₦airaland Forum

bigfrancis21:
In terms of surnames which strongly identifies where one descends from. What do you think it should be?

Until someone actually takes the time to go there and count, conjuring percentages will be ill-advised.

If my experience with Ika people is anything to go by, that your 10 - 20% figure is too low. Igbo surnames are probably predominant in the Eastern flank of Ikaland, but as you move west the Edo surnames become predominant. I have also noticed that when I ask Ika people the names their grandfathers and great grandfathers bore, I almost always get Edo names as answers. There is some truth in the assertion that there has been a shift towards more Igbo sounding names in the 20th century. All the Chi and Chukwu names in Ika area are purely 20th century phenomena, for example.

bigfrancis21:
For what is is, Ika is simply an Igbo dialect with Bini loan words and sometimes Bini inflections, the Bini influence thereof being due to massive settlers from Edoid areas in Ika land. This phenomenon of bini families settling in Ika land was noted by a writer in one of his books I do not remember currently. Thus those Ika people with Bini surnames who are anywhere between 10% to 25% of Ikas may be right after all when they say they[the settlers] are from Bini but it is wrong to drag the 'ndi nwe ana' or entire Ika people (those with Igbo surnames) into their Bini ancestry tirade. If these settlers care so much about their bini ancestry, would it not be reasonable for them to return back to Edo state? I am sure that the Oba of Bini would gladly welcome these Edoid returnees back after so many centuries.

10% to 25%.

You just randomly picked those percentages, didn't you?

Cire80:
Are you just finding out he's lunatic?

LOL!

Monkeydeychop:
Go and debate me in the group. The admins finally let me in, no more lurking.
I have about had it with you igbos! Respect your boundaries! Just like you people fear yoruba land

Hian! He won't even address what I said.

Okay, bye-bye.

Monkeydeychop:
Having a Yoruba name does not make me less edo. Again I'm not an evil person. I'm just against people falsifying my history.

Of course you are not less Edo(id). I would never say you are less Edo(id).

But on your many lengthy posts here, you took issues with some Esan people like the Ekpon who speak Ika, you appear to not like the fact that there is a certain Nkechi who says she is Esan, and so on. You don't want them to be Esan.

My argument then is: Your very name bears witness to Yoruba acculturation, yet you remain Edo; what is your fuss then with OTHER Esan people whose names, etc show Igbo or Ika acculturation? Why can't you all be Esan people influenced by neighbouring cultures, hm?


BTW, who falsified your history and when? Give examples of this falsification.

Cire80:
say why is he? In all my interactions with Esans, I've never seen one that acts this way.

Me neither. Although i'll have to admit that I don't know many Esan people one-on-one. A number of other Esan people were airing similar opinions on that Facebook Group, so maybe this guy isn't the only one. Ironically, they all have Yoruba first names.

Monkeydeychop:
No but I saw the post and raised an alarm. The kid asked me questions so I thought I'd shed light on it here. I am abiodun Alonge on the group.

Okay.Why are you guys angry about a certain Esan person called Nkechi when you and many of your cohorts have Yoruba first names? Isn't that hypocritical?

Monkeydeychop:
Esan tribe does not bear Igbo names. It's these Igbo people that have settled in esan land that carry Igbo names. What's worse is that those fools are now calling themselves esan. This is why I want the oba to banish them kia kia. The ika and anioma and igbanke people same with the ekpon people. All are igbos and must leave esan land before they erode our culture. That's what igbos do best. Come into peoples lands and try to take over. They tried to do it in ekiti.

Are you the Remi Omoruyi person on that Nigeria Nostalgia page?

Klinee:
There is commonalities in all IGBO dialect but intonation and the way it's being expressed makes it difficult for proximal region to understood. If we break all this dialects on a basis, you will notice that they all speak the same.

I am not talking about general pan-Igbo commonalities. I am talking about specific commonalities that connect the Anioma languages or dialects. While, Enuani and parts of Anambra are undeniably very close and mutual intelligibility is high, it is also very true that Enuani and Ika share certain usages that collectively separate them from usages in the SE, with the possible exception of Onitsha (which is historically of Enuani pedigree.)

Klinee:
Am from Anambra but I live in Enuani land I tell you, I try to even interpret agbo dialect to some of them. You know the truth stop lying! Unless you are not base in any part of Delta North

He is not wrong about the commonalities in Anioma languages.

Monkeydeychop:
Go and read your Biafra people posting that igbanke people in edo state are with them I'm basically saying those people are igbos and will vacate the state once Biafra is actualised.

One. I am not Biafran.

Two. Igbanke is not Esan.

If you made this post because Biafra people are claiming Igbanke (which is actually Ika), why is the post now talking about Esan as if Igbo people are claiming Esan?

What kind of attention-seeking is this? At what point in history, past and present, did Igbo people ever claim the Esan are Igbos?

Okay. The band is kinda falling my hand. I thought they were going to keep it old school. With songs like 'Won keresi number one'. What is this 'Pull over' and 'Limpopo' shït?

This interview never happened sha. Hope y'all know that.

Modelzones:
Yes something is definitely wrong with your eyes. Uriel ain't all that pretty but classy YES she is and many other things but ---- The facials and extra falling fat please let's skip that""!!

I did not say she was 'pretty' in the conventional sense. But, yes, she's fine. I particularly like her lips when she's got some gloss on. And her eyes. I find her attractive, is what I am saying. And she totally works for me. Oddly enough I am not into thick ladies, but she'll do.

Then again, different strokes....

peacettw:
I think uriel is classy. If in the future, I end up being thick, I hope.to have the confidence to carry it the way she does. Again, the prettiest in the house for me has always been Uriel. Her color is her best feature and I think her eyes too. Add to it the curves.

Everyone around me thinks she is butt-ugly; and I am like "Is something wrong with me and my eyes?" I have a mini-crush on her. If i was in there she'd be the only one I'd have any interest in hooking up with.

It's a wonder how there's a large number of AAs who believe one can always tell ethnicity or country of origin of black people from how they look. We get posts like this very often here.

Do white Americans believe the same thing? Do they ask their European friends if they look French or German or Dutch?

Threebear:
Do you speak with British accent?

No. I went there as a full-grown adult. My interaction with non-Nigerians was minimal, and I was there for only five years.

Uriel on the other hand was born there. I have no idea how long she stayed before she came back. But her facebook page lists a British secondary school and a British University that she attended, so I am guessing she was there for a while.

Threebear:
Most of the things we know come from TV, you know Trump today a man you will probably never meet, thanks to television. But unlike you, I learn quickly so I can easily detect accents, be it American, Australian or British.
And ask any credible British person, that thing that girl is speaking in that house ain't no British accent.

I don't need to ask anyone. I lived in UK for many years. They don't all sound like Kiera Knightley and Kate Winslet. Britain has a multitude of accents, some of them downright incomprehensible. The media seems to focus on the prim and aristocratic accent of Hollywood British butlers, and that is what most of y'all have come to tag the British accent.

Uriel's accent is British, coloured by the influence from the Nigerian homefront. My cousin's kids born and still being raised in London speak a lot like that - London accent with some 'Nigerianism' lying under the surface. That's what happens when you go to school with British kids with British accents and then come home to your Nigerian parents and uncles and your parents' friends all with Nigerian accents.

Plus Uriel has been in Nigeria for a while and has probably stepped the accent down somewhat. I can smell when someone is faking an accent; Uriel isn't doing it.

Threebear:
I've seen her pronounce lots of words with an American accent not British accent. Please watch a Kate Winslet movie or go watch the TV series Merlin and tell me how on earth Uriel speaks like those people.

Oh. What you know about British accents come from TV?

I take it you don't know about Multicultural London English (MLE) spoken by the city's youth, which has influence from different cultures and dialects, eg, Jamaican and American.

1bkaye:
I know her in real life, she may have a twang and switch every now and then but her British accent is real for the most part

She speaks like a typical person raised in two cultures. Sometimes she sounds more like this; at other times she sounds more like that. No faking there.

Afam4eva:
National borders is something that can be used to classify languages. if Ika was in a country different from where SE Igboland is then no one will be arguing with you whether Ika is Igbo or not. But Ika is in Nigeria and contigous with Igboland.

Actually, this is not really how it always works. National boundaries and national/political identity do sometimes (often?) play a role in how languages are classified, at least at the official level. But it is not a given.

Igboid:
Common sense should have told you that when 'Yoruba language' is mentioned without a dialect specified, what is meant is the Oyo-derived Standard Yoruba.

No, there is no common sense there to grab.
I had once spent 3months plus in Akoko part of Ondo, to know that the average Oyo Yoruba cannot understand the Akoko dialect, because of heavy Edo influence in it and the retention of proto Yoruba words in Akoko dialect.
And yet, the Akoko don't understand Bini at all.
So to come and tell me that there is 50% intelligibility between Oyo Yoruba and Bini, you would need to present a strong evidence.

I said 'about 50% lexical similarity. I never said 50% intelligibility. These are different things.

Lexical similarity deals with words that are cognates; not words that are mutually intelligible. For example, the Igbo word for beans egwa/agwa is lexically similar to the Yoruba word for beans 'ewa'. They are not neccessarily mutually intelligible. A Yoruba man will probably not understand an Igbo man that says 'Give me agwa'. But Agwa and ewa are cognates, and a linguist who is calculating lexical similarity between the two languages to find out their degree of relatedness will count ewa/agwa.

I don't have Aniche's book, but i found this with a quick online search.

https://books.google.com.ng/books?id=NUvnqjutFmoC&pg=PT106&lpg=PT106&dq=aniche+yoruba+cognate&source=bl&ots=8Y3fi-LxQV&sig=Pt4ui8aVeiosa5y0cQZCgKdVOvk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjViZ6U5KTSAhWEGCwKHXqKBHUQ6AEIDTAB#v=onepage&q=aniche yoruba cognate&f=false

Pay particular attention to this table. Std Yoruba and Igbo (Igbo Izugbe, I guess) = 51% lexical similarity. Std Yoruba and Edo = 56% lexical similarity. Igbo and Edo = 50% lexical similarity.

Thus, Yoruba is closer to Edo, than either is to Igbo. Funny enough, Igbo is closer to Akoko than Edo is to Akoko. After going through an Akoko wordlist, i won't say this surprises me.

Igboid:
Please, can I see the part of the book where she assigned 50% mutual intelligibility between Oyo Yoruba dialect and Bini language.

It is a library book. I don't own a copy.

Igboid:

By the way given that the lexical similarity between Bini and Yoruba is somewhere between over 40 and over 50%, I don't find 77% between Ika and Owerri to be too large.

This is a mischievous comment.


.

Always looking for mischief and 'Igbophobia' where there is none. I was repeating statistics from a book by the linguist Professor Chinyere Ohiri-Aniche of the University of Lagos. Go to Lagos and tell her she wrote a mischievous book. Common sense should have told you that when 'Yoruba language' is mentioned without a dialect specified, what is meant is the Oyo-derived Standard Yoruba.

Cire80:
I don't believe in the Ika 77% to Igbo because it's just an estimation. How exactly is anyone able to arrive at an accurate percentage? Just like every other academic research work, the findings are never accurate. Another researcher will come out with a different result tomorrow and which one will you take as accurate? But going by your analogy, so if we decide to use the 80% benchmark, Ika is a language of it's own? Don't forget Ika has two words for most words and they are mostly Edoid and Igboid. The Edoid words are more ancient and fastly going extinct. But that doesn't mean they're no longer Ika words.

If you have been following my comments, you should have noticed that I do not want to take a stand on whether Ika is a dialect or a language. Whatever the speakers believe is okay with me. Here I was only presenting the view of the researcher who most other researchers in the field of Igboid studies show great deference to --- Professor Williamson. Different researchers have different opinions, and use different benchmarks. I am aware of that. My point is merely to demonstrate that Ekpeye has the largest linguistic distance from all the other lects in the continuum. That's all.

By the way given that the lexical similarity between Bini and Yoruba is somewhere between over 40 and over 50%, I don't find 77% between Ika and Owerri to be too large.

Afam4eva:
Why would you even say that? Can you in all honesty tell me why Ekpeye is not Igbo but Ika is? I think you're going to say mutual intelligibility. What about Ezza and Izzi? And don't you think intelligibility of Igbo dialects came about because there's now something we refer to as central Igbo which almost everyone has an idea of? I woder how pre 19th century Igboland was like.

Lexical similarity between Ekpeye and every other Igbo dialect is very low.

Izzi is still 81% similar to Owerri and 80% similar to Orlu. Ekpeye is only 62% similar to Owerri, and 68% similar to Orlu.

Ika is 77% similar to Owerri and 78% similar to Orlu.

These calculations were made by the linguist Kay Williamson (working with her student Chinyere Aniche.)

There is no dialect that has more than 60-something percent lexical similarity with Ekpeye. But the other dialects/languages in the Igbo continuum have over 70% lexical similarity with each other.

In linguistic circles, languages that have over 70% lexical similarity (some authors prefer to use 80% as benchmark) are more likely to be regarded as dialects of each other, and those with lexical similarity lower than 70% are likely to be different languages (even though they may still be related).

Using this method, most linguists regard Ekpeye as a different language though still within the Igboid family. I must say that, having seen an Ekpeye dictionary, the language is certainly far far far less intelligible to Igbo speakers than Izzi and Ezza.

lawani:
IT IS AN ACADEMIC ISSUE THAT HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED, IGBOS WERE ISOLATED, KNOWN ONLY TO THEIR IMMEDIATE NEIGHBORS UNTIL THE LATE 19TH CENTURY. THEY DID NOT LIKE LEAVING THEIR VILLAGES AT ALL IN THE PAST. THEY DEALT ONLY WITH THEIR IMMEDIATE HEIGHBORS AND NO ONE ELSE AND THOSE ONES HAD TO LEARN THEIR LANGUAGE TO BUY PALM OIL, YAMS AND ETC FROM THEM WHICH THEY PRODUCED IN EXCESS.

In essence you are saying Ikwerre and Ogba were buying yams and palm oil from Igbos, and that was how they became 'Igbonised'? When Ikwerre people have more fertile lands and produce more yams than their immediate Igbo neighbours in Imo State.

Why have you refused to stick to what you know for sure?

enemmo:
TTT said it today.He was gisting Bisola and Jon about the stage play,and he mentioned that Bassey was also in it,although he didn't call the name of the play.

From the first day Bassey entered the house, him and TTT said they had worked together before and know each other.

These people are just trying to come up with excuses to claim the show is rigged. Most of the HMs work in entertainment; I don't know why some people don't expect their paths to cross.

lawani:
The Ikwerre and Ogba wey you don change to Igbos never do you?.

Igbos changed Ikwerre and Ogba to Igbo? Wow. How did they manage that. Didn't you tell us Igbo people were isolated villagers who did not travel out of their villages and lived in isolation like the Koma people until the British discovered them?

How did they manage to Igbonise Ikwerre and Ogba?

igbodefender:
So, historical research and discourse has become bearing of false witness?! Ok, Oga continue. Why not challenge things you disagree with facts, instead of just trying to discourage discourse?

Tell us what part of what we said are lies. Osere is an Igbo priest in certain localities. Obi is an Igbo royal title. Igbo is a tribe. So, my friend, feel free to pick holes in what I just said - I doubt you will find any to pick.

Osere is not an Igbo word. Show me a single town in the southeast, apart from Oguta, that uses Osere to mean priest. Osere is derived from the Edo word for priest Ohen/Ohenren. That is why the only towns that use it are towns that have connections to Benin.

Show me just one single Igbo town, apart from the ones with Bini connections, that use Osere. Just one example is all I ask.

Dhugal:
Then knowing all Southeasterners don't speak same,you should also have known that majority Anambra communities understand,and some speak,nkei and nke e.
You are the one being ignorant here.
@Redbonesmith,some communities in Orumba and Aguata say ekwukwo for akwukwo.

I know the 'e' for 'a' thing exists in the SE too, because I have heard it from people in Nsukka, and Nkanu-Awgu area in Enugu State and even Abakiliki. In the context of the discussion (comparing Enuani and Ika) I didn't think it relevant to bring it in; that's why I failed to mention it.

Concerning 'nke i'... Well, I am still amused about gerg's stand, tbh. I really don't think he is speaking from an informed place. Perhaps he used nkei in a sentence and Igbo people around did not understand the whole sentence, and he made the assumption that nkei is unintelligible to Igbos. My last three years of secondary school as well as my University was in Enugu, and no one ever looked at me with confusion when I deleted 'g' and said 'i', instead of 'gi'. My Jamb tutor in Enugu, who was from Nimo spoke like that. Morocco Maduka the highlife musician speaks like that in his songs. The Catholic Igbo hymn Book they use in Enugu writes it like that, and that is how the church-goers sing it. Just recently my aunt's daughter was speaking with her classmate on the phone (it was on speakerphone), and the classmate kept saying 'papa i' and mama i' instead of papa gi and mama gi. After the call I asked my aunt's daughter where the classmate was from, and she said Mbaukwu, a town near Awka.

Concerning 'e' instead of 'ya', Nkanu people in Enugu State speak like that, and I don't get the impression that their neighbours don't understand it. Although they would typically say nke eye and not nke ee, they do delete the 'y' sometimes and say 'ee'. Anyone who remembers Chimaroke's jingles from back in the day will remember lines like : Uzo Agbani ya rur' ee (Uzo Agbani ya ruru ya - Agbani Road, he built it), Shi ahar' ee (Shi ahara ya -Let's leave it for him.)