Igbo language

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Igbo (also known, less commonly, as Ibo; {} Ndi Igbo in Igbo) is a language spoken in Nigeria by about 18 million speakers (the Igbo), especially in the southeastern region once identified as Biafra. The language was used by John Goldsmith as an example to justify going away from the classical linear model of phonology as laid out in The Sound Pattern of English. It is written in the Roman script. Igbo words are spoken with varying tones and stresses, which are marked by accent marks.

Table of contents

1 Sounds 2 Writing system 3 See also 4 External link 5 References

Sounds

Igbo is a tonal language with two distinctive tones; high and low. In some cases a third, downstepped high tone is also recognized. The language features vowel harmony with two sets of vowels distinguished by pharyngeal cavity size and can also be described in terms of "advanced tongue root" (ATR).

In some dialects, such as Enu-Onitsha Igbo, the doubly articulated and are realized as a voiced/devoiced bilabial implosive. The approximant is realized as an alveolar tap between vowels as in árá.

Vowel phonemes of Standard Igbo

Consonant phonemes of Standard Igbo

	Bilabial		Labio- dental		Dental		Alveolar		Post- alveolar		Palatal		Velar		Labialized velar		Glottal		Labial- velar
Plosives	p	b			t	d							k	g	kw	gw			k͡p	g͡b
Nasals	m						n						ŋ		ŋw
Fricatives			f				s	z	ʃ					ɣ				ɦ
Affricates											ʧ	ʤ
Approximants									ɹ		j								w
Lateral approximant									l

Writing system

The most commonly-used orthography for Igbo is currently the Onwu (/oŋwu/) Alphabet. It is presented in the following table, with the International Phonetic Alphabet equivalents for the characters:

Igbo Alphabet (Onwu)	IPA		Igbo Alphabet (Onwu)	IPA
a	/a/
b	/b/		p	/p/
gb	~		kp	~
d	/d/		r
e	/e/		s	/s/
f	/f/		sh
g			t	/t/
gh			u	/u/
h	/h/
i	/i/		v	/v/
			w	/w/
j			y	/j/
k	/k/		z	/z/
l	/l/		ch
m	/m/ and		gw
n	/n/ and		kw
			nw
o	/o/		ny	/nj/

The graphemes and are described both as implosives and as coarticulated +/b/ and /k/+/p/, thus both values are included in the table.

and each represent two phonemes: a consonant and a vocalic nasal.

Tones are sometimes indicated in writing, and sometimes not. When tone is indicated, low tones are shown with a grave accent over the vowel, for example <à>, and high tones with an acute accent over the vowel, for example <á>.

See also

• Igbo (people)

External link

• Ethnologue report on the Igbo language
• Igbo Language Center

References

• Awde, Nicholas and Onyekachi Wambu. Igbo: Igbo-English/English-Igbo Dictionary and Phrasebook New York: Hippocrene Books, 1999.
• International Phonetic Association (1999) Handbook of the International Phonetic Association ISBN 0-521-63751-1

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