₦airaland Forum

ezenaija:
I SURE KNOW ENOUGH TO BE YOUR LECTURER.
You do not need to look far to confirm whether what i said is true or not.
Just take a look at where the SE is now on the national political ladder and sooth yourself living in denial.
From top 2 in 1960, top 2 in 1979 to just Deputy Senate President in 2007,2011 and 2015.
The SE is now occupying the last position in national political office hierachy ( 6th of 6)

Kagawa10:
What's the Osu saying?

You mean a person was removed from his elected post, only for Zik who was just arriving to fill it up immediately isn't ousting? Tell me what it means then?

Opportunistic self entitled greedy beings.

nonsobaba:
STORY!

nonsobaba:
I have been to umuahia too so don't tell me cowpoo. Umuahia is a rustic semi-village with nothing to write home about except the now-boring abia tower and foul air as a result of dirty, unwashed villagers from the countryside who come to town daily to sell agric produce. And that is the only settlement in the whole of Abia state where ppl still manage to live like humans! Once u leave umuahia, you start wondering if numerous atomic bombs were just dropped across the state owing to the crater-deformed roads and terrible odour of filth, squalor and despair.

nonsobaba:
Ideally, Abia state should be renamed 'satan's own state'. But i am sure that even satan will swear for anyone that offers to attach his name to that state.

BabaRamota1980:
Well done Explorer.

This Biafran soldier flogging a villager in one of the places they invaded and planted flag.

RedboneSmith:
I said 'about 50% lexical similarity. I never said 50% intelligibility. These are different things.

Lexical similarity deals with words that are cognates; not words that are mutually intelligible. For example, the Igbo word for beans egwa/agwa is lexically similar to the Yoruba word for beans 'ewa'. They are not neccessarily mutually intelligible. A Yoruba man will probably not understand an Igbo man that says 'Give me agwa'. But Agwa and ewa are cognates, and a linguist who is calculating lexical similarity between the two languages to find out their degree of relatedness will count ewa/agwa.

I don't have Aniche's book, but i found this with a quick online search.

https://books.google.com.ng/books?id=NUvnqjutFmoC&pg=PT106&lpg=PT106&dq=aniche+yoruba+cognate&source=bl&ots=8Y3fi-LxQV&sig=Pt4ui8aVeiosa5y0cQZCgKdVOvk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjViZ6U5KTSAhWEGCwKHXqKBHUQ6AEIDTAB#v=onepage&q=aniche yoruba cognate&f=false

Pay particular attention to this table. Std Yoruba and Igbo (Igbo Izugbe, I guess) = 51% lexical similarity. Std Yoruba and Edo = 56% lexical similarity. Igbo and Edo = 50% lexical similarity.

Thus, Yoruba is closer to Edo, than either is to Igbo. Funny enough, Igbo is closer to Akoko than Edo is to Akoko. After going through an Akoko wordlist, i won't say this surprises me.

RedboneSmith:
Always looking for mischief and 'Igbophobia' where there is none. I was repeating statistics from a book by the linguist Professor Chinyere Ohiri-Aniche of the University of Lagos. Go to Lagos and tell her she wrote a mischievous book.

Afam4eva:
People don't seem to know the sifference between Igbo and Igboid or Yoruba and Yoruboid. Anotehr term for Igboid can be Igbo-like but it's not the same thing as Igbo and that is why areas like Ekpeye where the mutual inyelligibility with mainstream Igbo is very low is described as Igboid. Same goes to areas in Anambra and Imo.

Now when you talk of Igbo, i's a bit more tricky and involves so many variables and these variables can be exclusive to one another. Which means that there are no defined metrics used to know who is Igbo, Yoruba or Hausa. If i as an Enugu man say i am not Igbo then i am not Igbo. But that does not mean that i will not be classed academically as Igbo likewise someone from Ika, Ukwuani or Ikwerre except the intellegentsia see a need to make any of the Igbo sub-units are a different group academically.

Probz:
Couldn't care less about your colleagues. Oid languages aren't classed that way for nothing whether you accept that or not.

Most Igbos can't understand the Izzi-Ezza-Mgbo-Ikwo dialect cluster of Ebonyi or the Wawa of rural Enugu state but that doesn't mean they're not dialects of Igbo.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ctUQlfw8Cw

Listen to that and go ahead and try and ignore the obvious Yoruba accent and intonation.

"Igala and Yoruba have important historical and cultural relationships. The languages of the two ethnic groups bear such a close resemblance that researchers such as Forde (1951) and Westermann and Bryan (1952) regarded Igala as a dialect of Yoruba."

"Other comparative works aimed at investigating the language status of Igala (directly and indirectly) are Omamor (1967) and Williamson (1973). In fact, Williamson is the originator of the label ‘Yoruboid’ for the group of languages comprising Yoruba, Isekiri and Igala for the purpose of distinguishing “between Yoruba as a language on the one hand, and Yoruba, Isekiri and Igala as a genetic group on the other”. (Akinkugbe 1976:1) Akinkugbe refers to the proto- language of the group as Proto-Yoruboid in 1976 and Proto-Yoruba-Isekiri-Igala (PYIG) in 1978"

There might be some Nupe, Idoma and definitely some Igbo fused in but overall it's an indisputably Yoruboid language and sounds more Yoruba than anything else.

Probz:
It's not really since one has linguistic affinity with the parent language and the other doesn't. Where's your "proof" that supports Igala not being intelligible with Yoruba?

Probz:
The difference is Legbo isn't classed as an Igboid language whereas Igala is a Yoruboid language. Deny it all you want if that's what makes you feel better but the facts are there. Igala and Itsekiri are Yoruboid.

Probz:
That last bit's nonsense, Igboid, and you know it. I'm a full-blooded Anambrarian on both sides but my mum was born in Kogi and says that hearing and speaking the little Igala she did made it much easier for her to pick up Yoruba (in Lagos).

Igala's classed as a Yoruboid language and I've read that it has 60% mutual intelligibility with Yoruba. I'm not denying Itsekiri has greater linguistic affinity with Yoruba (that's reflected even in their names) but you sound pathetic by trying to discredit Igala as a Yoruboid language when we all know it is. What exactly are you trying to prove?

Cire80:
with this comment, I conclude that you don't know anything about Igala and Yoruba language. Comparing the relationship with Igbo sounds so ignorant. Go and make your research.

Itsekiri / Yoruba relationship can be compared with Ika/Igbo relationship. Opobo /Bonny don't have anything to do with Igbo. Just some Ijoid people getting Igbonized. If Itsekiri can stand alone, I don't see why Ika can't stand alone

Abagworo:
Central dialect is just a mix of all types of Igbo that makes understanding easier for everyone that speaks one version of Igbo or the other. By purely Igbo I mean it's intelligible to someone in opposing extreme end of Igbo speakers like Afikpo, Nsukka and Ikwerre. Infact "Ali Onye" in Ika is "Ali Onye" in Ehugbo(Afikpo dialect).