversity. Anyhow, anyone can feel free to contest this (in fact, I'd be open to hearing people's thoughts and opinions), but if I examine these and group them by the aforementioned categories, I see the following.

Labial - "fa", "ha", "wa" (we can call this the "fa" group)

Also labial - "be", "ve", "epfe", "ephe", "we", "uwe", "he" (we can call this the "be" group)

Glottal - "ṅṅwo", "ṅwo", "kwe" (we can call this the "ṅṅwo" group)

And finally two outliers:

1. "wọ". If I were to provide a hypothesis with respect to this categorization demonstration, I might say this could represent the effects of some contact between the "be" and "fa" groups.

2. "wo". If I were to provide a hypothesis with respect to this categorization demonstration, I might say this is the "be" group coming into contact with the "ṅṅwo" group, or some other example of sporadic sound change.

Now, I don't know about anyone else, but when I look at this (having applied Ngwa's phonological system), I see three groups that likely share no etymological relationship and so are not cognates with any other term outside their group. For example, "be" and "we" are most certainly cognates. "ṅṅwo" and "kwe" might very well be cognates, but show a sporadic sound shift in the vowel. However, "be" and "fa" are certainly not cognates. Likewise "be" and "ṅṅwo".

With this we see three different phonological patterns. Potentially signifying three different phonological systems (at least with respect to this). Which in turn (along with the lack of a provable etymological relationship) potentially signifies three different dialects in pre-history.

Interestingly, they are not all contiguous. As in the speech communities that use these terms don't all occupy the same, unbroken stretch of land. We have communities like Ekpeye, Ngwa, Ikwerre, Ndoki, Asa, Echie in the "be" group, but yet Ezaa and Izii all the way in Ebonyi are also part of this "be" group. There could be any number of explanations for this. Perhaps "be" was the more prevalent term at one point in time (judging by the sheer number of variants) and a lexical and phonological shift occurred (perhaps evidence of language branching creating the "fa" group). Despite the "fa" group having fewer variants, it boasts many more speakers. Maybe something significant might have been happening at that time the branch was diverging (maybe agriculture, technology, name it) that might have allowed for the "fa" group of speakers to quickly outnumber the "be" group. Again, just supposition, but as a demonstration to drive home a point.

This is effectively what I am suggesting in the context of "thing" (or something similar). With "thing", it may be far less apparent due to a couple of factors that I can hypothetically suppose.

1. Applying Ngwa's phonological system, we see that it is possible to have two different etymological /h/ sounds. Both *ipe and *ŋŋe can claim /h/ sound variants. So the presence of this obscures the etymological differences, similar to how modern day Igbo might try to explain "isi" (head) and "isi" (source) as being the same word.

2. A likely overwhelming population of *ipe speakers relative to *ŋŋe speakers. Speech communities that I might consider as part of the *ŋŋe group, yet having an initial /i-/ vowel in the word could be evidence of the sort of sporadic sound shift that might occur from dialect mixing. We can be relatively confident of it as a sound shift, because it does not affect the entire phonological system of *ŋŋe speakers, just those speech communities we can perhaps surmise had some impactful contact with *ipe speakers.

I'll stop here to avoid having too long of a post and to re-read and gather my thoughts. Who knows, maybe I might find some holes in my own thought process.

To begin, I'd like to first revise my hypothetical reconstructions, based off a few things I've just recollected. The overwhelming majority of lects that I might consider part of the "glottal" isogloss (i.e. path #2) do not include an initial vowel in the word for thing. In place of that initial vowel is either nothing or an initial nasal. So my revised reconstructions are as such.

*ipe for path #1, i.e. the /p/ -> /f/ -> /v/ -> /h/

*ŋŋe or maybe a *ŋŋ^we for path #2, i.e. the /ṅ/ -> /g/k/ -> /h/ -> /y/

Now, AjaanaOka, I am personally of the school of thought that the vast majority of our words are cognates, so I am not exactly proposing branches that are not cognates. Well, in a way yes, in a way no. What I am proposing is that certain reconstruction patterns by Williamson et al need to be revisited, if we end up finding phonological structures in other lects analogous to Ngwa. Which might in turn mean we end up with less true cognates overall. So yes, not exactly no cognates, but less cognates.

Like you, I considered the idea of a sporadic sound change, but it was unsatisfactory for me. A sporadic sound change would not account for the regularity we see in Ngwa's phonological system. This instead suggests a regular sound change, and a regular sound change in turn suggests dialects. When I reflect on a sporadic sound change, I end up considering two things:

1. Dialect mixing. Regular sound changes in one lect and regular sound changes in another lect are unevenly inherited by future speakers of the two lects when they make contact.

2. Something social (like a class system) impacting how some members of a speech community simply choose to pronounce things to distinguish themselves from other members of said speech community.

I'm sure the academia has noted others, but these are the main two that come to mind and these would often cause abrupt changes in speech, and only in certain linguistic environment. In this sense, the sporadic sound change does not spread in the same way a regular sound change would. The sporadic sound change may impact some words or a subset of words, but not the entire phonological system.

This is why I felt dissatisfied thinking of this as a sporadic sound change. The phonological system that I'm highlighting for Ngwa isn't just on some words. It's the entire lexicon. So my line of thinking is simply this:

If analogous phonological systems from other lects can be shown to have parity with that of Ngwa (with respect to this discussion), then it opens the door for the possibility that modern Igbo reflects two (or more) proto-Igboid phonological systems, which in turn would suggest more than on proto-Igboid lect in the region.

Allow me to see if I can find some additional things that might buttress my point. I'll share in my next post.

-- continued --

So finally, what does this mean for my hypothesis.

I'll simplify it. If my hypothesis holds merit, then it means that perhaps a few (or at worst, many) of the words we believe are cognates across the various lect, may turn out to not be cognates at all. And in fact, our linguistic situation might just be a case of there having been two (or more) proto-Igboid branches and with one (or a few) being overwhelmingly large in number, thereby influencing the other(s). Or perhaps, a prehistoric dialect leveling as multiple proto-Igboid branches made there way into what is now known as "Igboland".

We then ultimately are presented with this dynamic picture of phonology and morphology within the Igbo region. Such high amounts of diversity, packed in here.

Again, just a preliminary hypothesis. I might explore this further, and of course, I'm willing to accept if it goes nowhere.

But in attempting to finalize this writing system for Ngwa, I saw this and just could not ignore it. If any academic Igbo linguists are searching for a thesis to explore, they can feel free to use this one.

-- continued --

Everyone is familiar with the variants "ife" and "ihe" for "thing". In layman's terms we would say the "Anambra Igbo" or the "Imo Igbo" variants. An examination of this word shows a clear (and believable) phonological etyomology of /p/ -> /f/ in the "Anambra Igbo" case. But if we take a look at Ngwa as a case in point, the "Imo Igbo", which Kay Williamson, Roger Blench and Chinyere Ohiri-Aniche all suggest also have a /p/ -> /f/ -> /h/, now becomes questionable.

We are faced with the following questions:

1. Are the "Imo Igbo" variants using /h/ because of a /p/ -> /f/ or /v/ -> /h/ etymological path?

or

2. Are the "Imo Igbo" variants using /h/ because of an /ṅ/ -> /g/ or /k/ -> /h/ etymological path?

If #1 is the truth across all lects, then it means all words for "thing" are cognates, and my hypothesis can be refuted. It likely leads nowhere. However, if #2 is the truth, then it suggests that the words for "thing" (no matter how similar they look), may have two different etymologies. And in fact, if we are to use the Ngwa lects as a case-in-point, it seems that #2 is our observable truth.

Some Ngwa lects labialize the /h/ for "thing". In other words, we get "hwe", and recall what I said earlier that for Ngwa, /hw/ and /h/ can be interchanged, but /hy/ and /hw/ cannot. In that same vein, we only see "hwe" and "he" variants in Ngwa for "thing", never "hye". If the thread I'm unraveling holds any merit, then it suggests that Ngwa falls into path #2.

In other words, for lects like Ngwa that show evidence of labialization on the word for "thing", we can perhaps propose a completely separate etymology for the word.

I believe Kay Williamson, Roger Blench and Chinyere Ohiri-Aniche likely battled with this same realization. If you examine the reconstruction for the word for "thing" (ipuye), we see an attempt to compromise by suggesting a reconstruction that includes all the core sound, along with the explanation of an original /-y-/ being absorbed and transformed into labialization in some lects. Even if we wanted to take this explanation seriously (which I admit I did at one point), a study of Ngwa phonology shows that this rule of /-y-/ to /-w/ can almost be completely ignored for lects like Ngwa. In other words, their explanation is at best inconsistent, at worse, a shot in the dark.

Now, any curious person (who may also be familiar with other lects might be inclined to ask this question): How come we have "ife", "ive" and "iphe" that showcase different phonological transformations for the word for "thing" along the /p/ -> /f/ or /v/ -> /h/ path, but we don't have "ige" or "ike" or "iye", showcasing different phonological transformations along the /ṅ/ -> /g/ or /k/ -> /h/ path?

That is where I would respond and say, "oh, but we potentially do."

Ekpeye - iye
Okocha - ikwe
Ngwa - hwe

All mean "thing".

Now, as I mentioned, this is all just a preliminary thought process and would require contextualizing the phonology of these various lects.

That said, if a phonological pattern in Ekpeye and Okocha shows parity with what is obtained in Ngwa, then we can almost definitely say that Ekpeye, Okocha and Ngwa (among other lects) fall into path #2. In other words, showing a potential transformative path from /ṅ/ -> /kw/ or /hw/ or /y/. Meaning, if we reconstruct potential candidates for proto-Igboid words for "thing" across these two paths, we get something along the lines of "ipe" and "iṅe".

I believe Kay Williamson, Roger Blench and Chinyere Ohiri-Aniche might have seen this and attempted to reconcile with "ipuye". They suggest that in the process of derivation over time, a lect like Okocha dropped the /u/, absorbed the /y/ into the /p/ and resulted in a reflex of /k/ and /w/. Basically "ipuye" -> "ip'ye" -> "ik'we" -> "ikwe".

In that same vein a lect like Ngwa would have to have absorbed dropped the same /u/, absorbed the same /p/ and /y/, but instead get an /h/ and /w/, thereby giving us "ipuye" -> "ip'ye" -> "ih'we" -> "ihwe" -> "hwe".

But Ngwa phonology constraints almost invalidate the above assertion.

It would instead make sense for Ngwa, a lect that acknowledges a palatalized /hy/ and a labialized /hw/ to use "hye" in speech for "thing" based on the logic of Kay Williamson, et al. After all, there are surviving Igbo lects today that do in fact use "ihye" in speech, so there shouldn't be any reason why Ngwa would not. Yet, the phonological pattern of the Ngwa lect is so consistent that in the case of the word for "thing", it calls into question the "ipuye" reconstruction.

So how many more reconstructions can we then, in fact, say are questionable? This is where deeper linguistic research and analysis is required.

-- Continuing in next post to prevent NL spam bot from blocking and hiding this post --

-- continued --

Well, perhaps I should not be so bold. Rather, let me say that 'til date, I have yet to encounter an instance in Ngwa where /hy/ and /hw/ can be interchanged without impacting the meaning. Instead, we have the following:

/hy/ can be interchanged with /h/ in some Ngwa lects (i.e. the palatalization is dropped) and the meaning is retained, showing that they are synonyms or cognates. For example, "ihye" (to come from) and "ihe" (to come from).

/hw/ can be interchanged with /h/ in some Ngwa lects (i.e. the labialization is dropped) and the meaning is retained, showing that they are synonyms or cognates. For example, "ihwe" (to search/look for) and "ihe" (to search/look for).

You will never see an instance (or at least, 'til date, I have not seen an instance) where "ihwe" can be said as "ihye" and it means the same thing, or "ihye" said as "ihwe" and the meaning is retained. In other words, two different phonological etymologies. But again you may ask, how did we arrive here to begin with?

Let's go back to the phonological structure of Ngwa.

An interesting thing about Ngwa phonological structure (as I've mentioned earlier) is that palatalization and labialization are exclusive phenomenon, and it turns out we have a definitive pattern for that.

Only glottals are labialized in Ngwa. Glottals are never palatalized. While labials (primarily) and dentals (secondarily) are palatalized. There is no known occurrence of labialization with labials or dentals. Let me make this picture clearer.

ChinenyeN:

m:        p/b       kp/gb     f/v       h         w
n:        t/d       s/z       l/r       ch/j
ṅ:        g/k       gh        h         y

Conventionally, labialization uses a "-w" modifier and palatalization uses a "-y" modifier in orthography.

The labial /m/ category above has the following palatalized variants in Ngwa, /py/, /by/, /fy/, /vy/, /hy/ (as I've already touched on).

The dental /n/ category above has the following palatalized variants in Ngwa, /ny/, /sy/, /ly/, /ry/, /jy/.

The glottal /ṅ/ category above has the following labialized variants in Ngwa, /ṅw/, /gw/, /kw/, /hw/ (as I've already touched on).

These cannot be switched around in Ngwa. There's no /gy/. There's no /pw/. There's no /vw/. There's no /ky/, etc. etc.

In other words, using Ngwa as a case-in-point, we can see clear lines of drastically different etymologies. In other words again, if we find any words that render an /hy/ or an /hw/, then we can almost positively discount any sort of cognate or etymological relationship. What does that mean exactly?

Potentially, every /hy/ that exists in Ngwa, may have once been a /vy/ or a /by/. Likewise, any /hw/ that exists in Ngwa, may have once been a /gw/ or a /kw/ or even an /ṅw/.

So now back to proto-Igboid. How does this tie in? I'll show you. Let's take the word "thing" for example.

-- Continuing in next post to prevent NL spam bot from blocking and hiding this post --

M ma m la ili na nka nka. That said, I just came across something that I felt may be worth sharing. It's still preliminary thoughts, but this is the basic hypothesis...

Hypothesis: Kay Williamson, Roger Blench and Chinyere Ohiri-Aniche's reconstruction work is flawed under the assumption that there was a single proto-Igboid phonology (we can grossly summarize this as a single proto-Igboid branch), when in fact there may have been perhaps two (at least) proto-Igboid branches. Effectively, their reconstructions may need to be revisited in light of this.

I know. This is a bold hypothesis. If what I've come across is any evidence to a potential truth, then this information is shocking (and revealing). So let me contextualize and explain this.

Among my many projects over the years, there is one that I have recently been revisiting in hopes to finalize. I'm essentially creating a new writing system for Ngwa. Well, it's not entirely new (as in, it doesn't come from nothing). My system is an extension and modernization of the "agwagwa ulo" inscription system in my hometown (and other parts of eastern Ngwa). Basically, "agwagwa ulo" is a mixed pictographic/ideographic system. I essentially took a subset of agwagwa ulo ideographs and adapted it into a featural writing system. In the process of finalizing the glyphs earlier this week, I stumbled across this phonetic structure in Ngwa.

m:        p/b       kp/gb     f/v       h         w
n:        t/d       s/z       l/r       ch/j
ṅ:        g/k       gh        h         y

Basically, Ngwa phonology can be neatly grouped into these three categories, "m" (labial), "n" (dental) and "ṅ" (glottal). This categorization is clean with the exception of "h" appearing both in the labial and glottal categories--a discrepancy that immediately caught my attention. How is this a discrepancy? Basically...

We have a "labial h", suggesting the "h" sound to have been derived from perhaps a "b" -> "v" -> "h" path (as a case-in-point).

We then also have a "glottal h", suggesting the "h" sound to have been derived from perhaps a "g/k" -> "gh" -> "h" path (as a case-in-point).

The question might then come up, how and why am I even considering the existence of two different "h" sounds? Simple, Ngwa lect has both palatalization and labialization, and an interesting pattern arises in that palatalization and labialization is an exclusive phenomenon in Ngwa. In other words, a palatalized phoneme in Ngwa is never labialized and vice versa (a labialized phoneme in Ngwa is never palatalized). That is how we got the outlier "h".

Ngwa has both a palatalized "h" /hy/ and a labialized "h" /hw/, but they never co-occur. In other words, there is no instance in which we have a word like "ahya" and "ahwa" and they are synonyms, much less cognates. This discrepancy, the exclusive phenomenon of it and the lack of co-occurrence began to unravel a thread in my mind.

-- Continuing in next post to prevent NL spam bot from blocking and hiding this post --

It’s like we’re so close to getting it, yet so far.

Maazieze:


Idk how to send Dm on nairaland so ill just send you the link here
https://discord./zj97T4Xd

My tag is "Iwe eri"

I will send you a DM there once I join.

Maazieze:
Actually could i also get the info on the isuama cultural complex aswell?

Yes, I am on Discord, though I don’t visit it often. Perhaps I have yet to find the right Discord server.

No problem. Give me a few days to collect what I have on the Isuama cultural complex and I will update you once their in the DropBox.

In fact, feel free to check the DropBox periodically, I will just simply endeavor to continue adding Isuama-related content as I encounter them.

BentizilL, Gajagojo. The two of you must be relatively new to NL.

First Ikwerre, now Ndoki.
I laugh in Ngwa.

Anyhow, seeing as the two of you are relatively recent to NL, as a courtesy, I will just let you know that this topic has been spoken on and flogged to the point of fatigue. Many of us have little interest in rehashing this. If you still have an itch to scratch, please go to the politics section or just search old threads on NL.

I really have zero interest in saying more on this beyond this point. Thanks.

RedboneSmith, no worries nwane.

RedboneSmith:
What is the name of the book the screenshot was taken from? Looks like it might make interesting reading.

I should have added this information in either the filename or something. My apologies. The book is "Traditions of Igbo Origin" by Professor John Oriji.

RedboneSmith:
In one of the documents in the dropbox, a screenshot of a page from a book, I saw where it said that Amaigbo was a pilgrimage centre for some communities in Isuama area, and even parts of Igboland further south. Is there any more information you can share in this pilgrimage? Why, Amaigbo? What was the nature of this pilgrimage?

Oriji is the only writer that I have seen mention the pilgrimages in such a way, but did not delve into the nature of the pilgrimage except to mention some shared ritual practices. I have added an additional picture in my DropBox of that section of the book for context.

I myself have attempted to search for other mentions of this pilgrimage, but have not come across any additional sources. So I am not able to confirm if it was widespread, nor am I able to confirm the religious relevance of it relative to the Igbo-speaking area at large. Oriji makes it seem as though Amaigbo was a center with similar revered status as say Nri or Aro for the local and non-local community. Nothing I have so far come across actually supports that.

As I understand it, Amaigbo is recognized as one of (if not the most) prominent cultural center for the Isu. Amaigbo became that cultural center for them, either by virtue of seniority or migration (supposedly much of Isuama is populated by expansions from Orlu axis) or some long forgotten cultural consensus. From what I've read as well, Amaigbo has highly developed ritual practices. It makes much more sense to me that the Isu community (regardless of how far they expanded) might have tried their best to maintain those ritual and cultural practices, even if it meant traveling to the cultural center. It would, after all, be a core part of their cultural identity, and with highly developed rituals like that, human behavior (like pilgrimages) is not unheard of. This makes sense to me, especially since I have not seen any other writers mention these "pilgrimages" with the same emphasis that Oriji seems to give it.

By the way, Oriji was basing his position off the work done by Afigbo. In "Outline of Igbo History," Afigbo makes mention of communities that still maintain cultural links with Amaigbo despite being settled so far away.

RedboneSmith:
Did people really come from as far as Ngwa to worship Ala at Amaigbo?

Supposedly, yes, but they weren't Ngwa. Supposedly between 1600s and 1800s, there was an influx of people coming in from beyond the Ahiara, Ezilihitte, Nguru axis. For Ngwa people, the Ahiara, Ezilihitte, Nguru axis is called "Ohnuhnu". The area (and people) beyond the Ohnuhnu axis used to be called "Isoma." According to oral tradition from Amaumara (a community in Ezilihitte), Isoma people used to pay Amaumara ferrymen to cross the Imo and also pay for protection while attempting to find a place to settle in the Ngwa region. Their presence was not entirely welcomed at the time, hence the need for protection. Other communities did similarly, but Amaumara was more prominently known for helping Isoma cross and settle.

As an aside: The influx of people during this period was so notable that Ngwa people started jokingly calling the migrants "Ohnuhnu" in reference so the fact that they all were seemingly making their way through the "Ohnuhnu" axis to settle in the region. The new nomenclature stuck, and that's how "Ohnuhnu" came to be used to refer to non-Ngwa people and things.

Anyhow, members of some of these migrant communities were sometimes known to travel back through the Ohnuhnu axis. I am not sure what the relevance of the journeys were. It is not something that is actively discussed in Ngwa, but it is recollected. According to work done by A. G. Leonard, one such community (among others) was Umuduru in Mbutu Ngwa. They are still remembered as having migrated specifically from Amaigbo area and to likely have made such journeys in precolonial times. I do not know if they will still claim to have done so now though. I doubt. They likely no longer maintain an Isu identity. In any case, Umuduru and a few other communities with known migration from the Isuama region supposedly used to make those journeys.

My educated guess would be that even after settling in Ngwa, communities like Umuduru might have still considered themselves Isu, and with strong cultural identity like that, they might have reasonably made such a journey (or pilgrimage) to their ancestral cultural center, Amaigbo.

It is important to note here that Oriji is himself Ngwa. His view on this could be coming from that lens. As an Ngwa person, it is no secret that there was a notable influx of people coming from far away places like Amaigbo. To know that they would also occasionally venture back to Amaigbo for ritual practices might seem, to the eyes of an Ngwa native, like a pilgrimage in the religious or revered sense of the word.

Maazieze:
I see, i'd like to know more about my specific community, im from mbieri, just north of owere itself

I don't know if you are based in the U.S. or not, but there is a relatively large Mbieri community. I do not know about now, but before they used to have an active national association with several chapters across the U.S. If you are based in the U.S., I might encourage you to see the nearest chapter you can find and join. Alternatively, if the nearest chapter is too far away, then you can try attending an annual association convention (if they are still having it).

On the other hand, if you are based in Naija, then there should be a handful of Mbieri Youth Associations or an Mbieri Development Union in larger cities like Lagos and Abuja. There will definitely be on in Owerri (and maybe Aba and Umuahia).

These two ways are probably the best way to get more info. It will be coming directly from your people and will give you a basis to do more research to analyze and corroborate or dismiss the things they share with you.

That said, earlier in my research days, I did research Mbieri, but there was not much I could find. I am especially still looking for two documents.

1. The History of my Clan, Mbiere by someone named A. Uzoukwu.
2. Mbieri Traditions of Origin and Socio-Political Organization by Professor C. Ugorji

Anyhow, those two documents notwithstanding, I have a few things in my DropBox. I've organized them for you to access here: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/be1gwxxkjvrsfb3o05n3j/h?dl=0&rlkey=ybkrqkozjgl8fsv75475xgi1v

The documents I've gathered may not be much, but I hope they can at least give you a basis to start. By the way, one of the documents is written in Igbo. I do not know how comfortable you are with reading/writing Igbo, so it might take some time to read and digest the document.

Gajagojo:
How are Ikwerre Southern Igbo?

Is it origin,language genetics or what ??
What makes them Igbo?

That is wishful thinking and projection

Ikwerre repeatedly tell you they are not Igbo is it by force?

If you want this sort of discourse, go back to the Politics section, and find someone there who will be happy to engage you.

Isuama is not really a group (I stay away from the “subgroup” term) in the sense that say, Ngwa or Ikwerre are groups. Rather, Isuama is more like a culture complex. It’s a region of multiple groups that may share varying degrees of culture, but are still largely independent, both in their identity and culture.

You can think of “Isuama” as a region in the same way “southern Igbo” (Ngwa, Asa, Ndoki, Echie, Ikwerre, and related groups) is a region.

Do you want to know more about your specific community (or related communities, if documented information is not readily available) or just general info on the Isuama cultural complex?

Edipet:
hmmmm. @bolded , are you serious.? Just learning this for the first time, I always believed that speaking similar language, having similar culture and tradition can be traced to the same root.

They are correct. Language and culture/traditions are all different things and even more so different from origin. People can have different origins and end up with similar language. People can have similar language and end up with different cultures or have different origin because human life is dynamic.

Take Igbo for instance. To linguists, it is clear that Igbo belongs in the same language branch as Yoruba, Edo, Akoko, etc. According to linguists, they suspect the Igbo branch started diverging 6000 - 8000 years ago. However, some anthropologists suspect that some of the communities that speak Igbo now have been settled in the area for longer than that. So what language were they speaking before?

That is a rhetorical question. The point being that evidence suggests that the communities may be older than the language. So now, even though we share a linguistic branch with Yoruba, Edo and Akoko, it may be possible that we do not share an origin.

This map is excluding the very important Ngwa/Etche/Ikwerre to Kalabari/Okrika route.

It also excludes the equally important Ngwa/Asa/Ndoki to Igwe Nga/Opobo route. Igwe Nga is now modern day Ikot Abasi.

banku:
1. Ndi-Igbo no dey get tribal face marks. Those scarifications belong to Ndi-Yoruba. Igbo have smooth fine face, skin color closer to whites as Jews and tattoos.

BTW, Nsipidi are not Igbo, try Efik and Ibibio.

We definitely do.

In Ngwa, for instance, we have kanja, which is a scarification practice that was in vogue in precolonial times even up to the 1970s. The wave of Christianity from the 1940s to 1980s diminished the practice. Now it’s mostly a memory. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone born after 1980 that has kanja. There are probably some. Anyhow, it was not too long ago that the practice was rather prominent.

Mods, bigfrancis21, odumchi, Fulaman198, my previous post has been hidden and my ability to reply was blocked for a few days. Can we please unhide the post, if it is not breaking any rules? Thank you.

As promised, let's run some experiments using verb compounding with modern or scientific terms and see if we can coin more natural expression than any examples that already exist in Igbo.

Let's start with a moderate one, "evolution".

Some conventions before I start, so we all are on the same page. I will be marking tones and diacritics to help with the pronunciation. I will use this orthography.

High tones - unmarked (i.e. aka - arm, all high tones)
Low tones - grave accent (i.e. òkpò - road)
Mid tones - macron (i.e. imē - to do)

I chose this because it would be a good test. I don't hear this word much in an Igbo conversation and I guess it makes sense. It's too technical. If anyone uses it, they will most likely just say something like "evòlushọ̀nụ̀". If you search a translation for "evolution" across different "Igbo language" sources, you will see all sorts of things.

The most common is "mgbanwè", but that just means "change". The term "evolution" carries more implication than just "change". Anyhow, what other expressions have I seen, "webàta" (not sure where their minds were at trying to coin this... unfortunate). I've seen "ghọ̀rọ" used in some way. I've also seen "mmalite" from Google translate, but as I recall that is more like "beginning". Definitely not something I would pick for "evolution". I could go on, but I'll stop there. It's clear that the term "evolution" will make a great candidate since we don't seem to have any satisfactory translations for it. So let's create one using verb compounding.

Let's see...

I like -gba. Actually, I like it a lot. -gba is one of our "catch all" expressions. It doesn't have any real meaning in and of itself in most cases. Its meaning is opaque, but it definitely triggers the concept of "action". Our ancestors probably used it a lot when they couldn't find any good ways to explain or nail down a process or phenomenon. We will probably come to find out that -gba can serve in many cases as our "main verb" in a verb compound, because it is so opaque. But, inasmuch as I like -gba, I think we can do better. For verb compounds to be truly effective, the "main verb" needs to anchor the primary concept. -gba, though effective can be thought of as too generic. Using -gba would mean that the following verb in the compound will need to be the driver and anchor for the primary concept. So we would need two phonemes just to construct our main verb. Maybe I don't want that, so I will leave -gba alone.

In that case, I like -ghọ̀, but -ghọ̀ is heavily coupled with the appearance of something. I'm concerned this coupling of appearance would drive us into a corner. We'll end up being so focused on the appearance of evolution that we will fail to coin a concept that explains its process[es]. I've said this before and I will say it again. Igbo is a great language for compactly discusses processes.

Anyhow, both -gba and ghọ̀ are out.

Hm... I do not know about other lects, but in Ngwa we have the verb -we ewe used to express a sense of "acclimation". Yes, this might actually be good. When we say -we ewe, we generally mean "get used to". I think I like this for the root word. Thinking about it now, I especially like this root because of how it explains the acclimation process. This is how it is used:

[external phenomenon] [-we, acclimates] [thing being acclimated]

This is actually an excellent way to express evolution. Evolution is the adaptation that results from interacting with one's environment. For example, fish are accustomed to water, or in the mind of an Ngwa speaker...

[water, external phenomenon] [-we, acclimates] [fish, thing being acclimated]

Yeah, this is almost perfect for a "main verb" in the verb compound to explain evolution, but I don't think we're done. -we only conveys the acclimation. We still need to add more verbal context to distinguish "evolution" as a process from something mundane such as "getting used to traffic in a new city". Some verbs come to mind.

-che (conveys a sense of preservation), -dì (conveys a sense of perpetuation)...

I think I like -dì. We can come up with our own verb phrase here. In Ngwa, the word ihwu means "generation[s]". I've never heard anyone say this before, but perhaps we can come up with -dì ihwu (endure generations) that speaks to the inheritability of the acclimation. Let's test this as a type of serial verb expression.

[òsùmìrì, ocean] [-we azụ̀, acclimates fish] [-dì ihwu, perpetuates over generations]

In natural speech it would be "òsùmìrì we azụ̀ dì ihwu", but we've already established that this serial structure doesn't work for Igbo, so let's convert it into a verb compound.

Òsùmìrì èwedìa azụ̀ ihwu
Fish evolved in the ocean

It's not bad for a first attempt, I think. At least we did not end up with a long, explanatory sentence. The idea is compacted thanks to verb compounding.

Àlà èwedìa madụ̀ ihwu
Human beings evolved on land

Oh, I think I like this. I'll catalog it as a candidate for the next volume of the Ngwa dictionary I am developing. If I still like it enough later on, then I'll add it as a new term.

Iwēdì ihwu - to spur the development of an adaptation/acclimation enduring over generations, a.k.a, to evolve.

Perhaps it's not the best we can do, but it's not bad for a first attempt, and definitely better than other options.

Mgbanwè: Madù àgbanwè l'àlà ... this is grammatically correct, but semantically does not make sense. I'm left asking "a person changed what?". Or if we instead said àlà àgbanwè madù, but that semantically conveys a sort of one-time transformation and not necessarily an evolutionary change or adaptation. Perhaps it can be used colloquially, but it certainly does not express the processes of evolution.

Ghọ̀rọ: How would we even say this? Madụ̀ ghọ̀rọ̀ ... ... Yeah, this doesn't do it. Perhaps this one can be used more so for explaining the change from one point to the next for the population that acclimated. For example, humans evolving from primates.

I think I will stop here for now. If you have any terms, expressions, translations you might want to explore with verb compounding, drop them here. I'll go look for something else and come back.

Probz:
How do you think Igbo would be if serial verb-construction was more of a thang?

This is where things get interesting.

So using the Ngwa example that I mentioned earlier, we have “i kahigba hwe nne ahu” which breaks down to “i ka hwe hi nne gba ahu”. We could posit that “i ka hwe hi nne gba ahu” might have been a serial verb construction, and on the surface it makes sense. It makes sense because it mirrors the modern “kahigba” sequence rather well. The one-for-one correlation is so readily apparent that we can be almost certain that “kahigba hwe nne ahu” comes from the breakdown of “ka hwe hi nne gba ahu”. At the very minimum, we can be almost 100% certain that “kahigba hwe nne ahu” once was likely a serial verb construction. However, even if this thought makes sense, it has one major flaw.


To go from “ka hwe hi nne gba ahu” to “kahigba hwe nne ahu” requires A LOT of linguistic motivation. Here’s what I mean.

Language is not a logical thing. It’s just a series of conventions that speakers agree to and even modify over time by speech consensus. So very few things in language are rigid rules. For Igbo, one of those few rigid rules seems to be word order.

Igbo is a strict word order language. The subject goes in a specific place, the object goes in a specific place and the verbs go in a specific place, etc etc. I have not come across any linguistics study that has proven Igbo to have a loose word order whether in modern times or historically. This strict word order is important, because it acts as a direct hinderance to the theory I just gave earlier.

Basically, because Igbo is a strict word-order language, we have to face the hard truth that a development from “ka hwe hi nne gba ahu” to “kahigba hwe nne ahu” would have likely been impossible without to heavy motivation by the speakers. This is because in order to get the modern “kahigba”, we have to significantly break the word order, jump “hi” over one clause, in this case “hwe”. We also have to jump “gba” over two clauses, in this case, both “hwe” and “nne”.

In a strict word-order language, this would not be possible without significant pressures. Either the speech community decided to re-engineer their language, or direct contact with another language community caused a rather abrupt speech change. Think about it like a chemical reaction. The linguistic bond within “gba ahu” and “hi nne” and “ka hwe” as clauses is stronger than the external bond between “ka hwe” and “gba ahu” (because of being a strict word-order language). We would require a strong catalyst to break “ka hwe”, “hi nne” and “gba ahu” to create “kahigba” and “hwe nne ahu”.

It would be very difficult to break the bond within “gba ahu” and shift “gba” to be a compound with “ka”. That is, if we were still talking in SVO terms… SOV though makes it 100% possible with far less motivation.

So some clarification.

Igbo is an SVO language with strict order. Subject clause comes before the verb clause and the verb clause comes before the object clause. SOV languages are different in the sense that the subject clause comes first, followed by the object clause and then by the verb clause.

So this sparked a question in my mind. If Igbo was originally SOV, then it would be 100% possible to get verb compounding from serial verb construction. And it is a specific type of serial verb construction. The key here is that the objects in Igbo verb compounds are treated as a singular object and not separate objects.

Using the Ngwa example of “i kahigba hwe nne ahu”, the “hwe nne ahu” (though written separately for our orthographic benefit) is semantically treated as a singular object. This means that the “ka” in “kahigba” governs the “hwe nne ahu”. This means that for Igbo, it is easier to move objects clauses than it is to move verbs.

If we still wanted to hold on to the SVO structure, we end up with

“i ka hwe nne ahu hi gba”.

This is actually significant. It takes us one step closer to unraveling this mystery, except that it doesn’t allow us to create the verb compound. The “hi” and “gba” are separated from “ka”, and we are still stuck with requiring significant linguistic motivation to move “hi gba” and break the bond between “ka” and “hwe nne ahu”.

However, if we sequence it as an SOV, EVERYTHING falls in place.

Recall, the key to Igbo verb compounds is that the objects are governed together as a single unit and not as separate units. The “main verb” of “ka” governs them and the “hi” and “gba” lose their objects and become closely linked with “ka”.

To do SVO, we have

“i ka hwe nne ahu hi gba”

To do SOV, we have

“i hwe nne ahu ka hi gba”

The verb compound now has an unbroken serial context and sharing a singular object that is governed by the “main verb”.

This is so far what my analysis has led me to. Our Igbo languages may have originally been SOV.

My theory, we had an SOV word order and developed serialization in the SOV context. We later developed compounding from the SOV serialization, then (due to YEAI pressures) we switched to an SVO word order.

Now, I am not claiming this is the actual case. It is just that the fact that our verb compounding is highly developed, highly productive and creates only a singular object that is shared by the compound, suggests that only and SOV word order would allow us the chance to develop such serialization.

Once we had it, “ka”, “hi” and “gba” became closely linked. The “hi” and “gba” verbs govern no objects, so they can be treated as a single lexical unit with the main verb “ka”.

The motivation for shifting

{i} {hwe nne ahu} {ka hi gba} to our modern syntax

Requires far less linguistic effort than shifting

{i} {ka hwe} {hi nne} {gba ahu}

So, long story short. To answer your question, Probz, I think Igbo would have to have been an SOV language for serial verb construction to be more of a thing and develop into the modern compounding we have now.

Maazieze:
i dont have much to contribute but a suggestion, please compile your ideas onto a blog, would love to read through it all, wordpress is an easy site to start with.

I’m actually a developer/systems software engineer. I work on many projects, but one of them that I recently started is to build a platform where we can openly publish this sort of content, review others’ publishings, cite each other, etc. I hope to finish building the platform in about 6 - 8 months. I know a few people here on NL that I will certainly invite to be initial contributors, and one need not be an academic or PhD to publish on this site. There can even be amateurs, but at least we will all get to openly publish, share, cite each other and hopefully create something lasting that will advance our Igbo languages and save them from the same fate as Latin.

OkayDaddy:
See brilliant people that Ohaneze should support, but no. They will prefer to go around and be doing bambiala from politicians.

People have the things that are important for them, I guess. Whether it is national politics, or the regular “us vs them” on NL or sports or fashion, etc. We cannot fault people for having what they consider important interests.

I just happen to be among a handful of our people where Igbo language and linguistic anthropology happen to be my interest. I will continue to advance Igbo linguistics for myself and for those who either don’t have time or have other interests more important to them. They can come and read what I write and benefit from what I create.

A few years ago on this very forum, while discussing new ways to develop Igbo (and save it from the same fate as Latin), I had mentioned that Igbo will need two things.

1. One or more new classes of adverbials
2. Many more verb roots

I have been interested in #2 as of late. As a case in point, I have endeavored myself to coin several new verb roots. The results have been better than expected, but then I realized one of the reasons why it worked so well—compounds.

For a YEAI language, Igbo is an oddity. The verb compounding feature of the language is highly developed and serial verb constructions are practically nonexistent (compared to what can be easily attested in the Yoruboid, Edoid and Akokoid set of languages). Of course I began my analysis and now want to share my findings.

I’ll start first with serial verb construction and why this is so important (or why it’s lack thereof is so important to Igbo).

In layman’s terms, serial verb construction is where a series of verbs or verb phrases are strung together in a sentence without any sort of hint of words like “and” (coordinating conjunction) or “because” (subordinating conjunction). On top of that, their meaning is treated as a single event and not as separate events (due to there being separate verbs).

For instance, “she carry book come”. Here we have two verbs, “carry” and “come”. Ordinarily, as these are verbs in their own right, they will be thought of as separate events in their own right when used alone. However, for practically all YEAI languages, the entire serial construction of “carry … come” as used above is semantically thought of as a single event. In the minds of YEAI speakers, you are effectively saying “she brought the book”, which would be the semantic meaning of “carry … come”. This is true for all YEAI languages… except Igbo.

Igbo is the only branch that lacks any sense of modern serial verb construction. Instead, something else developed in its place—verb compounds. We can compare and contrast the difference as seen below.

YEAI: “she carry book come”
Igbo: “she carry-come book”

Modern Igbo language studies teaches us that this is “verb inflection”, but I have begun to disagree with that. My attempts at coining new roots has only been successful because verb compounding in Igbo is highly productive. It stands to reason that virtually every “inflection” we see on verbs is historically a verbial that has been reanalyzed in the language.

Take the following example for instance. In Ngwa using Onwu orthographic standard, “I kahigba hwe nne ahu.”

I      ka     hi     gba    hwe    nne    ahu
you    talk   much   run    thing  plenty body

The above is a typical Ngwa construction. Semantically, it means “you belabor the point.” What many do not know (and what most Ngwa people seem to take for granted) is that “kahigba” is not a series of inflections but rather the direct reanalysis of live verbs into an on-demand verbal compound.

When we break down the aforementioned example in the Ngwa person’s mind, we get three full verb phrases.

-ka hwe
-hi nne
-gba ahu

If we split the compound apart, we would get the following sentence.

“I ka hwe hi nne gba ahu”.

Although this might be morphosyntactically legal in Ngwa, it is borderline clumsy to the point where no one even thinks to seriously make a statement like this. This would have been the serial verb construction, but an Igbo speaker’s mind practically rejects it.

My understanding of my own dialect plus my attempt to coin new roots suggests that one of the keys to further develop Igbo lies in our capacity to reanalyze verbs into on-demand compounds.

Following the Ngwa example, the range of what we can semantically convey will increase exponentially when we combined the creation of new roots with the the reanalysis of said newly-created roots into compounds.

There is also one other thought that this had triggered in me about Igbo’s SVO (subject-verb-object) structure potentially having been an originally SOV (subject-object-verb), but perhaps I might save that to discuss at a later date.

I’m interested in seeing now (if we follow the Ngwa example) what sort of new semantic meaning we can convey. There was a thread we had here a while back on translating words and/or modern things into Igbo. Perhaps I’ll go pluck from there and come back with some potential examples of how we can be productive with an already highly developed and productive morphosyntactic system.

No. They are not. Ngwa and Ukwa are three different groups. Ngwa and Asa and Ndoki. Asa and Ndoki are collectively referred to as “Ukwa”. Asa is furthermore two groups, Ipu and Oza.

So in total it is Ngwa, Ipu, Oza and Ndoki.

They are all related (having blended into each other), but they are not the same clan.