₦airaland Forum

I’ve made similar threads re. Delta-Igbos but let’s talk about ndu-Ikwerre (language-enthusiasts, you’re ’specially invited). How divergent is Ikwerre from central/Owere (Owerri) Igbo and how divergent do the sub-dialects of Ikwerre diverge? Is any of it equally divergent (or more than) the Izi-Ezza-Mgbo-Ikwo cluster (Ebonyi State)?

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Can you not?

cc. RedboneSmith, ChinenyeN (or however your moniker’s spelt), etc.

Probz:
ChinenyeN (or however your moniker’s spelt)

This is rude...

Brief aside: I do hope you were not trying to be rude, Probz, because I have to agree with RedboneSmith that this does seem rude. Especially considering that you and I have interacted and discussed several times over here on NL, over these many years.

That brief aside now concluded, on to the main topic.

There are different ways to assess divergence in linguistics, but for the sake of simplicity here on NL, we will go with the ones most readers can easily wrap their minds around. Lexical and phonological.

Lexical divergence can be thought of simply as speech communities using different words to explain the same item/concept. For instance, "seat/chair" is called "oche" in some dialects, while it is called "agada" in others.

Phonological divergence is essentially speech communities using the same word, but with different pronunciation. For example, "agada" has "ngada" and "agida" as phonological variants across several dialects.

In my opinion, Ikwerre is not that divergent lexically. The core set of terminologies are still largely the same, though every other word might have a "deeper" dialect variant. In other words, Ikwerre's lexical divergence relative to Standard Igbo (Izugbe, not "Central Igbo" ) should be just about the same as it is most other Igbo speech forms, with the exception of Ekpeye.

However, when it comes to phonological divergence, I am of the personal opinion that no other speech community in the Igbo ethnolinguistic region matches the Ikwerre.

For context, Ikwerre canonically consists of seven groups, manifesting 24 dialects, according to some Ikwerre linguists, such as R.I.C. Alerechi (2007). Alerechi is a prominent linguist and an Ikwerre native. According to data collected and analyzed by her and her team, she arrived at a 24 dialects. She names the 24 dialects after certain villages that were considered "characteristic" of the dialect features.

The dialects can be further grouped into three possible dichotomies.

- East / West
- East / West / Exteme North
- East-Central / West-Central / North / South

According to Alerechi, depending on which linguistic features you attempt to prioritize when analying the 24 dialects, you can supposedly come up with one of the above three "dialect distributions" for Ikwerre. The reason for these three different distributions is because there is actually a great deal of phonological variation within the Ikwerre speech community. Take the word for "person" for instance.

Let us start from the southern parts of Ikwerre. Two prominent usages appear here for "person", being "badnu" (Obio, Ogbakiri, Akpo, etc) and "vadnu" (Rumuekpne, Odeegnu, Ndele, etc). As we go to the north the phonology changes notably. Towards the northeast areas, we encounter variations of "gbadnu", "gbadni" or "gbani" (Eleele, Omudiogna, Ubimini, etc). And finally, within the north/northwest/central parts of Ikwerre, the phonology changes yet again and we encounter "madnu" (Aluu, Isiokpo, Omerelu, Omuanwa, etc).

If we just plainly list out the variants, we can easily see how divergent the phonologies can be: madnu, vadnu, badnu, gbadnu, gbadni, gbani.

This phenomenon of phonological divegence is characteristic of a great deal of terminology within the Ikwerre dialect region, and there is a historical reason for this. Unlike what we know today, Ikwerre was never a singular people. The "seven groups" I mentioned earlier were the equivalent of "seven Igbo clans" in the sense that they were highly independent and maintained separate traditions of migratory origin (sometimes even within the same group). Prior to the 1900s, there was no Ikwerre people and the "seven clans" were each their own ethnic and speech community.

All the clans are hetergenous, though some may be notably more heterogenous than others. This includes significant presence and influence of Central and Eastern Delta groups such as Abua, Kalabari, Eleme, etc. which has contributed to the divergent phonology within the Ikwerre speech community.

I will pause here and continue in a different post to avoid being flagged by the spam bot.

ChinenyeN:
Brief aside: I do hope you were not trying to be rude, Probz, because I have to agree with RedboneSmith that this does seem rude. Especially considering that you and I have interacted and discussed several times over here on NL, over these many years.

That brief aside now concluded, on to the main topic.

There are different ways to assess divergence in linguistics, but for the sake of simplicity here on NL, we will go with the ones most readers can easily wrap their minds around. Lexical and phonological.

Lexical divergence can be thought of simply as speech communities using different words to explain the same item/concept. For instance, "seat/chair" is called "oche" in some dialects, while it is called "agada" in others.

Phonological divergence is essentially speech communities using the same word, but with different pronunciation. For example, "agada" has "ngada" and "agida" as phonological variants across several dialects.

In my opinion, Ikwerre is not that divergent lexically. The core set of terminologies are still largely the same, though every other word might have a "deeper" dialect variant. In other words, Ikwerre's lexical divergence relative to Standard Igbo (Izugbe, not "Central Igbo" ) should be just about the same as it is most other Igbo speech forms, with the exception of Ekpeye.

However, when it comes to phonological divergence, I am of the personal opinion that no other speech community in the Igbo ethnolinguistic region matches the Ikwerre.

For context, Ikwerre canonically consists of seven groups, manifesting 24 dialects, according to some Ikwerre linguists, such as R.I.C. Alerechi (2007). Alerechi is a prominent linguist and an Ikwerre native. According to data collected and analyzed by her and her team, she arrived at a 24 dialects. She names the 24 dialects after certain villages that were considered "characteristic" of the dialect features.

The dialects can be further grouped into three possible dichotomies.

- East / West
- East / West / Exteme North
- East-Central / West-Central / North / South

According to Alerechi, depending on which linguistic features you attempt to prioritize when analying the 24 dialects, you can supposedly come up with one of the above three "dialect distributions" for Ikwerre. The reason for these three different distributions is because there is actually a great deal of phonological variation within the Ikwerre speech community. Take the word for "person" for instance.

Let us start from the southern parts of Ikwerre. Two prominent usages appear here for "person", being "badnu" (Obio, Ogbakiri, Akpo, etc) and "vadnu" (Rumuekpne, Odeegnu, Ndele, etc). As we go to the north the phonology changes notably. Towards the northeast areas, we encounter variations of "gbadnu", "gbadni" or "gbani" (Eleele, Omudiogna, Ubimini, etc). And finally, within the north/northwest/central parts of Ikwerre, the phonology changes yet again and we encounter "madnu" (Aluu, Isiokpo, Omerelu, Omuanwa, etc).

If we just plainly list out the variants, we can easily see how divergent the phonologies can be: madnu, vadnu, badnu, gbadnu, gbadni, gbani.

This phenomenon of phonological divegence is characteristic of a great deal of terminology within the Ikwerre dialect region, and there is a historical reason for this. Unlike what we know today, Ikwerre was never a singular people. The "seven groups" I mentioned earlier were the equivalent of "seven Igbo clans" in the sense that they were highly independent and maintained separate traditions of migratory origin (sometimes even within the same group). Prior to the 1900s, there was no Ikwerre people and the "seven clans" were each their own ethnic and speech community.

All the clans are hetergenous, though some may be notably more heterogenous than others. This includes significant presence and influence of Central and Eastern Delta groups such as Abua, Kalabari, Eleme, etc. which has contributed to the divergent phonology within the Ikwerre speech community.

I will pause here and continue in a different post to avoid being flagged by the spam bot.

I wasn’t trying to be rude at all, Chinenye. That’s my apologies. Wrong choice of wording. It sounded more abrupt than how I meant it and I realised as soon as I finished the post but ultimately I was hanging on for you to tell me that yourself. Redbone jumped in not to contribute but to, to point that out on your behalf and I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t cool with that. Now we’ve squared in on it between ourselves, hopefully we can just move on.

Ikwerre's phonological divergence is more notable when you cross-examine it externally (comparing to other Igbo speech communities) and internally (comapring Ikwerre-speaking communities with each other). Let us take a look at some examples, comparing Ikwerre with Izugbe. Out of the 24 Ikwerre dialects per research done by Roeline Alerechi, I will be using a generalization of the dialects within the southern Ikwerre axis.

The following breaks down a couple of basic/common statements into parts of speech to help make the comparisons.

"O ga-eri nri"
SUBJ   AUXL   PREP   INFT   CONJ    VERB   CMPL
o      ga                   e-      -ri    nri   Izugbe
o      ze            e-             -ri    wiri  Southern Ikwerre

Comparing Southern Ikwerre with Izugbe, we see some morphological changes. Ikwerre uses the infinitive, while Izugbe uses the conjugation. Additionally, as I mentioned earlier, the lexical divergence here is rather low. The roots -ri (eat) and the nominal wiri (food) are rather easy to identify as cognates of their Izugbe counterparts. You may be tempted to pause and wonder about the "ga" vs "ze" auxiliaries, but recall that the future auxiliary practically has no standard in Igbo. The future auxiliary marker is almost as varied as there are dialects in Igbo (i.e. "ya" in Alayi, "da" and "jne" in Ngwa, "aba" in Ukwuani, "me" in Ogba, etc). So in this regard, Ikwerre is no different from every other Igbo speech community.

Summary: At the basic level, Ikwerre is lexically not divergent in any notable sense.

"I na-ahu m"
SUBJ   AUXL   PREP   INFT   CONJ    VERB   CMPL
i      na                   e-      -hu    m     Izugbe
i      nu            o-             -whnu  m     Southern Ikwerre

Again, the same thing. Slight morphological change, but otherwise the lexical divergence is really low.

But here we begin to see the phonological divergence peeking out. How so? Examine the infinitives. Unlike most other Igbo speech forms that primarily only have one infinitive, being "i/ị-", Ikwerre has three. On top of the +/-ATR influence, the phonology of the infinitive is influenced by backness, so depending on the verb root, you can year any of the following as infinitives, "o/ọ-", "a/e-", and "ẹ-".

"to eat"  |  "to kill"  |  "to dance" |  "to see"   
INFT STEM |  INFT STEM  |  INFT STEM  |  INFT STEM
i-   -ri  |  i-   -gbu  |  ị-   -gba  |  ị-   -hụ     Izugbe
e-   -ri  |  o-   -gbu  |  a-   -gba  |  ọ-   -whnụ   Southern Ikwerre

I am almost 100% certain this is a unique feature of Ikwerre that displays notable divergence from other Igbo speech forms, particularly in the southern Ikwerre axis. Also bear in mind that the phonological tone structure for the infinitive is different. The infinitive marker starts with a low tone. The stem usually a rise (for low tone roots) and high (for high tone roots). Compared to the high-step tonal structure for the "i/ị-" infinitive structure in most other Igbo speech forms, this is a notable divergence.

I'll pause here to try to keep the posts short and out of the greedy hands of the spam bot.

Probz:
I wasn’t trying to be rude at all, Chinenye. That’s my apologies. Wrong choice of wording. It sounded more abrupt than how I meant it and I realised as soon as I finished the post but ultimately I was hanging on for you to tell me that yourself. Redbone jumped in not to contribute but to, to point that out on your behalf and I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t cool with that. Now we’ve squared in on it between ourselves, hopefully we can just move on.

No worries. I just wanted clarify. I am nothing if not understanding, and I have no problem moving on from this.

Ikwerre is definitely its own thing compared to Owerri Igbo, especially when you get into the way words are pronounced and some of the vocab—it’s similar enough that someone fluent in Central Igbo can usually make sense of it, but it’s not a breeze. The sub-dialects in Ikwerre can get pretty different from each other too, depending on the area, and you’ll notice influences from neighboring groups like the Kalabari in some places. I’d say it feels just as divergent as the Izi-Ezza-Mgbo-Ikwo group in Ebonyi, if not more, depending on which Ikwerre sub-dialect you’re dealing with.

Do you reckon it’s apt to consider Ikwerre to Igbo what Itsekiri is to Yoruba, Chinenye?

Redbone, it would be nice to get some input from you, too, but if the sum-total of your contribution to this thread is to point out that I was lairy with Chinenye (which, to be fair, I was, however unintentionally), that’s cool, too.

Out of interest, ChinenyeN, what do you make of the ‘Izzioi’ cluster? Mostly just pronunciations that throw them off the more conventional map? Because from where many are sitting it’s almost like a different language entirely. Ikwerre, at first glance, seems almost like a branch of Owere-like Igbo that just happens to have increasingly complex variations. Northern Ebonyi/Abakaliki-oid Benue doesn’t really sound like Igbo at all. I’ll speak for Izzi more specifically since I don’t know enough about Ezza, Mgbo and Ikwo, to be honest.

I am not deeply familiar with the linguistic relationship between Itsekiri and Yoruba. From what I gather, the general consensus seems to be that Itsekiri is a Yoruboid language, thereby making Itsekiri and "Yoruba" as a whole sibling branches.

I do not believe that is the case with Ikwerre, despite how the academia is approaching it, and my reasoning is simple. If you analyze Ikwerre morphology within the context of other southern-most Igbo-speaking communities, you will see evidence of a dialect continuum, and you will see that Ikwerre is 100% a member of this continuum. Both lexically and morphologically, I do not believe Ikwerre has deviated significantly enough that it is no longer a direct member of this continuum.

Let us look at Ogba and my dialect of Ngwa for instance. I choose Ogba and Ngwa, because they are on the complete opposite ends of the southern-most Igbo-speaking axis, and so one might expect the two to be wholly dissimilar linguistically, but that is not the case.

m dii m la inu whne i di la ika (Ngwa)
a diwo m inu hne i di ikwu (Ogba)

Most communities speak somewhat like this, within the stretch of land between Ogba and Ngwa. So we have established a sort of baseline. Now let us look compare southern Ikwerre with the the above two statements. I chose a generalization of southern Ikwerre as it sits roughly halfway between Ogbaland and Ngwaland.

m zee m nu onu nhne i nu oka (Ikwerre)
m dii m la inu whne i di la ika (Ngwa)
a diwo m inu hne i di ikwu (Ogba)

A quick examination of the above statements shows features that help us identify that Ikwerre is wholly a member of this dialect strain and that this strain indicates a dialect continuum.

1. Consistent use of the infinitive. Both Ogba and Ngwa (and practically all speech communities in this axis) use the infinitive in this form. Ikwerre just has different infinitives depending on the verb root.

2. Notice the blend of morphological features that southern Ikwerre has, some parts of it are akin to my dialect of Ngwa and some parts of it are akin to Ogba. The only distinction being again the phonetic shift and also the development of a different auxiliary "nu" that seems very akin to Oratta's "na".

There just is not enough for me to consider Ikwerre a separate Igboid branch.

Izii's case is similar to Ikwerre, except that on top of the phonological shift (which is more intense), it has strong morphological divergence as well. Lexically however, Izii is almost no different from an Oratta/Isu-type dialect. It is almost ironic how high the cognate relationship is between Izii and the Oratta/Isu complex, because they sound nothing alike in actual speech. This is what makes Izii's case different from Ikwerre.

That said, the end result of Ikwerre and Izii's divergence is relatively similar. If you are not from the southern-most stretch of Igbo-speaking communities or you are unfamiliar with some of the language features of this region, encountering Ikwerre language in some random place may initially shock you, but you'll get it. However, if you encounter Izii in some random place, and you are not from the Izii-Ikwo-Mgbo-Ezaa axis and not familiar with that speech pattern, you simply will not recognize it.

Let me pause here for the time being.

Now, I only have cursory knowledge of Izii. I cannot claim to really understand it enough to speak it, but based off the much that I do understand, I believe I can piece together the syntax for this upcoming example.

In my last post, I was explaining how I do not believe Ikwerre is significantly deviated, and I gave the example of "m zee m nu onu nhne i nu oka". Let us look at what that might be when juxtaposing it with Izugbe and Izii. Again, this is based on my limited understanding of Izii grammer. An Izii speaker (or anyone from that axis with more familiarity) should feel free to correct me.

a naghi m anu ihe i na ekwu (Izugbe)
m zee m nu onu nhne i nu okaa (Ikwerre)
mu ta a nu iphe i i pfu (Izii)

Izii has some notable morphological differences here that make it significantly stand out.

1. It's standard negation "te" which takes different forms depending on the verb root and the particular aspect of negation being done.

2. Where Izugbe (as a proxy for most dialects) and Ikwerre utilize a definitive auxiliary (na or nu), Izii makes use of a clitic marker to indicate present progressive. In this case it is the second "i" in "i i kwu". Drastic morphological changes also come with drastic changes in tone structure. See the tone structures below.

a naghi m anu ihe i na ekwu (Izugbe)
L H L   L LH  HH  H L  LH

m zee m nu onu nhne i nu okaa (Ikwerre)
L H L L L  LH  H    H L  LL H

mu ta a nu iphe i i pfu (Izii)
L  H  L H  HH   H L H

I lined the tone markers up per the syllable so hopefully the relationship between the tone and its location in the statement is clear.

Izii shows significant deviation. It is perhaps clearer to see a straight comparison of negation.

o naghi eri (Izugbe)
o to o ri (Izii)

i naghi ekwu (Izugbe)
i ti i pfu (Izii)

o naghi anu (Izugbe)
o to o nu (Izii)

Similar to Ikwerre in which the infitinitive is retroactively impacted by the verb root's +/-ATR value, so also is the negation for Izii. In other words, the vowels harmonize with the verb root throughout the negation clause.

Personally, I feel Izii has a significantly stronger claim to "Igboid" than Ikwerre does. It is true that Ikwerre notably diverges from general Igbo. So if you compare it to the modern idea of what it means to "speak Igbo", then you can easily claim it is Igboid. However, when put Ikwerre in the context of its southern-Igbo peers, it is without a doubt still part of the dialect continuum.

As far as where the rest of the Izii-Ezaa-Ikwo-Mgbo cluster sits, I cannot say. I get the sense that Izii is the most divergent with its morphology and phonology, while its Ezaa, Ikwo, and Mgbo neighbors are much closer to being and sounding "Igbo". One good resource to go to would be Ezza TV https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLJOHiiv9klNH4tcYIGmUHg. They try to do a good job maintaining the language and so you will get to hear it as it is spoken by the natives. You may not fully understand it, but you can at least make out the parts where it shifts in and out of "sounding Igbo".

I do not have a resource for Ikwo and Mgbo.

ChinenyeN:
This phenomenon of phonological divegence is characteristic of a great deal of terminology within the Ikwerre dialect region, and there is a historical reason for this. Unlike what we know today, Ikwerre was never a singular people. The "seven groups" I mentioned earlier were the equivalent of "seven Igbo clans" in the sense that they were highly independent and maintained separate traditions of migratory origin (sometimes even within the same group). Prior to the 1900s, there was no Ikwerre people and the "seven clans" were each their own ethnic and speech community.

How identifiable are these seven clans today? What are their clan names? I imagine that their stories of origin will differ from one group to the other. What do we know about their individual traditions of migration (or even autochthony)?

I know this thread is largely linguistic, so pardon me for asking historical questions.

RedboneSmith:
How identifiable are these seven clans today? What are their clan names? I imagine that their stories of origin will differ from one group to the other. What do we know about their individual traditions of migration (or even autochthony)?

I know this thread is largely linguistic, so pardon me for asking historical questions.

No worries. Historical questions are good too. It adds context to a rather nuanced discussion.

The seven clans are very identifiable. Ikwerre people today commonly refer to themselves as "Ikwerre Asaa" in reference to this. Notwithstanding recent reauthorizations of oral traditions, they are fully aware of their clanhood, clan names and traditions of origin. I will list them off in no particular order. Someone from Ikwerre should feel free to correct me where I may be wrong or offer additional insight on any of the below.

Elele. When we think of Ikwerre's most prominent tradition of origin (Ochichi by way of Etche), this is the clan where that tradition stems from primarily. This clan dominates much of northern Ikwerre to the point where they are practically synonymous.

Odeegnu. You may see this in older colonial and post-colonial documents as Rumuji. This is the western part of southern Ikwerre. It includes Ndele, Umuekpe (now commonly referred to as Rumuekpne), Ibaa/Obele, etc. When we think of the Akalaka tradition or origin by way of Ekpeye, this is the clan where it primarily stems from.

Isiokpo. You will see this referred to as Nkarahia in older colonial/post-colonial documentation. This includes communities such as Ipo, Omadeeme, Agwa, etc. Basically, eastern Ikwerre. I think there is some cross migration between Isiokpo and Odeegnu mentioned earlier. So some traditions of origin mix between them. This clan also has villages with non-Elele and non-Odeegnu traditions of origin. Most prominently are Aro, Etche, etc.

Emowha. This is the most heterogenous clan. Here you will see the mix of Central Delta (Abua, etc), Ogba, and others from internal cross-migrations from other Ikwerre-speaking communities.

Aluu and Igwuruta. You may see this referred to in older colonial documents as Allua and Igrita. There is cross-migration between this clan and Isiokpo, and also Akpo (mentioned later), I believe. So there is also a mix of traditions of origin here. Geographically, they are between southern Ikwerre and eastern Ikwerre. You can consider them south/south-east Ikwerre.

Obio. You will see this noted as Obia in older colonial/post-colonial documents. This is basically the core community within Port Harcourt and environs. The traditions of origin for this group suggests a similar acknowledgement of Ochichi, but with an Ngwa affiliation. Geographically, they are the southern-most Ikwerre clan.

Akpo. In older colonial text, you may see them listed as Isoba (now commonly referred to as Choba). Choba is one of the 10 villages that constitues Akpo. This community claims autochothony. I am not certain if it originally applied to all 10 communities. Perhaps not, but as time has passed, so has the oral tradition become more generalized to the point you can generally say Akpo is autochothonous. They are southern Ikwerre as well.

Thanks for the insight, Chinenye.

Probz:
Thanks for the insight, Chinenye.

Sir.
I don't even know how to thank you enough!