The modern Igbo alphabet (
Igbo: ''Mkpụrụ Edemede Igbo''), otherwise known as the Igbo alphabet (
Igbo: ''Mkpụrụ Edemede'' ''Igbo''), is the alphabet of the
Igbo language
Igbo ( , ; Igbo: ''Ásụ̀sụ́ Ìgbò'' ) is the principal native language cluster of the Igbo people, a meta-ethnicity from Southeastern Nigeria.
The number of Igboid languages depends on how one classifies a language versus a dialect, ...
, it is one of the three national
languages of Nigeria
There are over 525 native languages spoken in Nigeria. The Nigerian official language is English, the language of former colonial British Nigeria. As reported in 2003, Nigerian Pidgin was spoken as a second language by 60 million people in Nige ...
. The modern Igbo alphabet is made up of 36 letters, which includes only a 23-letter set of the
ISO basic Latin alphabet
The ISO basic Latin alphabet is an international standard (beginning with ISO/IEC 646) for a Latin-script alphabet that consists of two sets (uppercase and lowercase) of 26 letters, codified in various national and international standards and ...
minus C, Q, and X, which are not part of Abidịị Igbo. The alphabet uses the
dot above
When used as a diacritic mark, the term dot is usually reserved for the ''interpunct'' ( · ), or to the glyphs "combining dot above" ( ◌̇ ) and "combining dot below" ( ◌̣ )
which may be combined with some Letter (alphab ...
on the letter
Ṅ
Ṅ (lowercase ṅ) is a letter of the Latin alphabet, formed by N with the addition of a dot above.
The letter is used in Venda and Emilian-Romagnol for the voiced velar nasal (IPA: ), corresponding to the pronunciation of the English digr ...
, and the
dot below
When used as a diacritic mark, the term dot is usually reserved for the ''interpunct'' ( · ), or to the glyphs "combining dot above" ( ◌̇ ) and "combining dot below" ( ◌̣ )
which may be combined with some letters of th ...
on
Ị,
Ọ
When used as a diacritic mark, the term dot is usually reserved for the ''interpunct'' ( · ), or to the glyphs "combining dot above" ( ◌̇ ) and "combining dot below" ( ◌̣ )
which may be combined with some letters of th ...
and
Ụ.
There are numerous
Igbo dialects, some of which are not mutually intelligible. The standard written form of Igbo is based on the Owerri and Umuahia dialects.
A ''New Standard Orthography'' has been proposed for Igbo, and it was used, for example, in the 1998 ''Igbo English Dictionary'' by
Michael Echeruo
Michael Joseph Chukwudalu Echeruo (born March 14, 1937) is a Nigerian academic, professor and literary critic from Umunumo, Ehime-Mbano LGA, Imo State. He is the William Safire Professor of Modern Letters in the English Department at Syracuse Unive ...
, but it has not been otherwise widely adopted. In this orthography,
diaeresis replaces the dot below (ï ö ü), and the ch digraph is not used.
Letters
The 36-letter alphabet is called ''Mkpụrụ Edemede'' or ''Abidịị,'' featuring 28 consonants (''mgbochiume'') and 8 vowels
(''ụdaume'').
See also
*
Igbo language
Igbo ( , ; Igbo: ''Ásụ̀sụ́ Ìgbò'' ) is the principal native language cluster of the Igbo people, a meta-ethnicity from Southeastern Nigeria.
The number of Igboid languages depends on how one classifies a language versus a dialect, ...
*
Igbo people
The Igbo people ( , ; also spelled Ibo" and formerly also ''Iboe'', ''Ebo'', ''Eboe'',
*
*
* ''Eboans'', ''Heebo'';
natively ) are an ethnic group in Nigeria. They are primarily found in Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo States. A ...
*
Pan-Nigerian alphabet
The Pan-Nigerian alphabet is a set of 33 Latin letters standardised by the National Language Centre of Nigeria in the 1980s. It is intended to be sufficient to write all the languages of Nigeria without using digraphs.
History
Several hundred ...
*
Nwagu Aneke script
The Nwagu Aneke script is a syllabary and some logographs that was developed by Nwagu Aneke for the Umuleri dialect of Igbo in the late 1950s. Aneke, a successful land owner and diviner, claimed to have had no prior reading or writing skills, ...
*
Africa Alphabet
The Africa Alphabet (also International African Alphabet or IAI alphabet) was developed by the International Institute of African Languages and Cultures in 1928, with the help of some Africans led by Diedrich Hermann Westermann, who served as di ...
*
African reference alphabet
An African reference alphabet was first proposed in 1978 by a UNESCO-organized conference held in Niamey, Niger, and the proposed alphabet was revised in 1982. The conference recommended the use of single letters for a sound (that is, a phoneme) ...
References
{{reflist
External links
*https://www.omniglot.com/writing/igbo.htm
*https://ezinaulo.com/igbo-lessons/pronunciation/igbo-alphabet/
*https://www.britannica.com/topic/Igbo
Igbo language Orthography and spelling
Igbo language
Latin alphabets
Writing systems of Africa