Written Igbo uses the Nkpụrụ Edemede Asụsụ Igbo, the Igbo alphabet. All three reference books consulted for this chapter count 36 letters: eight vowels and twenty-eight consonants. Nine of those letters are digraphs, pairs of letters that stand for one sound and are alphabetized as one unit.
The vowels are a, e, i, ị, o, ọ, u, ụ. The three letters with a dot below (ị, ọ, ụ) are not decorations: akwa and akwụ are different words. Okorochukwu (2020) lists the eight vowels and Obia (2020) gives an English sound-approximation for each, such as a as in “ark”, e as in “egg”, ụ as in “owl”.
The consonant letters are b, ch, d, f, g, gb, gh, gw, h, j, k, kp, kw, l, m, n, ṅ, nw, ny, p, r, s, sh, t, v, w, y and z. Two sounds are not found in English: gb and kp (Obia suggests saying b or p while shaping the mouth for g or k).
| Letters | Sound | Example |
|---|---|---|
| ch | as in “church” | chere! (wait!) |
| gb | implosive, no English equivalent | egbe (eagle, gun) |
| gh | voiced velar fricative | aghụghọ (deception) |
| gw | g with lip rounding | agwọ (snake) |
| kp | implosive, no English equivalent | akpa (bag) |
| kw | as in “queen” | akwụkwọ (book) |
| nw | n + w | anwụ (mosquito) |
| ny | palatal nasal | anya (eye) |
| sh | as in “shabby”; rare, mostly in loanwords and some dialects | shuga (sugar) |
The dotted letters have a history. A 1961 orthography (the “Onwu Orthography”) used dots; Echeruo’s dictionary adopts a later variant in which the dotted vowels are printed with umlauts (ï, ö, ü), ñ replaces ṅ and a single c replaces ch, so that every character can be typed on an ordinary machine. On this site we use the dotted forms common in schools and publishing today: ị, ọ, ụ, ṅ and ch.
Sources for this article
- Okorochukwu 2020, alphabet, digraphs and vowels, pp. 2–8
- Obia 2020, pronunciation guide, pp. 1–4
- Echeruo 2001, introduction, orthography (pp. vii–xvi) and letter entries