₦airaland Forum

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Someone writing from the 20th century says Onitsha was speaking Bini 250 years ago, in the 17th century. He wasn't there in the 17th century. He didn't reference an explorer who was there in the 17th century. He just says it, and it's true because....?

But if I write now from the 21st century that Benin was speaking Yoruba 250 years ago, in the 18th century, una go abuse me. 😂

Meanwhile, the kinglist of Onitsha:
Chima
Chimukwa
Nafia
Atasia
Chimezei
Chimevi
Aroli
Chimedie
Omozele
Ezeolisa
Ijelekpe
Udogwu
Akazue
Diali
Anazonwu
Samuel Okolo Okosi
James Okosi
Okwudili Onyejekwe
Ofala Okechukwu Okagbue
Nnaemeka Achebe

For a people that were Bini in language and everything "250 years ago at the most" there is a surprising absence of Bini names among their kings. The closest we have to an Edoid name is Omozele who had an Esan name. But then Onitsha historians know that Omozele had a non-Igbo grandmother and his father Aroli was raised outside Igboland, so there's a good explanation for that.

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.

owobokiri:
Where and when did you conduct a referendum or vote to be so assured that "majority of ikwerre people reject the Igbo identity"??! How can you say the "majority" when there are ikwerrs so proud of their Igbo identity that they're vigorously asking for the leadership of Ohanaze?

Or someone comes online and picks a fake ikwerre identity and viola, whatever he says becomes the majority view of the ikwerres? And how are you sure that the Aworis and Eguns want to be part of Yoruba land? That they want to live peacefully in Lagos their homeland, doesn't necessarily mean they want to be Yorubas. Right?

You're trying too hard. Even hardline Ìgbò nationalists know that people like Uche Okwukwu, etc., are in the minority and most Ikwerre identify as an ethnicity distinct from Ìgbò.

How am I sure that Aworis and Eguns want to be part of Yoruba land? I already said Eguns are not Yoruba. As for the Aworis, if you can find 5 Awori people who have gone on record to say Aworis are not Yoruba, then we can continue this discussion. Otherwise, I am done here. ✌️

The difference is that while the majority of Ikwerre people (not all of them) reject the Ìgbò identity, the same cannot be said of the Aworis who by and large have never rejected their Yoruba-ness.

The Eguns are not Yorubas, by the way. They don't claim to be, and one can look at their language and see that it is clearly non-Yoruboid.

skuribeebo:
You be mumu.

😂😂😂

I still laugh when I get notification for this post. 40 million Naira na £18,000. Wetin PhD students dey collect as student allowance. 😂

“By Obi of Owa”. Lmao.

Just so everyone knows, Obi of Owa never said this. This screenshot/article has been circulating online for some years now. Someone wrote something and put the picture of the Obi on it, and people started trying to pass it off as the words of the Obi of Owa.

The article was even originally posted on an Edo-run platform, Otedo.com, and was probably not even written by an Anioma person.

It will never be well for the people who removed history from our curriculum.

Otherwise, why would a supposedly educated person come online to spew this ignorant nonsense?

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

This is rude...

Christistruth02:
Benin Paid Tribute to Oyo starting with Alaafin Oranmiyan who was Benin’s overlord

You can say it a million times, dear. But without actual substantiation in the traditions and in the literature, you're just talking nonsense.

[quote author=Christistruth02 post=132797477][/quote]I was expecting you to show me where it said that Benin was paying tribute under Oranmiyan and Sango. This your screenshot is not it. You people on Nairaland have to learn to understand what I say and be able to respond appropriately. Oyo was not an empire under Sango, or even Oranmiyan. In those early days, Oyo was preoccupied with consolidating its hold on the Oyo heartland. It was still struggling for control of the Oyo heartland with Owu, Nupe and Bariba at that time. It was in no position in those early days to exert tribute from anyone, let alone Benin.

If (and its a very big IF) Benin ever paid tribute to Oyo, this could not have been before the late 17th century. In any case, we know that Benin under Ehengbuda was able to resist Oyo incursion into the area it controlled and established a frontier with Oyo at at Otun; and from what we know, both kingdom respected each others territories.

Christistruth02:
Benin paid tribute to Oyo starting with Alaafin Oranmiyan but that was well before the British arrived
According to Oyo Historians Benin was still paying tribute to Oyo in the days of Alaafin Sango and he was the 3rd Alaafin which must have been around the 13th Century

There's not the slightest figment of evidence in the oral traditions to support this. In the days of Sango, Oyo was still consolidating its hold in the Oyo metropolitan areas, after throwing off the control of Owu. It had not achieved empire status yet, and it was in no position to exert tribute from faraway Benin.

absoluteSuccess:
There's one incredible info my aunt shared with me way back, she said the Felas were Egun. Lol, I was like "Mummy, bawo lese mo, nam' mi gbon tho yon?"

When she break the name Ransome-kuti to me and Fela's change of name, I was wowed.

Azo: horn:
Ranzo-Animal's horn;
Ransome-Inside the horn;
Ransome-kute: "Inside the horn is death"

Now it got quite interesting, we do assume Ransome-Kuti means "ransom". But no, that's not the spelling I think. The spelling of the name is "Ransome". When Fela dropped the "Ransome", he took "Anikulapo" as replacement.

In this, there's direct interpretation of ransome-kute into the Yoruba language. Not to forget, Fela's song do have intrinsic Egun sweet melody lurking undertone of the great music maestro's Afrobeat songs.

The Egba were the neighbors of the great Dahome empire and naturally, Dahome was the strongest empire in the neighborhood way back when the Egba arrived in the 19th century to establish her fortress in the present location, then called "igbo Egun" leading to confrontation with the empire.

Azo, azo winawin, vito nadunun, vino ma dike!

This is a reach. Ransome is an English surname that is still used by many English people today. The Ransome-Kutis are of Saro descent, and Saros generally tended to adopt English surnames.

uncleck:
1. As a 2.1 graduate of history, an Igbo man, decolonized and non religious fellow, I'm in a good position to tell you the unbiased history of the Igbos.

2. Ndi Igbo means Ndi Gboo (people of the ancient).

3. The Igbos do not have a common ancestry.

4. Different people from different origins came together in a place and formed the Igbo tribe.

5. "Insignificant" groups of people met themselves and formed the FIRST significant group of people in history; they were called "Ndi Gboo" (people of the ancient)

6. The first spoken language originated from the Igbos. It is the Afa language.

7. The first written language, the "Nsibidi", originated from the Igbos.

8. Some of the ancient migrants came from middle East. Some came from Southern Africa. There were also few indigenous (aboriginals) groups that also migrated from one part of Igboland to the other.

9. But there was something common among all the people, the unifying factor. They all adopted "oke offor".

10. Offor is a remarkable symbol in the entire Igbo nation.

11. People under one offor are forbidden from fighting each other...


Let me stop here for now

You people should stop feeding trolls. Learn to ignore posts like this from pin-brained bigots who are just looking to start up their usual tribal squabbles.

Atheism existed in Hindu philosophy. They called it Nirisvaravada. Indian civilization had very sophisticated spiritual systems, producing great religions like Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and Hinduism itself.

It is a testament to how advanced their religious philosophy was that there was room for philosophers who posited that no god or gods exist.

Your thesis that the presence of atheism means there is something wrong with a society's spirituality is a very very parochial thing to say.

UncleAyo:
While I'll never ever advocate for movie piracy, but by the time people start to watch their favourite Netflix movies through alternative means, maybe by then, they will get serious and do something about it.

Not gonna lie. When I couldn't find it on Netflix, I had to go on telegram. But the quality was poor when I tried to watch it on my telly, so I deleted. Didn't finish it.

Not making it available internationally on Netflix is a bad business decision. The abroad market is not a small market.

I do see one monkey here all right.

So you Igbo people responding here, you cannot tell when a post has been created to troll you?!! Why una dey give this post attention?

Lol. Anybody asking this question in 2024 is just an ethnic-baiter.

Tellmeastory:
Stop being stupid. Watch the video posted. The words listed mean the SAME THING in both languages.

Stupid people are always quick to call other people stupid 😂😂😂

Many of the words in Shanga that he mentioned there are cognate with words in East Benue Congo which is the language group Shanga belongs to. And he took significant liberty with a good number of the Chinese "equivalents". I can do what he did with any two language around the world.

Ìgbò - English
Anụmanụ - Animal
Mmiri (water) - Marine
Si - Say
Mụ - Me
Yi (in some dialects) - You
Enya (in some dialects) - Eye

This is word play, not linguistics. He has not established any consistent rule of sound changes or sound correspondence for both languages.

It's funny how people see -ang/-ong in two languages and immediately assume there is a linguistic connection. No considerations at all for meanings in both languages or sound rules or anything else.

That's NOT how to do linguistics!

cupcup:
i went to ladipo market to buy a part for my car, nd guess what.. it was sold to me for 35k all in the name of dollar don rise, import duties etc.. fellow igbo man came to buy it for 7k meaning.. they are getting back at yorubas because of tinubu..

What do you people gain from these lies??

This is the Age of Social Media. With social media, there are literally thousands of girls that are just one DM away. Men from the 1990s were chasing one woman for three years because choices were limited.

Personally, I don't even try a second time, if the answer from the first time was a clear no. Nobody has time for someone who likes you, but wants to stress you because of this foolish notion that a girl has to play hard to get.

ruggedtimi:
Before the letter go reach london and before london go send steam ship back to west africa

Except that the letter was not going to London, but to the Lieutenant-Governor in Lagos.

Lifestone:
We need the source for this letter.
Secondly the letter is unsigned
Thirdly, there is nothing like King of Yoruba especially as an Alafin.
Fourthly, the English is too modern for 1881.

I suspect that this letter is fake

Agreed without conceding that the letter is genuine, I respect Alafin to know his limitations at war and sought for help rather than allowing over 3million of his people to perish. Sense prevailed over arrogance.

No the letter is not fake. It is included in the "History of the Yorubas" which was completed by Samuel Johnson in 1897 although it was not published until 1921. Samuel Johnson, by the way, witnessed the unrest in Yorubaland in the latter part of the 19th century and was a key person in negotiating peace at the end of the Kiriji Wars. So he was a witness to all these events.

"King of Yoruba" at the time simply means "King of Oyo". Don't read too much into it. "Yoruba" was more or less synonymous with "Oyo" until Bishop Ajayi Crowther began to promote the use of the term to include all Yoruba-speaking groups. That was why a nineteenth-century newspaper was called "iwe iro in fun awon ara Egba ati Yoruba" - newspaper for the Egba and the Yoruba. A name that suggests that Egba were at the time non-Yoruba in the way they identify.

About signatures, Alaafin Adeyemi was illiterate. His letters were written for him by a secretary who at the time was usually a Sierra Leonean returnee. As a result his early letters were usually unsigned. But some of the latter letters he wrote, from the 1890s were marked with an "X" to stand in place of a signature.

The English is too modern for 1881? How do you think people were speaking and writing in 1881? Were you expecting to see "thou" and "comest" and "thee"? Read books that were writren about that same period by people like Ajayi Crowther and explorers like Mockler-Ferryman and Harry Johnston, and then come back and talk about the English sounding too modern.

Afam4eva:
it will be a hard sell because how ethnic groups are defined in Today's Nigeria is straight forward and it's consistent in a lot of groups. The only group that doesn't seem to necessary follow this template are the Igboid/Igboid tribes.

If you consider that Efik, Ibibio and Annang are close enough that many will consider them to be a dialect continuum, or that Urhobo and Isoko of the Southern Edoid branch also share similar closeness and are also on a continuum, or that the Itsekiri is quite simply the Southeastern extention of Yoruba, and is still mutually intelligible with many Yoruba dialects of Ondo State.... If you consider all these, then you'll appreciate that the Igbo/Igboid tribes are not the only ones who don't necessarily follow that template.

MightySparrow:
In this age and civilization?
Igbos want to rule in Kano, Lagos, and London.

They are still segregating among themselves

Is it only Kano, Lagos and London? Are you sure they don’t want to take over the galaxy and dethrone God?

donnie:
C’mon run away

😂😂😂😂

Read an African history book today, and stop squeezing yourself into Hebrew and Phoenician and Greek histories. You don’t belong there.

donnie:
Name one OUTSIDE black people i mentioned in my OP. All of those great black civilizations were made great by people who left our land taking knowledge with them. Even Egypt was colonized and civilized by people from our land. That you have been served white people’s witchraft shouldn’t make you think you can project same here.

With all the jargon’s you claim to have learned, all you have left is self hatred, jealousy and contempt for your fellow black man (that’s if you even are one). When you are ready, you will come down from that stupid high horse, humble yourself and learn.

Yea, you stu.pid. Stu.pid and deluded.

donnie:
When it comes to black people’s glorious history, it becomes “pseudo” right? From what I see from your comment, there isn’t any more dumbness to add.

For most of you black people, “glorious history” depends on looking for African people’s history OUTSIDE of Africa and attaching yourselves and your history to non-Africans.

You and people like you do not think Africa can have a history unless we can connect it to history outside Africa. That is pathetic and smacks of debilitating inferiority complex.

What do you know of the urban civilisation of Tichitt-Walata in West Africa that dates back to centuries BC?

Can you name one - just one - emperor from the ancient Ghana Empire?

Do you know about the ancient Bantus of the Great Lakes area that were working iron even before the Hittites?

Do you know the African cradles of agricultural innovation on the Niger Bend and the Eastern Sahel that revolutionised societies and kickstarted civilisation within Africa?

Do you know the names of the kings of Nubia that fought the advance of Islam to a standstill for hundreds of years?

Have you finished studying the achievements in arts, architecture, commerce and politics of the Mande and Songhai, the Ashanti, the Baganda, the Ankole, the Kongo, the Lunda, the Maravi, the builders of Zimbabwe, and thousands of other remarkable societies that black people developed INSIDE Africa?

No, you’re busy making up ridiculous stories about alpha and omega that belongs to non-African societies because in your inferiority-racked brain, the only way to be great is if you can conjure connections with other non-African cultures and achievements.

Pathetic.

Pseudohistory makes us all dvmber.