Dialects, Igbo Izugbe and the word “Igbo”

Igbo is a family of closely related dialects. Echeruo mentions older classifications (Plains, Osimili, Savannah, Omambala, Central, Delta and others) and the informal names people use: Ahoada, Bende, Ika, Ikwerre, Izzi, Mbaise, Nsukka, Obowo, Ohuhu, Onitsha and Owerri. His practical choice is to group them into two major zones, Owerri and Onitsha. Speakers of different zones understand each other less easily, but “the basic elements of the language remain constant”. Echeruo notes that dialect boundaries for sound and for vocabulary do not always coincide.

The two zones really do use different words. Echeruo’s example: “eat something” is rie ihe in Owerri and lie ire in Onitsha, and the forms cannot be swapped. “Think” is cee in Owerri and loo in Onitsha; “earth” is ala or ana, ani; “food” is nri or nni.

Standard written Igbo, Igbo Izugbe, was drawn up by the SPILC committee from a generalized Owerri–Umuahia Igbo and a generalized Onitsha Igbo. Echeruo thinks that this is sensible for sentence structure but “an impoverishing development when applied to the lexicon”, because it can erase dialect words; he argues that creative and academic writers should stay faithful to their own dialect.

igbo

In Echeruo’s dictionary this lower-case noun means “upland; poor farmland far from the waterside” and could be used by some riverine communities as a mildly derogatory name for other Igbo.

Igbo

The ethnic group and its language (ndị Igbo, the Igbo people; sụọ Igbo, speak Igbo).

Ibo

An older and, in the dictionary’s words, “inaccurate” spelling of Igbo, still found in colonial sources.