The inland west clusters of Ikekeonwu’s Igbo dialects classification: A modification (original) (raw)

A CONTRASTIVE STUDY OF ONICHA AND CENTRAL IGBO VARIEITIES OF THE IGBO LANGUAGE Onumajuru, V C

Ce travail vise à comparer le parler d"Onicha et celui de l"igbo central de la langue igbo. L"igbo est une langue parlée dans le sud-est de Nigeria précisément dans les états d"Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu et Imo. C"est la seule langue du peuple igbo des états du sud-est. L"igbo est aussi une langue minoritaire de peuple de Delta, Rivers, et Edo dans la zone géo-politique du sud-sud. La langue (igbo) a plusieurs dialectes dont Nwadike (1981 :22) décrit comme massif. Quelques linguistes igbo regroupent les dialectes igbo à savoir : l"Onicha et l"Owere. L"objectif de cette recherche est de comparer et analyser l"aspect morpho-phonologique et syntaxiques des éléments des deux parlers afin de souligner leurs ressemblances et leurs différences. Nous observons qu"il existe des décalages dans les deux parlers. Ces variations sont attestées au niveau lexical aussi bien qu"au niveau morpho-syntaxique.

ASPECTS OF PHONOLOGY OF ÒKÈ-IGBÓ SPEECH FORM: A DESCRIPTIVE ACCOUNT

DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS, AFRICAN AND ASIAN STUDIES, FACULTY OF ARTS, UNIVERSITY OF LAGOS, 2018

This project examines the 'Aspects of Phonology of Òkè-Igbó Speech Form' of Yorùbá. It concentrates on phonological processes namely: deletion, assimilation, vowel coalescence, vowel co-occurrence, vowel harmony, epenthesis, nasalization, alternation, and tone. The motivation for this study is to know the status of Òkè-Igbó speech form, establishing the construction of Òkè-Igbó phonological processes and how they are organised.

Phonological patterning of words of Ogidi dialect and Standard Igbo

The Igbo language is multi-dialected. It comprises many varieties but among all, the standard Igbo has been universally accepted by the native speakers of the language to be used in education and for wider communication throughout the Igbo speaking areas of the nation. Many varieties of the Igbo language differ in sounds and sound patterning. This paper investigates the differences in the phonological patterning of lexical words in Ogidi variant of Igbo and standard Igbo using the Comparative Method as the theoretical framework, and the descriptive approach to data analysis. This phonological patterning would sometimes involve the alternation of the standard Igbo /s/, /r/ and /w/ with /ts/, /l/ and /b/respectively in the Ogidi variant. The paper tries to find out in what words such alternation occurs. Among other things, it discovers that the standard Igbo /s/ is not found in Ogidi-Igbo, and so, the dialect substitutes it with /ts/ which is found as the closestmatch phoneme for /s/ in Ogidi. For /r/ and /l/phonemes, they are observed to be in free variation in most words, though with few exceptions in words like ọ́ rị̀à 'sickness', rị́ọ́ 'beg/plea' and ụ̀ rị́ọ́ m̄'a sign made by hand in rejection of evil'. Then, the substitution of standard Igbo /w/ with /b/ in the Ogidi-Igbo occurs most times, but not entirely, mainly in words containing the inceptive extensional suffix -we/-wa 'start/begin to'.

A Lexicostatistics Comparison of Standard Yorùbá, Àkúrẹ́ and Ìkàrẹ́ Àkókó Dialects

Journal of Universal Language, 2019

This paper studied the differences and similarities in the lexicon of Standard Yoruba, Ìkàré ̣ Àkókó and Àkúré ̣ dialects. We examined the lexicostatistics comparison of the lexicons in Standard Yorùbá, Ìkàré ̣ Àkókó and Àkúré ̣ dialects. The paper aims at determining the level of mutual intelligibility in Standard Yorùbá, Ìkàré ̣ Àkókó and Àkúré ̣ speech forms. The objectives of this study were: (i) to find out the areas of similarities and differences of the lexical items of

On the vowels of Imilike Dialect of the Igbo language

UJAH: Unizik Journal of Arts and Humanities, 2015

Gerald Okechukwu Nweya Department of Linguistics and African Languages University of Ibadan, Nigeria Abstract This is a study of the vowels of Imilike dialect, a variety of Northern Igbo dialect. Its specific objectives include identifying the vowels of the dialect, determine their phonemic status, distributional pattern and phonotactic constraints and as well compare them with those displayed by the standard Igbo. Data for the study were collected using unstructured interview and observation. Data were analysed in the framework of generative phonology. Minimal pair test was conducted to identify the vowels of the dialect. The study reveals that the dialect displays eleven vowels including the open mid front unrounded vowel /ε/ and the central vowels, [ə] and [ə̣]. All except the central vowels are phonemic in the dialect. The central vowels are in free variation with other vowels in the dialect. All the vowels occur in word initial, word medial and word final positions except the c...

Segmental Phonology of Dagbani Dialects

2018

The paper discusses segmental phonology of Dagbani dialects-Tomosili, Nayahili and Nanunli, a Mabia language spoken in the northern part of Ghana. The paper is premised on the framework of Lexical phonology (LP) and argues that the application of phonological processes is conditioned by the morphological and phonological domains in which potential target sounds occur. It shows that the processes that lead to dialectal variation in Dagbani phonology are deletion, compounding, lengthening and shortening. It is observed that Dagbani dialects exhibit ordering of strata in their lexicon as [[[base] S1] S2] indicating that stratum 1(S1) suffixes are attached to the base while stratum 2 (S2) suffixes are attached to the form [[base] S1] as input. Based on the data available, it also examines how neutral suffixes have no phonological effect on the base to which they are attached while the non-neutral suffixes affect the segments of the base to which they are attached. It suggests that Great...

The taxonomy of Nigerian varieties of spoken English

International Journal of English and Literature, 2014

The dream of a Nigerian English dictionary has recently been actualized. The academic body of teachers and researchers known as NESA recently published a dictionary of the Nigerian English. The corpus of words and expressions in the dictionary represents the meaning and pronunciation of words as used by Nigerians.As a headlamp into the major and minor languages spoken by a vast population of Nigerians, this article seeks to stratify the varieties of Nigerian English on the basis of the popularity of the various ethnic groups which culminate in the variations that subsist in the accents of English available in Nigeria. As a result, in the first instance, a pyramid which classifies the over three hundred languages into three levels (in a pyramidal structure) is proposed. Secondly, coalesced phonemic inventories from all the varieties of Nigerian English are linguistically reconciled. From the methodology of the study to the findings, formal and informal interviews, perceptual and acoustic experiments carried out textually and inter-textually form the background of results which have been corroborated in the literatures of Nigerian English. This study is basically an appraisal of Nigerian English without any bias for the educated, uneducated, standard, or substandard varieties. Whereas, linguistic, educational and ethnic parameters have been used in describing Nigerian English, the multiethnic influences on Nigerian English, being spoken in Nigeria has given it an appealing status among the colony of Englishes around the world to researchers. Thus, Nigerian English should begin to assume a status whose taxonomy will aid its international identity.

Tone in Abankaleke Igbo: An Acoustic Analysis

2014

There have been speculations among scholars in the past on the reason for the perceptible difference in the tonal pattern of the Abankeleke Igbo. Prominent among these is that there is a feature of the upstep tone in this dialect group especially in Izii and Ezaa dialects that is absent in most other Igbo dialects. This paper therefore sets out to investigate the truth or otherwise of this claim in Izii and Ezaa dialects by analyzing the tone levels operational in these dialects and in the Standard Igbo and to compare them with those of the Standard Igbo. The data are collected through personal interview. Three respondents are randomly selected; one for Izii, Ezaa and Standard Igbo respectively. An adapted version of the Ibadan wordlist of 400 Basic Items was used and the data were recorded electronically. The data were transcribed and analyzed electronically using the Speech Tools Analyzer version 3, 0.1 (1996-2007) and the Phonology Assistant version 2.2 (1995-2005) software packa...

Nasalization, aspiration and labialization in Igbo dialect phonology

Descriptive works on Igbo have been based mainly on the standard variety of the language. This variety has twenty-eight contrastive consonants (excluding nasalization, aspiration and labialization, which play phonemic roles in some other dialects of the language.) As a result of this circumstance, Igbo has generally been reported as a twenty-eight-consonant language, both by scholars and language policy makers. However, subsequent work on such dialects as Osuowere, Umuchu, Isukwuato and Aku has revealed about fifty to ninety-six underlying consonants. With the examination of these dialects and more, the number of Igbo consonants, both phonetic and phonemic, is undoubtedly greater than generally recognized.