LightOnScams:

Show me the inverse .

Leo Africanus visited the Western Sudan in the 16th century. He wrote about the Hausa city-states Gobir (Guber) , Katsina (Casena), Kano (Cano), Zaria (Zegzeg). But in all of his discription of Hausaland, the word "Hausa" did not appear even once.

The use of that term is probably not as old as you think.

LightOnScams:
Because a language sounds similar to the general Yoruba does not mean it evolved from Yoruba .

I've heard ignorant comments like "Igala is from Yoruba", "Itsekiri is a Yoruba dialect", "Your Yoruba is not pure", etc.

Bro, STFU , especially if the language is in the east. They're probably older.

On purely linguistic grounds, no one can really present a solid defence as to why Itsekiri is a separate language. It clearly forms a cluster with southeastern Yoruba dialects (Ilaje, Ikale, Ijebu, etc.)

Itsekiri is, if we are being honest, a southeastern Yoruba dialect spoken by a people who did not take part in Yoruba ethnogenesis when it got underway in the 19th and 20the centuries.

Igala is a different kettle of fish though. It seems to have separated from the Proto-Yoruboid stock as long as 2000 years ago.

I will start with something that happened in an organization I used to work for. For context, there are people of every background in Nigeria in the organisation. Mostly Southerners and a few Northerners. There had been cases in the past where people of other ethnic groups (not Igbo) had either stolen/embezzled the organisation's funds, or used their position within the organization to give lucrative jobs to people from their own ethnic groups. When this happens and we find out, we address it without dragging the offender's ethnic group into it.

Well, during my last year in the organization, an Igbo man was the Head, and he embezzled funds (something non-Igbos had done in the past). When the news broke, I immediately became very uncomfortable because from experience, I knew what was going to happen. I knew all of us Igbos were going to be dragged, and people would take the opportunity to say unsavoury things about Igbo people. Not just Nnamdi who stole money.

I wasn't wrong. It didn't take time before the comments started flooding in. "Igbo man. Igbo people. This is why an Igbo man will never rule this country. It is always them. Thieves. It is always them."

I was in this organization for 8 years. I had seen Yorubas and Edos and Akwa Ibom people steal money and abuse their office. There were actually more cases of Yorubas doing that sort of thing in that organization within the time I was there. Not once did anyone say a Yoruba will never rule Nigeria again because some of them that dipped hand into the organization's account. One Igbo man did it and the WhatsApp group caught fire with all sorts of ethnically-charged comments.

Here's the thing. Tribalism is a pastime in Nigeria and all of us, Igbos and non-Igbos done collect. But there's something different about the antagonism that most Nigerians harbour towards Igbo people. We may try and deny it and claim that Igbos are being overly dramatic, but in doing that we'd be like the white people in America who claim that racism is over and dead, and that black people are just being whiny.

Perhaps, the antagonism stems from the first coup and the scare of Igbo domination that was propagated in that general period. Perhaps it stems from the stereotyped Igbo traits of competitiveness, aggressive go-getter attitude, a certain level of crassness and loudness, which Igbo people were said to carry with them as they left their region and moved into the region of their Nigerian neighbours. Perhaps its just sheer jealousy towards people who made much out of very little.

Whatever it is, dislike for the Igbo is a whole other level of tribalism, and I make bold to say that the Igbo are easily the most despised ethnic group in Nigeria. Even with the plague of killer herdsmen, Nigerians in general no hate Fulani reach the way they hate Igbos. I mean, while herdsmen were sweeping through the Southwest and other parts of the South, people like Adeyinka Grandson were still presenting the Igbo as the biggest existential threat to Yorubaland. People went as far as ignoring glaring evidence and claimed that it was Igbos, rather than the Fulani, who kidnapped Olú Falae.

Years ago,I saw videos made by some Northerners purporting that Igbo people were actually the brain behind Boko Haram. That idea was diffusing through the alleys of social media many years ago, but I don't think anyone is still spreading it today. The truth has become too plain to be ignored or twisted.

But the fact remains that the Igbos are everyone's go-to fall guy.

Even something like misogynism has, for some reason, become synonymous with Igbo men. When the most jaw-dropping cases of misogynistic behaviour I have seen in this my life came from I**** men. (I no wan' mention the ethnic group - I no get strength for fight.)

Lol.

The origins of Nigerian pidgin English is complex and cannot be studied in isolation from other varieties of pidgin English spoken along the coast of West Africa (Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ghana) and the English creole languages spoken by people of African descent in the Americas.

https://tribuneonlineng.com/common-ancestor-of-american-ebonics-and-west-african-pidgin-english/

LightOnScams:

Generally, Yagba use "ewo". I think Mopa people use "owo" maybe due to the village's Owe influence.

I thought I used "ewo" in an earlier example sha. My bad.

The reason why I used *Ayọnrọn* was to preserve the term which has fallen in favour for the more friendly Yoruba version "ewo".

Infact, it is used when you want to talk about money without letting a non-native Yagba speaker know what's up .

OK. Thanks for the explanation. The word Ayọnrọn sounds very close to the words people use across Yoruba and Igbo (I'm not sure of Edo) to refer to cowrie shells. This is what raised my curiosity.

You're doing a good job here. Keep it coming.

LightOnScams:
EXPRESSING EQUIVALENCE




Ayọnrọn'm ki nka --- That's my money.

Am I right in concluding from this that in Yagba, they don't use owo/ogho or a similar sounding word to mean 'money'?

Sehzade:
I'll start.

Hausa

Shekaran Jiya - The day before yesterday

Jiya - Yesterday

Yau - Today

Gobe - Tomorrow

Jibi - Day after tomorrow (overmorrow)

Gata - Day after the day after tomorrow

Day before yesterday - Nwanne unyaa
Yesterday - unyaa
Today - Taa
Tomorrow - Echi or Echi Niine or Echi na-abịa abịa.
Day after tomorrow - Nwanne echi
Day after the day after tomorrow - Nwanne nwanne echi.

IGBO

Ghostwon821:

There is no way to prove that a story which is claimed to be "orally preserved" is actually such.
When such a claim is made, it can only be taken as anecdotal or récréatif, what matters are the hard evidence and when they coincide with the story, then the story is somewhat proven to have some truth in it.
You gave me stories, not evidence.

If I say now that the Ogisos and Obas like Eweka, Oguola and Ewuare, etc are just stories because these names do not exist in any contemporary written records by anyone whether European or local, you will go into an angry frenzy.

A historian of his people (Chief Iduuwe) recorded the title 'Dein' BEFORE Obi Keagborekuzi even became obi but someone you choose to believe that the Obi invented it. How? Did Chief Iduuwe travel forward in time to find out Keagborekuzi was going to invent 'Dein' when he became king, so he decided to record the title even BEFORE Keagborekuzi introduced it?

Was it also Keagborekuzi (who just became Obi 'yesterday') that convinced towns as far away as Issele-Uku, Aboh and Onitsha to introduce nwadei and umudei and Idibodein in their vocabulary and cultural spaces.

Ọmọ, its too late to be up arguing inanities. Believe what you will.

Ghostwon821:


So the chief you are talking about is more than 1000 years old, right ? Otherwise, I don't know how he would be able to know what was going on 1000 years ago and which wasn't recorded in writing. Or perhaps the chief is a time traveler.

So people's orally-preserved memories of their past are completely of no value? Noted.

You are yet to provide proof, for your info, our West African languages can't be analysed via etymology because their written form is too recent.

I asked for proof and you provided me with "I strongly believe my story, therefore you should believe my story too and everybody should"

K.

Ghostwon821:

Do you care to provide evidence ?

The fact that in many Kingdoms all over Anioma, nwadei is prince and umudei is descendants of a king, and Idibodein means servants of the king, and they didn't start using those expressions when Obi Keagborekuzi Ikenchuku ascended the throne should be evidence enough for people who can recognise items from lexicons.

Edit: Also forgot to mention that Chief Iduuwe who wrote a manuscript on Agbor history before Keagborekuzi became the Obi, stated quite clearly that the first Obi of Agbor, called Ebonka was known by Dein.

Ghostwon821:

Below, the Obi of Agbor in 1935 (Obi Obika Gbenoba)
I think the picture is that of the father or the grand father of the current Obi of Agbor, since his title is hereditary. I don't really understand why someone chose to change the title to "Dein" ...?
Whomever denies the Agbor people are Edo needs his eyes to be examined.

Nobody changed the title to Dein. Dein was used in ancient times. Obi, and even eze, were used too. Obi became more prominent along the line, especially under colonial rule. The present Obi of Agbor is merely trying to return the old title of Dein to the prominence it once enjoyed. Even outside Agbor, in places like Issele-Ukwu and co., nwadei (nwa-Dein) still means a Prince, ie, son of a king; and umudei (Umu-Dein) still means children of a king. This underscores the 'ancientness' of Dei/Dein in that axis. It is not a recent creation.

Great post.

NB: I thought Deji was Ayere, one of the tiny linguistic groups in that area that has nearly or completely been subsumed by the more prominent Yoruba/Yoruboid linguistic grouping.

Nobody's business.

.

FreeIgboho:


Only in Igbo land are kings elected!

You say this as if it's a terrible thing.

cheruv:
In Igbo it is "ụ̀ká kíríīsí"... Means Christ Mass
Ụka is mass or church service whilst kíríīsí is the transliteration of Christ, implying look/gaze (at the) head

This looks like your personal coinage. You should emphasise that so that readers don't go thinking Igbo people actually say this. Neither in written Igbo Izugbe nor in the spoken forms have I ever seen anyone use uka kiriisi.

MimiSheWrote:
Lol people are really naive... You only need common sense to know that OP is making sense... Cos an apple doesn't fall far away from its tree.

Yoruba and Igbo are too close geographically not to have shared the same ancestors or language at some point... Language evolves faster than you can imagine.

If you managed to travel back in time to about 2000 years ago as an Igbo or yoruba, I doubt you would understand a single word coming out of your ancestors mouth.

The only sad thing about we Africans is that our history wasn't properly documented. Just some embarrassing mythical stories

2000 years sef far. If we go back just 500 years ago, it will be extremely hard, to communicate with our own people. Forget 1000 years ago. You will understand nothing.

When you look at languages that have a long history of writing you'll realise how true this is. Take English for example. Shakespeare wrote his plays 450 years ago. English speakers today struggle to understand him. In school, we had to use the glossary pages to make sense of plays like Macbeth and Merchant of Venice. Another English writer, Chaucer, wrote Canterbury Tales 630 years ago. I have tried to read it. I no understand wetin him dey talk. And this was "only" 630 years ago.

Does anybody even use these expressions? Even old uneducated people in the most isolated villages in Igboland will not say ekeresimesi. At best what you may hear is 'kirisimaasi'.

Yes. Nigeria is a poor country. It you try to tally the country's generated revenue with its population size, it is a poor country. If you check how many people are unemployed or underemployed, it is a poor country. I don't know of any indices that one will use that Nigeria will not be rated as a poor country.

The display of wealth by a small fraction of the population means next to nothing. It only means that scarce resources have been cornered by a few, and huge sections of the population and the country at large have been left with nothing.

Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, also has fabulously rich men and women, flashing obscene sums of money around the world and buying hugely expensive property in New York, London and Paris. But over 40% of the Haitian people can't get jobs because there are none. We shouldn't confuse the fact that a tiny fraction of a population controls an obscene amount of wealth with the nation itself being a rich country.

ariesbull:
lies...Owerri call strangers as Isuoma same with Ohaji


Stop these lies this monkey ....I am from there and they are igbo

True. Isoma is a term used all over the southern half of Imo State to describe 'upland' Igbos; and it comes from Isuama, the name of the Igbo-speaking stock of the Orlu axis in the more northerly part of Imo State. The claim that it means 'good slave' is a malevolent lie, which is of course not surprising, considering who it is coming from.

UGBE634:
Any Ikwerre person that does not identify as Igbo has a low IQ or is not well read

Lol. Calm down, sir. Not that deep.

Peace of mind is a priority for me. And for me, peace of mind is tied to things like security, stable political climate, a sociopolitical system that works, etc. Things that Nigeria as it is cannot assure me of right now. I will be fine if I never become wealthy, but can live comfortably and in peace.

Which is why I will not think twice of picking a life in the UK and an annual income of less than a £100,000 (but at least up to £35 - 40,000) over a life in Nigeria and annual income of £200,000 to 300,000.

omonnakoda:



Is there anything like WILL in Igbo custom?

What is the Igbo word for WILL

Omonnakoda

Stop acting like a neurotic little bitch on NL all the time. You're too old for this shyt. You've been on this forum since it's creation, you geriatric schizophrenic. Act your age.

This is from your comment that I reacted to. You asked if there was anything in Igbo culture like will. You asked for the Igbo name for will. You didn't say anything in this particular comment I responded to about 'written will'. Non-written wills are wills, too.

omonnakoda:

You are free to do what you like but do not claim to have been democrats historically or denigrate others as not democrats when your history is one of misogyny and oppression

What has will got to do with what we are talking about?

Is there anything like WILL in Igbo custom?

What is the Igbo word for WILL

You are just talking rubbish
So now it is SWALLOWING Western custom? Why are you claiming to be egalitarian when that is NOT IGBO CUSTOM

No one says you must be egalitarian but do not claim to be what you are not
Women are PROPERTY in Igbo custom

'Will' is 'ike ekpe' in Igbo.

You can't. Once your post has been posted, you can only modify.

It's funny that a character who told me, an Anioma man, that I cannot contribute on an Edoid thread because I was "Igbo" is also here, dragging Anioma and trying to shield us from "Igboness".

Very funny.

GhostOfNigeria:


All the names of the Kings of benin has all been Yoruba names none of their names started with a bini name the children of the royal house before the attack of Britain all spoke Yoruba language.

This is a bold claim. Can you actually demonstrate that the names of Kings of Benin had ALL been Benin names?

macof:
not only do we have but it can even be broken down. Yoruba has even done a better job at retaining the use and meanings of the etymons of these common words.

Ùgbé from Gbé - to live /reside
Mímọ́/Mímá - holy, goodness. from mọ́ - to be clean, without blemish

They will not accept these as evidence for cognacy because they don't understand how linguistics work.

samuk:


There are numerous Edo words in modern Igbo language but most Igbo are only familiar with the four market days.

Some examples:

Ise- amen in benin

Ise- amen in ibo

Okhorkhor = fowl in Benin

Okuko - fowl in Igbo

Okuta = rock in benin

Okute = rock rick in igbo

Oma---good in Ibo

Oma---good in Bini

Ndo---sorry in Igbo

do---sorry in Bini

Ogbe--quarters in Ibo

Ogbe--quarters in Bini

Ugbo - farm Bini

Ugbo - farm ibo

nkịta - dog in Igbo

Ekita - dog in Benin

And many more.

You did something similar with Urhobo and Edo language in a different thread. You can see how old Edo language are embedded into most southern Nigeria languages.

I am just seeing this. The only word here that can be argued to have diffused into Igbo from Edo is Ise.

Every other word here is attested in YEAI and even Niger-Congo proto languages. *kuko words from cock are even found as far away as Zulu in Southern Africa.

UGBE634:
Do you also know the word Oduma means Lion in Benin. cc samuk.

Yes, I know. I will not be surprised if Yorùba also has a similar 'du' word for Lion as well. Because all these are sister-languages.

If you look at linguistics, you would know about something called YEAI languages. These are Yoruboid (of which Igala is a branch), Edoid, Akokoid and Igboid. Linguists tell us that these languages all descend from a common language in the distant past called Proto-YEAI. Thus, there are cognates found throughout the languages.

Now having cognates doesn't mean that there are no words that were still borrowed across these sister languages in later times.

For example, Igbo borrowed the word ugegbe for mirror from Edo. The etymologically Igbo word for mirror is enyo. Ugegbe was borrowed. Igbo also borrowed several titles from the Edo.

There were also linguistic items that were borrowed from Igbo to Edo, even though people never seem to want to talk about that, and get agitated when it is brought up, and think you're attempting to attack or belittle their culture/civilization.

Etymological analysis of the Edo word for skirt, (ubuluku) for instance, suggests the word has Igbo roots. If you ask an Edo person to break the word ubuluku apart and explain it, he wouldn't be able to. But an Igbo person can. To a linguist this would suggest the direction of diffusion of the word

Which brings us to Idu. I am still to meet an Edo person who can etymologically explain it, the way it is explainable in Igbo. All I have been told by you all is that it has a very long antiquity among the Edo. A lexical item might exist in a language community for 20,000 years and still have its roots outside that language community. Antiquity is not really a counter-argument against foreign provenance.

One question to keep in mind is: Why your other neighbours don't use that word for you. Why is it only recollected by your Igbo-speaking neighbours.

Ogamysamo:

pls what does the idu means in igbo cause it is also an igala word which makes me almost ask if the man in question is an igala man

Idu in Igbo means "a group of people" or "a bush". When we refer to Benin as Idu n'ọba, what it literally means to us is 'The Oba' s people' or 'the people under the Oba'

I'm aware that in Igala, Idu could mean a lion or a task.

Note that in Igbo, lion is odum or eduke. Notice the du root, which also found in the Igala word for it, suggesting that the Igbo and Igala words for lion are cognates.

Anyway, it appears that the Igala 'idu' is cognatically different from the Benin 'Idu'.