On /f/ and /I/, i've listened to people from item and Ohafia speak. Their /Ife/ doesn't come out as ife as used in Nri-Awka speech. It comes out as /Ife ohn/ not ife just like you rightly stated.

Daalu rinne, Odumchi. That was really helpful. The 'ihe' anomaly you mentioned, now that's really interesting.

I didn't know there was an Isu community on that eastern frontier. Those guys were just busy traipsing all over the Igbo space! Their migrations must constitute one of the most important themes in Igbo history, if not the most important. Pity there's very little known about that.

Biko, I have a few more questions (for you or anyone who has answers).

I was going through the Comparative Igboid paper, trying to find other variants and the proto-Igboid approximation of 'efo', as in 'chi efoola' or 'ofoola gi na n'anya'. I couldn't find it. So I want to ask: Does 'efo' ever vary as 'ewo'?

Also is 'Dee' strictly a honorific? Can it be just a greeting; like, can one say 'Papa Emeka, dee!' [I noticed you wrote 'Dee, Radoillo', and not 'Dee Radoillo'.]

You've also used the greeting 'nnawo' a couple of times on this forum. Can it be broken into meaningful parts? I'm especially interested in the possible meaning of the '-wo' part.

Ama m na ajuju akalia, mana biko, nweelu m ndidi.

Radoillo:
Daalu rinne, Odumchi. That was really helpful. The 'ihe' anomaly you mentioned, now that's really interesting.

I didn't know there was an Isu community on that eastern frontier. Those guys were just busy traipsing all over the Igbo space! Their migrations must constitute one of the most important themes in Igbo history, if not the most important. Pity there's very little known about that.

Biko, I have a few more questions (for you or anyone who has answers).

I was going through the Comparative Igboid paper, trying to find other variants and the proto-Igboid approximation of 'efo', as in 'chi efoola' or 'ofoola gi na n'anya'. I couldn't find it. So I want to ask: Does 'efo' ever vary as 'ewo'?

Also is 'Dee' strictly a honorific? Can it be just a greeting; like, can one say 'Papa Emeka, dee!' [I noticed you wrote 'Dee, Radoillo', and not 'Dee Radoillo'.]

You've also used the greeting 'nnawo' a couple of times on this forum. Can it be broken into meaningful parts? I'm especially interested in the possible meaning of the '-wo' part.

Ama m na ajuju akalia, mana biko, nweelu m ndidi.

Haha monwo azi ka na-ato na ana ajusa maka ogo e ka I na-ario? Nmekpazi anoo! Juje, nnaa. Nke kwere m, mu asaa.

I don't think 'ewo' exists in our area (Abiriba-Ohafia-Aro axis). If such a thing did exist, it would most likely be found in the Ehugbo (Afikpo) axis. There, they tend to use the 'wh' sound where other dialects would traditionally use 'f' or 'v' and say things like 'awho' (stomach), 'o la whu m uwhu' (It hurts), 'o whuowo' (it has vanished), and etc.

Dee is solely reserved as a term of deference in our area. It's not a greeting lol.

Nnaawo means good morning lol. I can't think of it having any meaning when decomposed into nnaa + wo. However, in much of the Cross River and Old Bende Zone, the suffix 'wo' is added to words to further stress their meaning. Take for example:

English: "Could you help me with this, pleeeeeease?!"
Aro: "Yere nni m aka wooo!"

Nigerian Pidgin: "Abeg, leave me, jor!"
Aro: "Hapulegwo m woo!"

English: "You've grown sooo much!"
Aro: "I toola wooo!"

And the Isu were reaaaal umu nkpi, dropping their seed everywhere they went.

Nna eh,who are these Isu people you guys keep talking about? I know Isuikwuato,Isuochi,Isu Njaba etc,how do i identify the rest?
The ewo in awho also exist in bende groups of Abia state.

Daalu, again, Odumchi.

I think maybe I should lay out my reasons for asking about 'dee' and 'daa', and whether 'efo' could vary as 'ewo', and see what you guys think.

While, dee and daa are largely (if not entirely) absent in the north as honorifics/titles, it would appear to me that they are present there in some form, as part of greetings. It is quite possible that etymologically, this northern dee/daa is related to the southern dee/daa, and that the differences observed today are a matter of semantic shifts.

In the Udi area of Enugu State [the people belong to the Agbaja sub-ethnicity], one observes the following dee/daa greetings:

1. Deeje - greeting to people setting out on a journey.
2. Daaru - greeting to people at work.
3. Daazu - greeting to people at a marketplace, buying and selling.

I was told by an indigene of those parts that in pre-modern times, there were more dee/daa greetings which have fallen into disuse. She specifically mentioned deeshi (greeting to someone cooking). These greetings can also vary as Ndeeje, Ndaazu, etc.

These greetings are quite easily resolved into two components: the dee/daa part and a verb part:

Dee + Eje (going) = Deeje. (Through the phenomenon of vowel elision, Daa + Eje, will also yield Deeje).

Dee/Daa + aru (working) = Daaru, and so on.

Anambra also has at least two greetings of this pattern:

Daalu (Daa/Dee + alu [working]) and Deeme (Daa/Dee + eme [doing]), both of which can translate as 'Good job/well done'.

All these bring me to my main speculation, and the reason for the questions: The etymology of the now generally adopted greeting Ndeewo.

If we make the assumption that it follows the pattern of the other dee/daa greetings, then it too could be resolved into:

Ndee/Ndaa (variants of dee/daa) and ewo. What verb, then, is 'ewo'? Every time I think about it, the only conclusion I come to is that 'ewo' is the archaic form of 'efo' ( the verb that means the breaking of day in the phrase 'chi efoo'). Sadly, the Roger Blench pdf has no entry for this 'efo', so we have no professional opinion on what the proto-Igbo equivalent was. However it would appear that 'f' varying as 'w' is attested in some frontier lects (Ehugbo, as you mentioned; some Bende lects, as Ihuomadinihu mentioned; and Ekpeye, as I observed from Blench's Ekpeye dictionary). Since these border lects are known to have preserved, in a good many cases, older sound patterns, it is quite possible that 'efo' was 'ewo' in an earlier phase of Igbo linguistic evolution.

So that Ndeewo may break down into:

Ndaa/Ndee + ewo ( 'day-breaking', for lack of a more 'English' translation) = good morning/ good day. The fact that you translated Nnawo (which has a '-wo' component as 'good morning' makes me even more confident about this explanation.

^Ok,that's a comprehensive one.
Just wanted to drop other honorifics(Tee tee and Daa daa) from Southern Igbo,it might also be important in this discussion.
I'll come back later,lol.

Radoillo, you've put your thoughts down nicely. I can definitely see your reasoning, but I think there might be a better explanation.

Here's my speculation (have patience with my long post, again):

To begin, I agree with your choice of words. The Deeme/Daalu/etc. greetings [henceforth, 'the Greetings', do note the capitalization] represent a semantic shift. As I interpret it, the semantic shift of the Greetings is a shift from verb-phrase construction to interjection (the part of speech where greetings reside, if we follow English language classification). I also believe that this shift is distinct from both ndeewo and the dee/daa honorifics [henceforth 'the Honorifics', do note the capitalization].

My reason for distinguishing the Greetings as a separate phenomenon from the Honorifics is because of the gender-based nature of the Honorifics. In fact, thinking now, the Honorifics seem to be the only part of speech that is notably gendered. Beyond this, Igbo speech forms seemingly do not recognize gender at all, and it leads me to two thoughts:

1. Igbo honorifics seems to be a special part of speech.
2. It is unlikely that there is free-flowing, lexical movement in and out of this part of speech.

For the most part, these two thoughts seem to reconcile well with the fact that honorifics in Igbo are uniquely limited. So limited, in fact, that we can easily say that Igbo does not have equivalents for even the most standard honorifics found in a lot of modern languages. To further buttress this point, I would venture to say that we have witnessed the development of only one new honorific within the last 300+ years now. That honorific is 'maazi' as the equivalent of modern day 'mister', and this development only occurred withing the past 50 years (at best).

So, in my opinion, if a connection actually existed between the Greetings and the Honorifics, then we should most likely also see more evidence of gendered speech beyond just honorifics in Igbo. For instance, the rendering of 'deeme' would differ, depending on whether or not one is addressing a male or female. We don't see that. So, I think it would be safe to say that the Greetings are unrelated to the Honorifics, as the Honorifics seem to be a locked in and distinct part of speech.

As for ndeewo, the strict and uniform usage seen throughout the Igbo-speaking region has always made me suspicious. I get the distinct impression that ndeewo was limited to a specific region and likely only spread in recent history, much like how the Aro 'maazi' became general 'mister'. With the impression of a recent development for ndeewo, I thought about what would likely be the equivalent in various regions. Looking at the tone structure of ndeewo, I can draw distinct similarities between the 'ndee' and some likely regional counterparts (i.e. ndii and ndaa). Ndee/Ndii/Ndaa [henceforth, 'the Interjections', do note the capitalization] are well-attested, multi-purpose expressions in Igbo. They can be used to do anything from asking a question to informally greeting. In general, they elicit a response from someone. It is my believe that ndeewo developed from the 'ndee' interjection used in a specific region, before spreading to other regions (probably within the past 100+ years). I believe this distinction is what causes me to view the Greetings as a phenomenon distinct from ndeewo.

So, in my understanding, the Greetings can neither be linked with the Honorifics, nor the Interjections. However, I still believe the Greetings represent a semantic shift, and we are alive to witness it. My belief is that the Greetings are sourced from full verb-phrase constructions and have overtime begun to take on the form of full-fledged interjections. The striking similarity between the Greetings and ndeewo is likely cosmetic and can be likened to some type of 'semantic convergence' (taking on the already recognizable form of the Interjections).

The Greetings [deeme/daalu/etc.] & Present Tense Syntax

This is where I believe the Greetings come from. A while ago, I took the time to attempt to reconstruct proto-Igbo, present tense syntax, based on the little I know from various regional speech forms. The results were interesting. Here's what I happened upon:

Key:
- pn - pronoun
- av - auxiliary verb
- pr - preposition
- in - infinitive vowel
- vo - non-infinitive vowel
- vb - verb

[sorry the table isn't structured better.. NL doesn't have the tools needed for clean tables, I guess].

........... Present Tense Construction (he/she/it is coming).......................

Region/Lect...... pn ....... av ...... pr ...... in ...... vo ...... vb ...... realized statement
Izugbe ............. o ................... na ............... a ....... bia ....... [o na-abia]
Onitsha ............ o ................... na ............... a ...... bia ....... [o na-abia]
Enugu .............. o ................... la ................ a ...... bia ....... [o la-abia]
Uzuakoli ........... o .................... la ............... a ........ bia ........ [o la-abia]
Oru .................. o ....... da .......................... a ........ bia ....... [o da-abia]
Abiriba .............. o ....... da .......................... a ........ bia ....... [o da-abia]
Ahiara .............. o ....... di ................. i .................... bia ....... [o di-ibia]
Etche .............. o ........ di .................. i ................... bia ........ [o di-ibia]
Ngwa ............... o ....... di ......... la ..... i ................... bia ........ [o di la ibia] (considered archaic) ... modern speech drops the 'la'
Ibeme .............. o ....... di ......... li ..... o .................. bia ........ [o di li obia]
Ndoki ............... o ....... de ................. i ................... bia ........ [o de-ibia]
Ikwerre ............ o ....... zi ......... nu .... o ................... bia ....... [o zi nu obia]
Ekpeye ............. u ...... zhi ........ li ...... u ................... ja ......... [u zhi li uja]

Naturally, we can conclude a number of things from the above table, but I specifically want to focus on how this relates with the Greetings [deeme/daalu/etc.] Looking at the table, we might be tempted to conclude that lects which use the [na]-construction dropped the [da] in speech, but they didn't. That [da] is still in use, and we see it in the Greetings. Also, the use of [da] in the Greetings is still consistent with present tense constructions, though in a more abstract sense.

da ... alu - [present tense work/efforts]
da ... eme - [present tense activities]
da ... eje - [present tense travel movements]
... etc.

We should also be able to see a strong correlation between the use of this [da .. verb] greeting and the lack of [da] in present tense constructions. Basically, communities which traditionally use this [da .. verb] greeting also are among the ones that do not use [da] in present tense verb creation. This is where I believe the Greetings come from. The Greetings represent a semantic shift in how the [da] auxiliary verb is used by these communities. Over time, the usage obscured [da] as an auxiliary verb and began the transformation from verb-phrase construction to interjection (greeting). The similarity with ndeewo might just be a matter of 'semantic convergence' (i.e. taking on some of the aesthetic traits of interjections). We see this in the addition of the [n-] prefix [ndaalu/ndeeme/etc.]

I am inclined to believe that the [da .. verb] construction predates the [n-da .. verb] construction, because of what I interpret as 'semantic convergence' (but I don't come from a region that uses the Greetings, so I can't say for sure).

Anyway, as I see it, we are essentially witnessing what is likely the last stages of development for a new set of interjections. From what you posted, Radoillo, it would seem that the Udi are the ones to have developed its usage to the furthest extent we know so far. Maybe within the next 100 - 200 years, its development might push forward and new set of fully-structured interjections would have been formed.

Another really good one, ChineneyeN.

There's a great deal of sense in what you wrote. While I was thinking of these greetings and the honorifics last week, I happened on an Igbo-English dictionary, by Echeruo, I believe. The dictionary has a set of entries for 'na'-greetings which seemed to correspond with the greetings from Udi [na-eme, na-eje, etc]. Echeruo didn't specify which areas use the greetings. (Come to think of it, he never specifies where the many not-so-generally-used expressions in his dictionary are used).

The na-greetings puzzled me, but looking at your illustrations, it looks like there is a good explanation for them, after all.

Personally,i don't consider the ''da'' greeting in 'da ejee' as an honorific equvalent to Da Ugo or Nda Chioma in Southern Igbo.
When people in Enugu say Da Ejee /Da Emee, i see as a variant of Na-aga /Na - Emee in other dialects.

For example, if someone is cooking,i would say ''ngwa 'na' - esi ka m bia''- Keep cooking,i'm coming.

Other dialects would say, 'La emee, La Esi, La aga etc.
The Enugu udi people are the only people that use it as a form of greeting or encouragement.
I don't know if what i've written makes sense,but Daa emee is an equivalent of Na Emee and more of an appreciative greeting than an honorific.

Deje,deme and daalu are commonly used in Anambra as a form of thank you or encouragement not only in Udi,Enugu. And Anambra don't say la emee,la esi,la aga..funny enough this is my first time of hearing these words.

L'ezi? That's why you should open your mind and learn about other igbo people and dialects beyond Anambra/Enugu.
Your dialect use Dee emee but certain dialects say La emee,that is what we are trying to explain.

I believe Echeruo was stretching it a bit. Sure, the 'da/na'-verb constructions can be used as interjections, but I wouldn't go out of my way to call them greetings. Greetings are a unique kind of interjection that have been structured, institutionalized and part of a cultural expectation. As I see it, the 'da/na'-verb interjections have not fully crossing that line from just interjections to outright greetings, but they're mostly there.

What happened to this thread.

*shrug*

The same thing that happens with all culture topics. Only a few people actually participate thoughtfully and those people alone aren’t enough to sustain an ongoing discussion. I’m sure it wouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that I’d be more than willing to participate in more of these sort of topics. If someone wants to open up another on, I’d be glad to join.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Interesting, Chinenye. And I do see the logic. I don't know if I am completely sold. It's not that I don't think proto-Igboid was diverse and could have had early branches. It probably did.

But, unless I do not quite understand, what you're proposing is branches of proto-Igboid that were not cognates of each other, so that your reconstructed *ipe and *iṅe would be unrelated words.

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.

I guess, what I am saying is I see your point. But without other evidence and examples this many not be sufficient for a proposal of multiple non-cognate branches of proto-Igboid. It may be an example of sporadic sound change, which linguists report now and again.

Hmm.

ChinenyeN is not even an Igbo person, so I wonder what all these her infactuation with Igbo language and its clusters of dialects is all about.

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.

Igboid:
ChinenyeN is not even an Igbo person, so I wonder what all these her infactuation with Igbo language and its clusters of dialects is all about.

Who told you he’s not Igbo?

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.

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.

Fulaman198, odumchi, bigfrancis21

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

Fulaman198, odumchi bigfrancis21

Incase you missed it. Some help needed here with unhiding a hidden post.

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?

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.