THE IGBO PEOPLE AND THEIR LANGUAGE
1.1 The Igbo People
1.2.2 The Evolution of Standard Igbo
The first attempts at creating an Igbo literary standard started with the arrival of Christian missionaries in Igboland in the mid-19th century. Since then, several standard dialects have been introduced with varying levels of success. The first was Isuama Igbo (1851-1900), based on the dialect of Igbo spoken in Freetown among recaptive slaves of Igbo descent.
These recaptive slaves spoke different dialects of Igbo, thus making the Isuama dialect a mixed dialect. The missionaries that came to Igboland studied this variety of Igbo and also used it in their writings and translations. It is the dialect in which J. C. Taylor did his translations of the Bible, i.e., the Isuama Igbo Bible. However, the inability of the missionaries to locate the part of Igboland where Isuama was spoken made them to discontinue using it and to opt for using dialects they heard on the ground, like the dialects of Onitsha and Bonny. Thus, the first complete and published9 New Testament (NT) in Igbo was translated into the Onitsha or Niger dialect. Incidentally, before more substantial work could be written in these live dialects, Archdeacon T. J. Dennis suggested that a pan-Igbo dialect be created, one that could be understood in every part of Igboland. Consequently, Union Igbo (1905-1939) was created by joining features of five non-contiguous dialects of Igbo. This became the written standard dialect into which most writings in Igbo were done at the time. Owing to the artificial nature of Union Igbo, the fact that it is not spoken anywhere and only exists in the Union IBTs and a few other texts, Union Igbo died after the death of T. D. Anyaegbunam and T. J. Dennis, the two main Christian agents involved in its
9 Chapter 3 presents that J. C. Taylor had completed the translation of the NT in Isuama Igbo, but this translation was never published because of the disagreements between Taylor and J. F. Schön who was the leading “expert” in Igbo language studies at the time.
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creation. Section 3.1.1 presents an in-depth history of the Isuama and the Union Igbo dialects, the agents involved in their creation and usage as well as the impact of their use in the IBTs.
The failure of Union Igbo to evolve into an Igbo literary standard and the growing need at the time for a standard form of the language to use in writing made creating an Igbo literary standard a necessity. Two factors, however, militated against creating this standard, namely, the multiplicity of Igbo dialects and the unsettled orthography question.
Thus, in 1939, Ida Ward was commissioned by the colonial government to embark on a research tour of Igboland aimed at examining
a number of Ibo dialects from the point of view of sound usages and constructions in order to find out if there is a dialect which could be used as a literary medium for African [Igbo] writers and for school publications, which could be acceptable over a considerable area of the Ibo country and which might form the basis of a growing “standard” Ibo; further to investigate in what areas this dialect would be easily understood; and finally to collect as much comparative dialect material as possible. (Ward 1941: 7)
To achieve this, Ward (1941) focuses on the Igbo dialects spoken in the old Owerri and Onitsha provinces, the major dialects known at the time to the missionaries and colonialists. Ward (1941) restricts her study to phonology and syntax and ignores lexical issues for time constraints. She observes that the differences between the dialects of the provinces studied are more at the lexical level than at the phonological and grammatical levels. However, she emphasizes that a speaker “readily makes adjustments in the sound system” (Ward 1941: 8). Consequently, she submits that “once the sound systems and variations in constructions are codified, the collection of vocabulary and vocabulary variants – an important and much-needed peeve of work – is straightforward” (Ward 1941:
8).
From her findings, Ward (1941) recommends that the dialect of Igbo that is suitable for standardization and use in writing is that of the old Owerri province, which she calls “the
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central area of Ibo country” (Ward 1941: 11), hence the term “Central Igbo”10. She believes Central Igbo is spoken in more parts of Igboland than the Onitsha dialect:
The so-called “Owerri type”, in some form or other, must have many more speakers than the Onitsha dialect. Some of the Northern dialects including Nsukka, Eke, Udi, as well as a number of what may be called borderline dialects (which are mainly in the Onitsha province) show more affinity with the central Ibo type than with the Onitsha dialect. (Ward 1941: 11)
In addition to the geographical spread of Central Igbo, Ward (1941: 12) elaborates on other features of this dialect that make it the best choice for standardization:
The suggested Central dialect is as near as can be a consistent whole; it is a spoken, living language with nothing artificial about it. In the Central area the language spoken now is this recognized type; in contiguous areas the differences are slight, and each dialect differs from the suggested “standard”
in certain particulars only. All have something in common in every branch of the language, in pronunciation, constructions and vocabulary.
From Ward’s (1941) recommendation, Central Igbo became the standard dialect for writing in Igbo. According to Green (1972), Central Igbo has been
accepted by writers and publishers and by education authorities for use in schools…In addition to books, Central Igbo has been used from the beginning by the University of London in the O’Level Igbo paper for the General Certificate of Education. The training course in Igbo for the Colonial Cadets after the second world war was also carried out in Central Igbo. (Quoted in Emenanjo 1975: 116)
The Igbo Living Bible and the New Testament of the IRE are said to be translated into Central Igbo.
10 Ward’s (1941) choice of the term “Central Ibo” as against “Owerri Ibo” was informed by her belief that the labels Owerri Ibo and Onitsha Ibo “imply that the dialects are more or less co-terminous with the political divisions of the Owerri and Onitsha provinces” (p. 11), which was not the case.
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Prior to Green’s (1972) sanguine report on Central Igbo, there were some dissenting voices to its adoption. An article in the West African Pilot of July 10, 1944 attacked the recognition given to Central Igbo, said to be a dialect “made up by a foreign student” (Nwadike 1983:
16). Three conferences attended by top Igbo scholars and government officials were held the same year (1944) at Umuahia, Onitsha and Enugu to decide whether to adopt it or not, and all three conferences agreed that Central Igbo be adopted as the standard Igbo dialect.
This adoption, however, did not preclude writing in other dialects. As Nwadike (1983: 16-17) reports, at the Enugu conference,
[i]t was, however, made clear that the use of the central dialect would apply only to such literature as would be produced in connection with any scheme which was supported by the government, and that it would be open to anybody to produce literature in any dialect of the Igbo language which he deemed fit to use, and that no school would be penalized for using stocks of literature in whatever dialect or orthography, while stocks of literature in the Central dialect, using the phonetic orthography11, were not available.
In sum, Central Igbo was officially adopted by the government and Igbo scholars as the standard to be used in writing.
Despite this apparent acceptance of Central Igbo, Emenanjo (1975: 114) reports that his survey of the use of the term “Central Igbo” reveals that the identity of the dialect is fuzzy:
One solid impression which I have got from all my tours, discussions and respondents is that most users of the term “Central Igbo” are agreed on one thing only – that the acceptable Central Igbo is anything that is NOT Onitsha Igbo. Outside this most people who use the term do not seem either to agree or to know in concrete terms what Central Igbo is.
He attributes this confusion to the fact that “Central Igbo is an abstraction” and so “people tend to find it difficult to define precisely or to speak fluently or consistently, especially for Igbo people who are from outside the old Owerri province” (Emenanjo 1975: 118). The
11 This period also coincided with the orthography controversy period discussed in detail in Chapter 3.
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point here is that the advocates of Central Igbo seem, on the one hand, to be unclear about the exact dialect that constitutes Central Igbo or, on the other hand, to shy away from categorically stating that it refers to the dialect spoken in the old Owerri province, apparently for political reasons. Emenanjo (1975: 122) insists that discussing the prospects of an Igbo literary standard in relation to the Owerri and Onitsha dialects is a “gross simplification of the dialect situation in Igboland”, after all, “Owerri and Onitsha are only two of the many dialects of Igbo”. He further highlights two shortcomings in the use of Central Igbo. One, most of the available writings in Central Igbo were done by people from the old Owerri province. Two, the Protestants patronize the dialect more than others do. In other words, “Central Igbo does not have a pan-Igbo acceptance” as many Igbo do not seem to be willing to use it (Emenanjo 1975: 126). As a solution to the relative apathy towards Central Igbo, Emenanjo (1975) introduces what he tentatively called “Modern Igbo”.
Incidentally, this later became the accepted Standard Igbo.
Modern Igbo, according to Emenanjo (1975: 127), is “the dialect of the urban area […] the dialect which most of us, especially the educated ones, slip into when they [sic] talk with others from different parts of Igboland. It is the dialect of towns rather than the villages”.
He adds that this variety of Igbo is “aimed at and used in public places, public notices, popular music, records and advertisements […] It is the Igbo used in meetings with a pan-Igbo audience, church services, prayers, church bulletins and sermons especially in townships”. Furthermore, Emenanjo (1987: xxi) emphasizes that Modern Igbo is not based on any one dialect of Igbo, and that it is eclectic in its choice of forms. The import of this is that although some writers favour Central Igbo, the standard recommended by Ward (1941), this standard did not have a pan-Igbo structure as its lexicon is from the dialects of the old Owerri province and it is spoken and used mainly by people from the old Owerri province. However, a pan-Igbo dialect naturally evolved from the spoken Igbo of the urban areas. Hence Emenanjo (1975) recommends that this pan-Igbo variety be explored and used instead as the Igbo literary standard. This recommendation was obviously heeded and Modern Igbo was studied and elaborated to serve as the Igbo literary standard.
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Consequently, two decades later, Emenanjo (1995) reports the existence of two varieties of Standard Igbo: a spoken variety and a written one. What is presented in the preceding paragraph is largely the spoken variety. On the written variety, he states that
Standard Igbo is a neo-language […] Its spirit is that of Central Igbo, its body that of all Igbo dialects. Much of its inflectional and derivational morphology is that of Central Igbo; its lexicon is patently pan-Igbo. Because it is written, then study has to precede it. Not everybody can write it. Only those who have had exposure to it through some form of study are competent to write it.
Eclectism and spontaneity, the features that make the spoken SI [Standard Igbo] picturesque, unique and, sometimes amorphous, are edited out in the written (and published) tradition. (Emenanjo 1995: 219)
In other words, Standard Igbo did not completely disregard Central Igbo. Rather, it adopted some of the features of Central Igbo like its inflectional and derivational morphology.
However, unlike Central Igbo whose lexicon is derived from one specific dialect area, Standard Igbo got its lexicon from all the dialects of Igbo. The written standard, being a product of conscious language planning efforts, also gives some stability to usages and forms that were absent in Central Igbo and in the spoken Standard Igbo. Emenanjo (1995:
220) emphasizes this point thus:
more than ALL Igbo dialects, Standard Igbo is a neo-dialect with metalanguage. It is informed by historical hindsight and foresight. It is watered, propagated and perpetuated by all the canons of language engineering seen in verifiable and quantifiable features like graphization, codification, modernization, standardization (including decimal numeration, with all the place values), corpus development and metalanguage for the sciences, technology, legislative usage, education, language and literature.
The point here is that Standard Igbo learnt from the mistakes of the earlier standards – Isuama, Union, and Central Igbo. Isuama and Central standards were based on specific dialects which made them regional, and Union Igbo was not a living dialect which made it
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artificial. Standard Igbo gets its lexicon from all the dialects of Igbo and thus gives speakers of Igbo, irrespective of their dialects, a sense of belonging and pride.
Two points need to be made regarding the emergence of Standard Igbo. First, it is a product of the functional elaboration of Igbo resulting from the policy statements of the Federal Government of Nigeria. Second, it is a product of the lexical and semantic elaboration engineered by the Society for Promoting Igbo Language and Culture. These points need expatiation.
Following the Nigeria/Biafra 30-month civil war of 1967-1970, the Nigerian government devised means of promoting peace among the different ethnic nations, one of which was linguistic. Thus in 1977, the Nigerian military government introduced a linguistic element in the National Policy on Education (NPE). The parts of the NPE that contain linguistic statements include:
Government appreciates the importance of language as a means of promoting social interaction and national cohesion; and preserving cultures. Thus every child shall learn the language of the immediate environment. Furthermore in the interest of national unity, it is expedient that every child shall be required to learn one of the three Nigerian languages, Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba. (NPE 2004: para. 10a) Thus, the government required that Igbo be learnt not only by native Igbo people, but also by speakers of other Nigerian languages. The NPE also states that, for Early Childhood/Pre-Primary Education,
Government shall ensure that the medium of instruction is principally the mother tongue or the language of the immediate community; and to this end will
i. develop the orthography of many more Nigerian languages, and
ii. produce textbooks in Nigerian languages (NPE 2004: para.
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Furthermore, the NPE holds that
The medium of instruction in the primary school shall be the language of the environment for the first three years. During this period, English will be taught as a subject. (NPE 2004: para. 19e)
In addition to these statements in the NPE, Section 55 of the 1979 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (CFRN) stipulates that:
The business of the National Assembly shall be conducted in English, and in Hausa, Ibo and Yoruba when adequate arrangements have been made therefore.
For the State Assemblies, Section 97 of the CFRN states that
The business of a House of Assembly shall be conducted in English, but the House may in addition to English conduct the business of the House in one or more other languages spoken in the State as the House may by resolution approve.
These policy statements made it necessary and urgent to produce texts in Igbo for use in education and in the national and state assemblies.
The task of elaborating the forms of Standard Igbo became the prerogative of the Society for Promoting Igbo Language and Culture (SPILC), described by Emenanjo (1989: 222) as
“a elitist grassroots’ cultural association with a very wide membership including non-Igbo people”. However, the language engineering aspect of SPILC’s activities was handled by a specialist standing committee – the Igbo Standardization Committee (ISC), whose membership included
lecturers of Igbo in the various institutions of higher learning, authors, publishers, broadcasters, teachers of Igbo in the secondary schools and
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teacher training institutions, and representatives of the Ministry of Education and Information, State Schools Management Boards, and the mass media.
(Ogbalu 1982: 98)
The cooperation between the government and the SPILC resulted in several linguistic projects that facilitated the enrichment of the vocabulary of Standard Igbo:
The Federal Government through two of its agencies charged with language matters: the “National Language Centre” (NLC), and the “Nigerian Education Research Council” (NERC) have made substantial contributions to lexical modernization of Igbo through the following projects: The Primary Science Terminology Project (NLC 1979-1986); the Legislative Terminology Project (NLC 1980-1984); the Metalanguage Project (NERC 1981-1984); the Curricular Projects for Nigerian Languages in the Primary School, (NERC 1982-1984) and Teachers Training College (NERC 1975-1976; 1986);
Curricular for Junior and Senior Secondary Schools (NERC 1982-1985); the Harmonized Advanced Teachers College of Education Curricula (NLC 1978);
the WAZOBIA Project (NLC 1982). Between them all these projects have brought in not fewer than 20,000 words to the modern lexicon of Standard Igbo. (Emenanjo 1989: 222)
The different methods adopted in creating these new terms and enlarging the vocabulary of Standard Igbo are discussed in Section 2.5.2 below. Table 1.1 from Emenanjo (2015: 14-15) presents some landmarks in the evolution and development of Igbo.
Table 1. 1. Landmarks in the evolution and development of the Igbo language (after Emenanjo 2015)
Pre-Literate
6000 BC Split-up of Kwa and birth of Igbo Evolution of Igbo dialects
Beginning of Oral Standard Igbo
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The arrival of the missionaries The Isuama period
circa 1700 – The slave trade and birth of Isuama 1766-7 The first Igbo wordlist
1789-90 Equiano: Gustavus Vassa has 79 Igbo words transcribed
1834 - Taylor and Crowther produced A Primer in Agbaja (Udi) dialect
1841 - Igbo first reduced to writing in the Roman script 1852 - Flirtation of missionaries with Isuama
- Schön’s orthography 1861 - Schön’s Oku Ibo
1882 - 1st dictionary of Missionaries based on Isuama by Crowther
1885 - Death of Isuama
1899 - Ganot’s Grammaire Igbo
Iconoclasm byforeign missionaries The Union Igbo Period
Translation into Bonny and Onitsha
1900 - Spencer’s Grammar; 2 reading books and the translation of Genesis
1904 - Ganot’s Dictionary. Azụ Ndụ
1905 - Archdeacon Dennis arrives Egbu. Beginning of Union Igbo
1906 - Bible translated into Onitsha by H. H. Robinson and T. J.
Dennis
1911 - Abrogation of Nri Hegemony
1914 - Norcote Thomas: Anthropological Reports…
1923 - Publication of Dennis’ Dictionary, and Union Bible 1924 - Iwekauno, R. I. Akụkọ Ala Obosi
1927 - Revision of Crowther’s Primer
32 The period of radicalization of Igbo culture by SPILC The “controversy”/ the Central” Igbo period
1929 - Ward and Adams enter Igbo Linguistics - Professor Westermann’s visit to Nigeria
Government of Eastern Nigeria appoints him to revise Igbo orthography. Acceptance of “New” or “African”
orthography in parts of Nigeria
1930 - Decision on Government Translation Bureau (x) 1932 - Adam’s Grammar
1933 - Omenuko – the first Igbo novel - Ida Ward’s visit to Ibo Country 1936 - Ward’s Grammar
1941 - Ward’s Ibo dialects and the Development of a Common Language
1942 - Igbo first taken at the Cambridge School Certificate at DMGS12, Onitsha
1948 - Dureke – Ịla Ọsọ Uzuakọlị
1949 - Birth of the Society for Promoting Igbo Language and Culture (SPILC)
1949 - Translation Bureau set up at Umuahia 1961 - Ọnwụ orthography approved
1966-70 The Civil War. Though few texts produced, oral Standard Igbo was stretched
1966-70 The Civil War. Though few texts produced, oral Standard Igbo was stretched