ChinenyeN:
AjaanaOka!! As my people say, anya arno (longest time)!

I dey oh. I peep in from time to time to see if there's anything interesting happening in the culture section.

Biara biekpere, add them at your earliest convenience.

I'm dragging my feet a little about making the additions. I want to be sure I understand the materials on which I am basing my speculative chronology.

I've been reading the works of Nigerian paleobotanist M Adebisi Sowunmi, and I believe they will be of some importance in sketching the chronology of the diffusion of the Igbo language.

I have been following this thread for some years now.God bless the op and every positive contributor

Uniportadmision, forgive my extremely late response. My work can sometimes get intense and I’ll end up with long, busy hours for an extended periods.

Anyhow, I just want to touch on the Ekpeye part as briefly and concisely as I can.

So Ekpeye migrated into the modern Igbo-speaking area in recent memory. I believe perhaps 15th/16th century, but someone correct me if I’m mistaken. So we are not judging the linguistic antiquity based on their settlement in the region because we know their settlement is recent, relative to surviving Tier 1 communities in the Igbo-speaking region. However, in the grander scheme of things, this is ultimately inconsequential, because this is not about Ekpeye itself, but rather about the linguistic branch that it belongs to as a speech community. This is where the heart of the discussion lies.

Now what makes their recent movement interesting is the existence of linguistic continuity between surviving Tier 1 communities in the southern belt and Ekpeye.

Now, knowing that Ekpeye migrated into the area in recent memory, they cannot possibly be responsible for the population and language in the area. In other words, we know that they are not the source of this continuity between themselves and the southern belt, but the fact that there exists a continuity suggests that the entire southern and Ekpeye share a linguistic branching in antiquity. For the sake of brevity, we will call this Ekpeyoid (as in a linguistic branching initially related to same Igboid branching that modern Ekpeye descended from).

This provides us with two key points of speculation.

1. We have evidence of historical linguistic antiquity within the southern belt as its linguistic features share continuity with Ekpeye more so than the linguistic features of central or northern Igbo-speaking regions.

2. The fact that this entire southern belt region can be identified in this way suggests that a single major branching took hold of this entire region. How do we know this? We know this based on the understanding that multiple branches in antiquity would mean that we should see other older Igboid branches that are non-Ekpeyoid. But we don’t see that.

These two key points together suggest a single point of entry into the modern Igbo-speaking region.

In other words, the hypothesis suggests that based off what we currently know, it seems likely that only one major Igboid branch survived in the modern Igbo-speaking region, and that Igboid branch might initially have been Ekpeyoid in antiquity and more recent innovation birthed the surviving Igbo speech communities as branching and innovation continued northwards.

Now, bear in mind, we aren’t providing this hypothesis as infallible, and this isn’t about the origin of the people. This is primarily about understanding the movement of the Igbo language family.

So this is what makes Ekpeye relevant or almost central to the hypothesis. It isn’t the antiquity of settlement, but rather the antiquity of its lect based on historical linguistics.

AjaanaOka:
I'm dragging my feet a little about making the additions. I want to be sure I understand the materials on which I am basing my speculative chronology.

I've been reading the works of Nigerian paleobotanist M Adebisi Sowunmi, and I believe they will be of some importance in sketching the chronology of the diffusion of the Igbo language.

No worries. I would even prefer when you take your time and share when you are comfortable, because then you and I can take the time to digest and analyze and perhaps even go for days on end really discussing it.

ChinenyeN:
Uniportadmision, forgive my extremely late response. My work can sometimes get intense and I’ll end up with long, busy hours for an extended periods.

Anyhow, I just want to touch on the Ekpeye part as briefly and concisely as I can.

So Ekpeye migrated into the modern Igbo-speaking area in recent memory. I believe perhaps 15th/16th century, but someone correct me if I’m mistaken. So we are not judging the linguistic antiquity based on their settlement in the region because we know their settlement is recent, relative to surviving Tier 1 communities in the Igbo-speaking region. However, in the grander scheme of things, this is ultimately inconsequential, because this is not about Ekpeye itself, but rather about the linguistic branch that it belongs to as a speech community. This is where the heart of the discussion lies.

Now what makes their recent movement interesting is the existence of linguistic continuity between surviving Tier 1 communities in the southern belt and Ekpeye.

Now, knowing that Ekpeye migrated into the area in recent memory, they cannot possibly be responsible for the population and language in the area. In other words, we know that they are not the source of this continuity between themselves and the southern belt, but the fact that there exists a continuity suggests that the entire southern and Ekpeye share a linguistic branching in antiquity. For the sake of brevity, we will call this Ekpeyoid (as in a linguistic branching initially related to same Igboid branching that modern Ekpeye descended from).

This provides us with two key points of speculation.

1. We have evidence of historical linguistic antiquity within the southern belt as its linguistic features share continuity with Ekpeye more so than the linguistic features of central or northern Igbo-speaking regions.

2. The fact that this entire southern belt region can be identified in this way suggests that a single major branching took hold of this entire region. How do we know this? We know this based on the understanding that multiple branches in antiquity would mean that we should see other older Igboid branches that are non-Ekpeyoid. But we don’t see that.

These two key points together suggest a single point of entry into the modern Igbo-speaking region.

In other words, the hypothesis suggests that based off what we currently know, it seems likely that only one major Igboid branch survived in the modern Igbo-speaking region, and that Igboid branch might initially have been Ekpeyoid in antiquity and more recent innovation birthed the surviving Igbo speech communities as branching and innovation continued northwards.

Now, bear in mind, we aren’t providing this hypothesis as infallible, and this isn’t about the origin of the people. This is primarily about understanding the movement of the Igbo language family.

So this is what makes Ekpeye relevant or almost central to the hypothesis. It isn’t the antiquity of settlement, but rather the antiquity of its lect based on historical linguistics.

Dear ChinenyeN I'm happy and as excited as ever to read on your new post, unfortunately I've not had the free time to comment on the above points. I will make out time to reply this because I see a lot of points ripe for a debate, a lot of hypothetical questions etc. See you soon bro.