In colonial schools, Igbo was treated as a “vernacular” and sometimes punished. In 1949, at only 22, Frederick Chidozie Ogbalu founded the Society for Promoting Igbo Language and Culture (SPILC).
Written Igbo was then fragmented between competing dialects, such as those of Isuama and Onitsha used by early missionaries including Bishop Ajayi Crowther and Archdeacon Dennis. SPILC worked towards a unified orthography, Igbo Izugbe (Standard Igbo). Ogbalu even created his own printing press to publish dictionaries, grammars and collections of oral literature. Igbo Izugbe is today the reference form in education, literature and media.