Igbo Language Guide

Official language in
Nigeria
Script
Latin

Where it's spoken

Igbo is spoken by the Igbo people, who live mainly in southeastern Nigeria; a language-classification reference describes it as the de facto language of that region and rates it as not endangered. Nigeria's constitution provides that the business of the National Assembly is conducted in English, and in Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba once adequate arrangements have been made for their use there.

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Script & pronunciation

Igbo is written with the Latin alphabet. Standard spelling adds three vowels with a dot underneath — ị, ọ and ụ — which are distinct letters from i, o and u. Igbo also has grammatical tone: changes to a word's basic tone pattern often signal something about grammatical structure, and this is marked in careful writing with a grave accent for low tone and an acute accent for high tone. A long-standing observation about everyday Igbo spelling, however, is that such tone marks are often left out, along with marks for nasalization and aspiration. This app follows the same convention for most cards; the card for "egg" is one case where tone marks are kept on purpose, because the unmarked spelling is also the word for cloth, bed, or crying. This app's "romanization" field is not a scholarly phonetic transcription; it is a rough, English-spelling-based pronunciation guide with capital letters marking the stressed syllable, as in this app's Ị chọrọ akpa? ("Do you want a bag?"), given as "ee CHOH-roh AHK-pah."

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Grammar essentials

In example sentences from a mid-20th-century U.S. government-published Igbo course, the subject or actor comes first, followed by the verb and then the object or destination, as in A gara m Umuahia ("I went to Umuahia") and Acọrọ m iga ahia ("I want to go to market"). This app's cards follow the same order, though the position of a first- or second-person pronoun can vary: this app's grammar notes explain that the second person ị ("you") sits directly before the verb, while the first person m ("I") follows it, as in this app's Ị chọrọ akpa? ("Do you want a bag?") versus A chọrọ m ("I want"). The same course notes that in Igbo yes-or-no questions the pronoun prefix carries low tone. The dictionary, or citation, form of a verb carries a prefix that is a high front vowel, spelled i- or ị- depending on the vowel harmony of the verb root, as in this app's Ịga ("to go") and Ịbịa ("to come"). Verb roots also carry grammatical tone: the same course groups Igbo verbs into tone classes that shape how the pitch of the root changes across the different forms of a verb. Negation is formed by adding the suffix -ghị to the verb, as in this app's Adịghị m eri anụ ("I don't eat meat"). Some sentences instead have no expressed subject at all: an impersonal prefix (a- or e-) attaches to the verb, as in this app's A ga-emee ya echi ("It will be done tomorrow"), a pattern also seen in the course's own impersonal example, "one wants to go to market."

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Politeness & etiquette

Igbo greetings are often phrased as a question about the other person's state or actions rather than as a fixed set formula: in a mid-20th-century U.S. government-published Igbo course, "good morning" is literally "have you awakened?" and "how are you?" is literally "your health?", answered with "I'm fine"; its farewell literally means "go along then." This app's cards show the same pattern: its grammar notes describe Igbo greetings as direct, often confirming someone's presence or wellbeing, as in this app's Ọ bọọla, used as both a morning greeting and a welcome and literally meaning "you have come/arrived." Kinship terms are also used as polite forms of address for people who are not literally family: this app's card for asking a teacher a question addresses a male teacher as Nna nkuzi ("father teacher"), with female teachers addressed as Nne nkuzi ("mother teacher").

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