The modern Igbo alphabet (), otherwise known as the Igbo alphabet (), is the alphabet of the
Igbo language
Igbo ( , ; Standard Igbo: ''Ásụ̀sụ́ Ìgbò'' ) is the principal native language cluster of the Igbo people, an ethnicity in the Southeastern part of Nigeria.
Igbo languages are spoken by a total of 31 million people. The number of Igbo ...
, it is one of the three national
languages of Nigeria
There are over 520 native languages spoken in Nigeria. The official language is English, which was the language of Colonial Nigeria. The English-based creole ''Nigerian Pidgin'' – first used by the British and African slavers to facilitate t ...
. The modern Igbo alphabet is made up of 36 letters, which includes only a 24-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 u ...
minus Q and X, which are not part of Abidịị Igbo. C is not used other than in the digraph 'ch'. The alphabet uses the
dot above
When used as a diacritic mark, the term dot refers to the glyphs "combining dot above" (, and "combining dot below" (
which may be combined with some letters of the extended Latin alphabets in use in
a variety of languages. Similar marks are ...
on the letter
Ṅ
Ṅ (lowercase ṅ) is a letter of the Latin and Sanskrit 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 E ...
, and the
dot below
When used as a diacritic mark, the term dot refers to the glyphs "combining dot above" (, and "combining dot below" (
which may be combined with some letters of the extended Latin alphabets in use in
a variety of languages. Similar marks are ...
on
Ị,
Ọ 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 of Igbo.
A ''New Standard Orthography'' has been proposed for Igbo, and it was used, for example, in the 1998 ''Igbo English Dictionary'' by
Michael Echeruo, but it has not been otherwise widely adopted. In this orthography,
diaeresis replaces the dot below (ï ö ü).
Letters
The 36-letter alphabet is called ''Mkpụrụ Edemede'' or ''Abidịị,'' featuring 28 consonants (''mgbochiume'') and 8 vowels
(''ụdaume'').
See also
*
Igbo language
Igbo ( , ; Standard Igbo: ''Ásụ̀sụ́ Ìgbò'' ) is the principal native language cluster of the Igbo people, an ethnicity in the Southeastern part of Nigeria.
Igbo languages are spoken by a total of 31 million people. The number of Igbo ...
*
Igbo people
The Igbo people ( , ; also spelled Ibo" and historically also ''Iboe'', ''Ebo'', ''Eboe'',
/
/
''Eboans'', ''Heebo'';
natively ) are an ethnic group found in Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon, and Equatorial Guinea. Their primary origin is fo ...
*
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
*
Africa Alphabet
The Africa Alphabet (also International African Alphabet or IAI alphabet) is a set of letters designed as the basis for Latin alphabets for the languages of Africa. It was initially developed in 1928 by the International Institute of African Lan ...
*
African reference alphabet
The African Reference Alphabet is a largely defunct continent-wide guideline for the creation of Latin alphabets for African languages. Two variants of the initial proposal (one in English and a second in French) were made at a 1978 UNESCO-organi ...
References
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
Igbo language
Latin alphabets
Writing systems of Africa