Pchidexy:
[s][/s]

Igbos are native to their area. We came from nowhere.

goalernestman:


But your kings are from this root i mentions above

Abagworo:

Abiriba

TRADITION OF ORIGIN AND MIGRATION OF THE ABIRIBAS:

The Abiribas are part of the Agunaguna sub-tribe of the main Ekoi group. They are part of the larger Yakurr group that can also be traced up to Ikom and other parts of the upper Cross River basin. The present Yakor (Yakurr) Local Government Area of the Cross River State includes Ugep, Agunaguna, Nko, Usukpam (Urukpam), Ubaghara and others. In these areas are such other settlements as Ebiribara, Ebom-Ebiriba et cetera. As a matter of fact, the Ebom-Ebiribas in Yakor simply changed their name to Ebom because the present Abiriba (Ebiriba) was virtually eclipsing them such that even mails meant for them found their way into Abiriba of Abia State. The Abiribas are said to have lived in that part of Enna clan where there were plenty of Uda trees (xylopia aethiopica) hence the name Ena-Uda. The shrine of the Abiriba royalty is still standing at Usukpam-Ena. From events and available data, the Abiribas were said to have crossed the river at Usukpam, hence they are often referred to as Usukpam-Etete, a nostalgic name for that ancient home. Usukpam (Urukpam) as called by the natives there now is part of Akpaa-Erei clan of the larger Ena clan. The Abiribas lived here for long when they left mainland Ena-Uda under the leadership of Nnachi-Oken, hence the nomenclature, Ebiriba Enachi-Oken. From here they travelled through Okon-Ohafia and settled at Udara-Ebuo, a stretch of land between Amekpu-Ohafia and Okagwe-Ohafia. This long sojourn in the present day Ohafia area explains the numerous relationships between this area of Ohafia and Abiriba.

Equally the Abiriba-Ena royalty have affinity with Akanu Ohafia. Nnachi Oken died at Udara Ebuo and Ntagha continued the journey to Uranta where much later he too died. After the demise of Ntagha, Igbokwu became the leader. From here, Udara-Ebuo, the Abiribas now led by Igbokwu passed by Nkwu-ebu (Nkwebi) Ohafia to Uranta near Oboro en-route OzuAbam. Nkwu-ebu is the Palmyra palm, botanically/scientifically known as Borassus aethiopum which grew abundantly here. From here they moved right (north) and found their way into Ihe and Agboha about 1700. These two communities are near the present Binyom village of Abiriba. Agboha up till today is referred to as Agboha-Igbokwu, after the leader Igbokwu. This date of arrival is well estimated from later recorded events of early European visitors and estimating backwards from the number of Abiriba Kings remembered in our history. It is interesting to note the name Binyom which sounds Ekoi and has no Igbo meaning. The Abiribas brought their gods from Ekoi, the main god being the Otisi, (Otusi, Otosi). The Otisi is the royal symbol of authority over the Abiriba people. Otisi, Otosi is Ekoi name and many other Igbo Cross Riverine communities equally have this name and as gods too. The name is common in Afikpo areas, Edda, Ohafia, Aro, Abam, Item and others. In these areas, the royal families are referred to as Ndi-Otisi, that is, the people of Otisi. It is so too in Item and some other places. It is also equally noteworthy that one of the feared juju gods is Otisi Binyom of Abiriba. Apart from this god, we have Kalu, the god of war or thunder. One of these gods is at Ozua-elu (Kalu Ozua Elu) after Amamba village on the road that takes and brings back men who have made journeys, be it war or trade on that route.

The other is at Ndi Ebe, Kalu Ndi Ebe of Umu e'Chuku Amogudu. These Kalu gods are sacrificed to with cocks and rams.The Abiribas lived for long at ihe and Agboha from where they fanned out to establish modern day Abiriba villages and city. The Abiribas developed Agboha and built up a big market here. Because of their mercantilism, blacksmithing, weaving, crafts manship in ivory et cetera, Abiriba attracted marketers from neighbouring communities that stretched all the way to Ozuitem, Ozuakoli, Ahaba-Imenyi, Item and others. When the current and new market (Afia-nkwo) was founded people still referred to the portion on the western flank of Binyom, namely Agboha, as Afiankwo-ochie that is, the old market place. After several years of sojourn at Agboha, the royal group moved to the part of Umueso village called Amelunta today. The compounds that make up Amelunta are Ndi Ekpe, the main royal compound, Ndi Ezema and Ndi e'Mbaeku. The kings that ruled Abiriba and from Ndi Ekpe, Amelunta, were Ekpe, Itu, Uduka Oko (Uduka uku) Egbara uku and others. One of the sons of the royalty, Oko Uduka, alias Okonta Ogba-enwo (Oko the monkey shooter) in later years in his hunting expeditions located the valley after Isi-Olara and thought it was a natural fortress and also attracted by the water moved the royal compound there while retaining the majority of the royalty at Ndi-Ekpe.

This new compound is known as Ndi Oko-ogo, that is, the people of the home of Oko. The new royal compound not only accommodated the royalty but other sojourners that sought refuge in Abiriba for protection by the Abiriba King. From Ndi Okogo and Ndi Ekpe, the royalty developed Ameke Echichi and the other Ameke villages. The royalty installed the first Nkwa in Mgbala Ekpe at Ameke Echichi. Nkwa is a wooden carving in a compound hall of the royalty or in the Ekpe cult hall of the royalty. Nkwa is an arm of the Otisi god. In the olden days a replica of this carving formed part of the equipment given to a princess as a wedding gift and placed in the small hall, Obu, of the compound where she is married to. There are among others recently two such compounds where replicas of the nkwa small effigies, child bearing goddesses, were given to daughters married at Ndi Okoronkwo and Umuaga compounds both of Udanta Amogudu. The whole idea of these human-looking replicas, large dolls, is that the daughter may by the grace of the goddesses produce children. Umuaga compound at the end of the civil war sought permit from Ndi EkpeAmelunta to replace this wooden replica at their Obu compound, having been destroyed by the recently ended civil war. This was granted and the accompanying traditional ceremonies and rites accomplished. The expansions of the Abiriba people from Agboha to Amelunta and the new king's fortress compound, Ndi Oko-ogo as well as the other Ameke villages were not smooth ones. In their expansions into the current city, the Abiribas encountered other settlers, Umuhu, who were at Ihebu and Amamba, Nkporo At Kirii of Umueso and part of Item were near Ogbu, each group moving towards more fertile terrains.

The Abiribas expanded to found the villages of Ameke, Amogudu, particularly Umu -e’Chukwu, and Agboji under Ebiri. In later years when parts of Amelunta needed expansion, the then Enachioken, Oko Uduka -requested Egboji, now under Nwagu Efa to provide present day Amaukughukughu, (the place of the owls) for that purpose. Because of this gesture, the king rewarded Egboji with Nkwa-Otisi and that is why the Mgbala Ekpe of Ama-Ebia of Egboji has Nkwa. Ama-Ebia is the home of the Egboji village head.

Pchidexy:
[s][/s]

Gibberish! Eri was a warrior from Igala who migrated to the Omambala basin and mixed the the existing Igbo communities. The kinship and closeness between Nri and Igala peopis not shared by other Igbo communities.

Onojo Oboli, a son of Eri was a strong warrior also who terrorised many Igbo communities on the Omambala basin and the Adada basin. Onoja Oboli is Igala yet Eri is somehow supposedly the father of the Igbos. Ridiculous!

Abagworo:
Ohafia

The ancestors of the Ohafia people must have had a beginning somewhere. Obviously, they must also have had some
connection with other groups that are not identified as Ohafia people. Since, Ohafia is Igbo, it goes without saying that
Ohafia has a common origin with other Igbo Ethnic groups. In their quest to finding a permanent home of abode, they
sojourned through many lands, namely Benin Empire, Ndoni, Ibeku, Bende etc. A prominent happening at their Ndoni
home (Ndoni is in present Rivers State) was the demise of their ancestral leader, Akpo Uku. This bequeathed the
responsibility of leading the Ohafia people to his son Atita Akpo Uku. From Ndoni the journey continued to Isieke Ibeku.
At Isieke Ibeku, some Ohafia persons soon resorted to acts of mischief. Deprived of the influence of their dead leader,
minor disagreement with their Ibeku and Leru neighbours easily got out of hand. The laying of sharpened knives across
footpaths for offensive rather than defensive reason became very rampant. The ringleader in this overture was a man
called ;Ukoha". Both the Leru and the Ibeku people were getting uncomfortable living with their Ohafia neighbours
because of this mischievous propensities. During this period, there was fighting between sections of Umuahia ad Ossa
Ibeku people. He Ossa people sought refuge with the Ohafia people of Umuajiji in Isieke Ibeku. An attack was been
planed against the Ohafia people by the Ibeku people. The son-in-law of Ukoha (the trouble-maker) who was present at
the meeting of the Ibeku people revealed the conspiracy to Ukoha. Ukoha took immediate action, alerting the Ohafia
people about the planned attack against them. Although the Ohafia people beefed up security, an ominous event
occurred that ended their stay in Ibeku.
Several accounts exist as to the reason for this exodus. One account said that it was the barking of a dog caught in a
trap that frightened an Ohafia woman called Mgbo to raise an alarm. This alarm led to a stampede that evacuated Ohafia
people from Isieke Ibeku. Another version of the story was that a string of calabashes (food containers made from the
dried skin of gourds) suddenly collapsed making shattering noise. This later version seems to be more correct. This is
because the idiomatic tongue twister coined by the fleeing Ohafia made reference to the incident of the collapsed string
of calabashes

ChinenyeN:
Uniportadmision, I am not sure that Avuvu shares the same ancestral legacy with Isu in Ikeduru. I suspect they don’t because there is one tradition I know of from Mbaise area called “Ohuhu la Avuvu”.

This expression refers to all the communities in Mbaise that are “Nfulala” as well as an offshoot that moved away from the region. There are some that believe that Avuvu is the offshoot that moved away. According to oral tradition in Ahiara, Avuvu was a sister clan. It used to be that Ahiara was comprised of two communities, the Odojianunu and Avuvu. Some hardship or bad blood (not sure which) caused the bulk of Avuvu to emigrate out of the “Nfulala” region. According to oral tradition, this migration event is associated with the time that the Imo beheading was occurring.

If the oral traditions are to be taken seriously to an extent, then it is possible that Avuvu was forced to move out due to what might be devastating ecological events (i.e. drought, less arable land, etc); the same ecological events that cause Imo beheading. If so, Avuvu is actually an Nfulala group related to Ahiara in Mbaise explicitly, and then secondarily related to the rest of Nfulala (Ezinihitte, Nguru, etc) by virtue autochthony.

Finally, the Ohuhu/Nfulala traditionally consider the Isu to be strangers to them. There are no traditions that acknowledge heritage with Isu. Likewise, Isu does not have any traditions that associate themselves with the Nfulala region. As a consequence, Avuvu (if it is the same Avuvu of in the “Ohuhu la Avuvu” tradition) is not of Isu ancestry.

I am assuming that since you asked about Avuvu, they are your community (feel free to correct me if my assumption is incorrect). In which case, I would certainly encourage you to inquire if a similar “Ohuhu la Avuvu” tradition exists for you all. It is possible that after 500+ years of acculturation with Isu, some things might have been forgotten. Although, it’s also possible to say that some things could have been encoded and preserved in some oral traditions, especially, if we take the suspected time period into consideration (Imo beheading and other ecological changes).

Uniportadmision:
always thought the Igbo tribes either came from one of the big groups of Isu, Uratta, awka, Etche/Ngor.

ChinenyeN:
Well, Uniportadmision there’s not really an “Nfulala” group. “Nfulala” is just a term used to explain the belief that they (the communities in Mbaise/northern Ngwa) did not come from anywhere; that they either sprang into existence or were created in their current location. It’s not that they share ancestry or share clan identity. Nfulala is not a "clan" or "group" in the same sense that say Awka might be.



Hm. It doesn't quite do it justice to speak about it in terms of "big groups", because that's not really the case. Let me see how I can explain this. We can basically delineate four types of community origins within "Igboland". I will call them "tiers".

Tier 1: These are communities that claim to not have come from anywhere. These are autochthonous communities. They believe they either just manifested, or were created or have simply always been there and have no memory of having migrated from anywhere else.

Tier 2: These are communities that migrated from Tier 1 communities directly or indirectly. Indirectly would mean that they migrated from a fellow Tier 2 community.

Tier 3: These are communities that have traditions of migrating into “Igboland” from what we might consider as "non-Igbo" areas, or from just outside of our modern definition of "Igboland".

Tier 4: These are communities that migrated from a Tier 3 community directly or indirectly. Indirectly would mean that they migrated from a fellow Tier 4 community.

So let's take the Ikeduru/Mbaitolu as a case-in-point. Now, if we assume that the Avuvu in Ikeduru is the same Avuvu in the "Ohuhu la Avuvu" tradition, then we can say that the Ikeduru/Mbaitolu area is mostly composed of Tier 2 communities, since the Isu who make up the bulk of Mbaitolu have their homeland in the Orlu area (which is a Tier 1 community), and Avuvu would have its homeland in the "Nfulala" region (which is a Tier 1 group of communities).

Even, we can do the same with Etche and Ngor Okpuala. Traditions suggest that the communities in Etche and Ngor are a primarily a mix of Uratta and Mbaise/Ngwa. The homelands for Uratta is a Tier 1 community. Likewise the homeland for Mbaise/Ngwa is a Tier 1 community. So with that, we can consider Etche and Ngor communities to primarily consist of Tier 2 communities.

So the picture is very complex and there aren’t really any “big groups”, in the way that you might be thinking of it. Most Igbo communities are Tier 2 and Tier 4.

Uniportadmision:
If you say Isu, Uratta, Awka Ezinihitte are tier 1...
Etche/Ngor, Ngwa, Owerri etc as tier 2..,
Why then would you think the southern Igboid groups might be the cradle of first settlement?

Uniportadmision:
Why then would you think the southern Igboid groups might be the cradle of first settlement?

ChinenyeN:
Uniportadmision, I am not sure that Avuvu shares the same ancestral legacy with Isu in Ikeduru. I suspect they don’t because there is one tradition I know of from Mbaise area called “Ohuhu la Avuvu”.

This expression refers to all the communities in Mbaise that are “Nfulala” as well as an offshoot that moved away from the region. There are some that believe that Avuvu is the offshoot that moved away. According to oral tradition in Ahiara, Avuvu was a sister clan. It used to be that Ahiara was comprised of two communities, the Odojianunu and Avuvu.

ChinenyeN:

However, this idea that the earliest Igboid language branches are represented within the southern Igbo-speaking region has support. I can provide a brief overview on a couple key evidences that seemingly support it.

One key support is that linguistic analysis on the various Igboid lects suggest that Ekpeye is among the older (if not oldest) surviving Igboid branch. Ekpeye is on the southern-most "westerly" end of the Igbo-speaking region. It sits right next to the stretch of communities with a high degree of linguistic diversity, and that provides further support for the proposed linguistic antiquity of the region.

Abagworo:


Ahiara is Isu. In essense being related to Ahiara only cements the likelihood of Avuvu being of Isu in ancient times.

Abagworo:
Ahiara is Isu. In essense being related to Ahiara only cements the likelihood of Avuvu being of Isu in ancient times.

Uniportadmision:
Dear ChinenyeN, I always get excited whenever I see your mentions and enjoy your posts as they're well and intelligently put.

Uniportadmision:
For me, a language is most pure and unadulterated when it's close to its original source devoid of any foreign influence. Going down south or up north you'd begin to get variations in dialect because of other foreign influence on the language.

Uniportadmision:
Now one evidence provided by your friend on the other thread why an area should be considered as first area of language dispersal based on its immense dialect diversity, he referenced the development of the English language and other Germanic languages, citing an area around Germany with so much diversity in dialect resembling the old English, but he didn't put into consideration how dense in population those zones are.

ChinenyeN:

Truth be told, I miss having these types of discussions here on NL. So I find myself just as much excited to see that I have a new mention.

Now, there are two things I find myself compelled to push back against in your most recent post.


From the perspective of linguists, there is no such thing as a "pure" and "unadulterated" speech variant. All speech variants undergo innovation no matter how isolated or near to their original source you may find them. This is why linguists believe that all languages are really just dialects. The concept of a "pure" and "unadulterated" speech variant only exists when a society has introduced standardization. Without such standardization, you cannot claim a "pure" and "unadulterated" speech variant, linguistically speaking. And when you scrutinize it further, you come to realize that standardization is more so a sociological and political phenomenon and not a strictly linguistic phenomenon. This is why linguists typically do not describe language zones or languages as "original" or "pure". So this is not a metric we can use in our discussion.


On the contrary, AjaanaOka did in fact take into consideration population density. In the thread we are referencing, he rightly noted that most discussions on population density within Igboland are hyperfocused on the Northern Igbo Plateau and ignore the fact that other locations with comparable density exist outside of said Northern Igbo Plateau. This is one of the things (among many) that both AjaanaOka and I feel have been ignored by the Igbo academia, which in turn also is one of the the holes in the Hinterland Hypothesis that has not (and probably cannot) be filled. Hence why we suspect that the definitive answer to Igbo genesis may not reside in the northern-central areas (at least as far as historical linguistics is concerned).

Now that I've addressed those two things, I’ll be back to give my remarks to the rest of your posts.

AjaanaOka:
Interesting conversation here, ChinenyeN and Uniportadmision.

I came online to add a few speculations on the chronology of proto-Igboid movements to our old post and I saw I had been mentioned a couple of times here. Love the exchange.

Uniportadmision, I think you really underestimated the diversity of the English language in Britain (Southern Scotland and England). A lot of people often think there's just one British English accent. There are a lot, and they don't always understand each other. A few British dialects/accents that I struggled with while living in England were the Brummie accent spoken in Birmingham, the Scouse accent spoken around Liverpool, the Geordie accent spoken around Newcastle. I had three English flatmates and two of them admitted to me that they had difficulty understanding what the third one said - she was from Birmingham. Then we had this one lecturer from an area in northern England known as the Black Country, who spoke with the 'notorious' Black Country twang that a lot of us struggled with. Students used to complain very bitterly to other lecturers that they were always lost in his class.

There were still other dialects/accents I didn't get to witness firsthand, which native English-speakers in England told me were darn near incomprehensible to them: the Glaswegian accent spoken up in Glasgow, Scotland, for example. And the West Country accent down south. West Country accent is even more interesting because it still contains some old Germanic words and usages that have fallen into disuse in other dialects. (English is a Germanic language.)

One cannot really make a case for the English spoken in Nigeria being more diverse than the English spoken in Britain. I have never heard of two Nigerians speaking versions of English so different they had problems understanding each other.

I might need to be corrected in this next assertion I am going to make (since I have never lived in the U. S.), but I even doubt that the English spoken in America which is many, many times the size of Britain (both in terms of landmass and population) is more diverse than the dialects spoken in Britain.

AjaanaOka:
I came online to add a few speculations on the chronology of proto-Igboid movements to our old post and I saw I had been mentioned a couple of times here. Love the exchange.

Uniportadmision:
Talking about Igboid population distributions, are you telling me the southern areas can in anyway be compared to the central plateau? Even the zones with one of the highest population density like Etche claim to have possibly migrated from Isu or Central Igbo land.

ChinenyeN:

Yes, I am in fact saying exactly that. Obviously, I did not do the census recording and reporting. I am basing this response from the accounts of other researchers who likely have better access to population census records. We trust them to accurately report it in their research, until such a time as when we discover that they had not. So anyhow, let me continue.

Let us take the time to analyze the specifics that are used by the academia to push the narrative of the Northern Igbo Plateau being so supposedly unique. They are two specific items.

1. Autochthony.
2. Population density.

When it comes to the discussion of Igbo origins, the academia certainly treats the Northen Igbo Plateau as though it is the only area with autochthonous traditions, but that is far from the truth. Just as there is autochthony in the Northern Igbo Plateau, so also is there the Nfulala traditions of Ezinihitte and northern Ngwa. Likewise, we also have the in-situ traditions of the Akpor area in Ikwerre. I have not listed out everywhere, but already we have two communities in the southern Igbo-speaking region (outside of the Northern Igbo Plateau) with comparable autochthonous traditions.

Just as with autochthony, when it comes to population density in the discussion of Igbo origins, the Northern Igbo Plateau receives the sole emphasis, despite the fact that other area (such as the southern region) does compare to the northern Igbo Plateau. In fact, as a case in point, the population density of northern Ngwa has been reported as comparable to Owerri and the Orlu province.

Now, if we take the northern Ngwa and Ezinihitte area together, we see that this stretch of land is actually directly comparable to the Northern Igbo Plateau in both population density and traditions of autochthony; the two specific features that are used by the academia to center the Northern Igbo Plateau (and specifically Isu) within the discussion of Igbo origin.

Now, obviously, we can assume that Ezinihitte and Ngwa are not the genesis of Igbo origin. To begin with, these communities separate themselves strongly from Isu and claim no ancestral kinship nor ethnic allegiance with them (not including the modern Igbo identity that we all now have). However, the same rules used to uniquely set aside the Northern Igbo Plateau are completely ignored in the case of Ezinihitte and northern Ngwa. In fact, they are so very much ignored that the academia has successfully pushed the narrative of an Isuama origin for both Ezinihitte and northern Ngwa (communities that do not acknowledge kinship with Isu). As it turns out, the Isuama narrative has had an effect on the traditions of the Ngwa community, but Ezinihitte has remained largely resistant to the academia’s insistence on them being Isuama.

I cannot speak to the population density for Akpor, but even without population density, the existence of an autochthonous tradition which is corroborated in the traditions of the Ipu and Oza communities of Asa, should further cause one to question the extent to which the Isu can truly be credited with birthing Igbo communities. In fact a cursory analysis of southern Igbo oral traditions seems to show that the Isu are not progenitors of any of the known ethnic groups in the area. Rather, oral traditions shows the area to have been settled by these communities by the time the Isu pushed into the south.

Even Echie, contrary to your assessment is not Isu, though there are Isu settlements within their ethnic groups. Unless there is some additional/insightful information I am not aware of and as such are completely mistaken.

Anyhow, with all that having been said, you should be able to see that the Hinterland Homeland hypothesis requires further scrutiny. The entire southern belt was already peopled by non-Isu groups, so we can already discount the southern half of Igboland as having their origin from Isu. I am almost willing to bet we can also discount much of northern, eastern and western areas as also being Isu. Please don’t mistake my words. Isu are indeed a large ethnic block. Isu also indeed has a known and impactful expansion period. However, if we put the Hinterland Homeland hypothesis aside and examine the actual oral traditions of the communities in question, we don’t see much evidence that supports Isu as the homeland for many of these ethnic groups.

ChinenyeN:



I cannot speak to the population density for Akpor, but even without population density, the existence of an autochthonous tradition which is corroborated in the traditions of the Ipu and Oza communities of Asa, should further cause one to question the extent to which the Isu can truly be credited with birthing Igbo communities. In fact a cursory analysis of southern Igbo oral traditions seems to show that the Isu are not progenitors of any of the known ethnic groups in the area. Rather, oral traditions shows the area to have been settled by these communities by the time the Isu pushed into the south.

Uniportadmision:
[...] So I definitely don't think it went from south to north looking at the population logic. [...] In today's census are the Ekpeye up to a million? How many would they have been like a thousand years ago? [...]

Uniportadmision:
If we still insist on the theory that some part of Ekpeye might have been assimilated by the northern groups as opined by Ajaanaoka... (Don't know if I got the name right) , what about the other Rivers tribes like the Ogonis, Abuas etc smaller groups, with that logic their language and culture should have been annihilated (colonised) too, but I doubt if there are Igboid lexicals in their diction, maybe except for the Kalabari group that copied few words and structures because of inter marriage, at least they still maintained a huge part of their Ijoid structure.

Uniportadmision:
Dear ChinenyeN we have to be careful the way we believe some oral history, I mean, many of the stories are unrealistic and they can only remember as far back as they were told. Talking about autochthonous communities, you should know by now that the average Igbo man take pride in claiming independence and originality in what ever he does, he likes to be a pioneer(parent) rather than a copier(child).
I think many groups claiming autochthonomy do that out of pride and not necessarily oral traditions. Everyone definitely came from somewhere else before the present permanent location was established. No group fell from heaven like the Oduduwa story lol.

ChinenyeN:
So there is something that I have noticed that Igbo people do when we have discussions like this. Igbo people fall into a what I might call a pseudo-linguist trap. Everyone believes that their neck of the woods has some deep variant that will render them unintelligible to virtually everyone else or a deep variant that for one reason or another proves the originality or antiquity of their lect. This rhetoric has been used many times as metric to support one claim or another without any real justification. I too have been guilty of this in the past, but I am here to say now that sounding un-Igbo or being unintelligible to most Igbo is not a substantial or even valid metric, particularly in this discussion. Case in point, Ekpeye vs Isu vs Izii lects.

Both Ekpeye and Izii are practically unintelligible to Isu speakers. Both Ekpeye and Izii might sound un-Igbo compared to Isu. If this simple (and subjective) metric of “how it sounds” were all that there was to it, then we would simply say that the three are different languages. However, we know it is not as cut and dry as that. It is for this reason we have an entire field of linguistics with analytical tools such as glottochronology, lexico-statistics, etc. With tools such as this, we analyze and arrive at more reproducible claims (in the academia, reproducibility is the holy grail).

With this said, it has been shown, to the satisfaction of the academia, that Ekpeye is likely the oldest surviving Igboid branch. On the basis of this alone, Isu is disqualified as the linguistic genesis of the Igbo-speaking region. Linguistically speaking, with Ekpeye being older, it is clear that on the basis of historical linguistics, if we want to determine the genesis of the Igboid language family, we need to better analyze the movement of Ekpeye and not Isu.

Now, let us move away from linguistics and examine oral tradition. As far as oral tradition goes, we are aware that the Izii area is one of the more recently populated zones (unless I am mistaken; someone correct me if I am wrong). So this is established. Relatively speaking the Izii communities are young. Now, let us go back to linguistics. Despite the fact that Izii is unintelligible to Isu, lexical analysis has revealed that Izii’s cognate scores are much higher with Isu and Owerri than with Ekpeye. I will have to go back and find the exact number from one of Kay Williamson’s analyses, but I believe it either came close to or exceeded 80%. Now let us follow this line of thought. With such high cognate scores, we know that the linguistic branching between Izii and Isu is recent. Very recent, if I might say. Now if the branching is recent, and if Izii is young as a community, then it suggests that the lexical innovations that characterize the Isu lect may also be relatively recent. Not all as recent as Izii, but still relatively recent. Can we be certain of this? In fact, yes, we can be near certain of it. With Ekpeye having been established as being from the oldest surviving branch, and with Isu having such low lexical similarity with Ekpeye within the Igbo-speaking region (I will double-check this and correct it if necessary), we can almost certainly say that the Isu lect is from a more modern language branch.

Do we follow? Essentially, the fact that Isu shares almost 80% lexical similarity with a linguistic branch that is known to be young (Izii) and far less lexical similarity with a linguistic branch that is accepted to be old (Ekpeye), we know that the Isu branch is itself should also be relatively young. When I say relatively, I mean in the span of time that we are looking at for the existence of Igboid lects. Essentially, 5000 - 3000 BCE to present day (within approximately 7,000 years as is currently accepted by the academia).

On the virtue of this alone, at least when it comes to studying the Igbo language family, the Hinterland Homeland hypothesis that centers on Isu is not a viable candidate for assessing Igbo linguistic genesis in the area. As we can see, this is more than just an assumption on how language spread and dialects emerged. We are looking at the results of reproducible studies and analysis on surviving Igboid lects.

Notice that without having to bring up the argument of high lectal diversity within the Ikwerre area, we have already disqualified Isu as a candidate, in favor of Ekpeye. By extension, we have show the entire Northern Igbo Plateau to just as likely be unviable as a candidate when discussing (at least) the linguistic genesis for branching within the Igbo-speaking region. The Igbo academia should begin revising its school of thought on Igbo language origins at least.

ChinenyeN:

Before I go further, I'd like to ask if you can point me to the section of the discussion that prompted your statement in bold. I want to respond to it by stating that (if memory serves), this is not the point that AjaanaOka was making at the time. But I would like to be sure what I am responding to and be sure that my memory serves me well before I fully respond.

ChinenyeN:

You will have to forgive me if this sounds sarcastic, but does this quote here also apply when speaking about the hinterland or the Northern Igbo Plateau? I am only quoting a section of this post, but taking the entirety of the post into consideration of this context of our discussion so far, it seems as though we are now pushing a strange rhetoric. You seem to have had no qualms supporting the basic foundations of the Hinterland Homeland hypothesis or the Northern Igbo Plateau theory, but now that we are facing similar for regions in the southern Igbo-speaking area, we should be careful how we believe some oral traditions. So, it's okay for Isu & Co. to be taken seriously, but it isn't okay for other groups who actually think of Isu as strangers?