Izi language

Last updated
Izi
Izii
Native to Nigeria
Region Ebonyi State
Native speakers
540,000 (2012) [1]
Niger–Congo?
  • Atlantic–Congo
    • Volta–Niger
      • yeai
        • Igboid
          • Nuclear Igboid
            • Izi–Ezaa–Ikwo–Mgbo
              • Izi
Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3 izz
Glottolog izii1239
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Izi (Izii, Izzi) is an Igboid language spoken in Ebonyi state in Nigeria. [2] It forms a dialect cluster with the closely related languages Ikwo, Ezza, and Mgbo.

Contents

Demographics

Speakers of the Izi language are spread over a large area. Belonging to a larger group of people called the Igbo, the Izi distinguish themselves from their neighbors and have divided themselves into many clans. Izi speakers are found east of Abakaliki, the capital of the Ebonyi State and extend as far as the Anambra and Imo State boundaries. [2] Longitudinally, Izi speakers extend from the Plateau State to approximately 12 miles north of the Cross River, which runs through the appropriately named Cross River State. [2]

The maps on this page highlight the area where Izi speakers live, showing both the country of Nigeria within the African Continent and the divisions within Nigeria. Izi’s parent group, the Igbo, reside in Southeast Nigeria. The area where the Igbo live has been termed “Igboland.” Though this area is divided by the Niger River, cultural unity is maintained by the Igbo people, as the river provides a convenient means of communication.

History

Research on the origins of the Igbo is limited, but a leading hypothesis is that many different communities immigrated in waves from the West and North to the borders of the central area of Igboland. [3] These waves of immigration may have begun as early as the 9th century. From that central area, migration in the more recent past has occurred in all directions, which has led to a homogeneous Igbo culture.

The Portuguese arrived in Igboland in the mid-15th century, and from 1434 to 1807, contact points between European and African traders were established along the Nigerian coast. After slavery was abolished in 1807, the British became aggressive in its practices of industrial trade and imperialism. The British eventually conquered Igboland, and Igbo culture was compromised by British imperialism. [3]

Igbo orthography

Igbo Alphabet IgboAlphabet.JPG
Igbo Alphabet

Before the 16th century, the Igbo had a pictogram form of writing called “Nsibidi”. [4] That form died out, most likely because many of its users were members of secret societies and did not want it to be public. In 1854, A German philologist named Karl Richard Lepsius made a “Standard Alphabet”, meant for all the languages of the world. In 1882, Britain enacted an educational ordinance to direct the teaching of reading and writing only in English which temporarily inhibited the development of Igbo along with other languages of West Africa.

Controversy over Igbo orthography began in 1927, when the International Institute of African Languages and Cultures (IIALC) published a pamphlet, "Practical Orthography of African Languages". Consonants /gw/, /kw/, and /nw/ were added to represent Igbo sounds. The pamphlet used some symbols from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), which began a controversy with the missionary society who had used Lepsius's writing for almost 70 years.

In 1929, the Colonial Government Board of Education tried to replace Lepsius with the IIALC’s orthography. The government, along with Roman Catholic and Methodist missionaries, accepted and adopted the new orthography; however, other Protestant missionaries opposed it. A standard alphabet based on a central dialect was proposed in 1944 by Dr. Ida Ward, but the controversy continued, and a resolution was made to use the new alphabet only for government literature.

A standard form was agreed upon by 1962 and is still in use today. In 1972, a standardization committee met to expand the Igbo language, borrowing words from various dialects other than the central one, the idea for a Standard Igbo being meant to be spoken and understood by all Igbo speakers.

Between 1973 and 1976, the standardization committee’s recommendations for Igbo spelling were approved, and new suggestions for the rearrangement of the Igbo alphabet were taken into consideration. The standard Igbo orthography that is currently in use is based on the dialects of Owerri and Umuahia. [4] The alphabet is shown below along with the IPA transcriptions.

Vocabulary

Comparing Izi, Ezaa, and Ikwo reveals that these dialects share about 95% of their vocabulary. [2] However, comparisons with the Central Igbo language showed only an 80% consistency in lexical items. Since Izi, Ezaa, and Ikwo are mutually intelligible with each other but not with Central Igbo, they are classified as one language separate from the Central Igbo language. However, some of the words in Izi are cognates of Central Igbo. [2]

Phonology

Consonants

Izi contains 26 consonant phonemes classified under six manners of articulation and five places of articulation which are shown in the chart below. Consonants are also distinguished by voicing. Both voiced and voiceless stops occur in labial, alveolar, velar, and labio-velar places of articulation. There are also corresponding nasals for each of these places of articulation. Fricatives are always labials, alveolars, and velars; affricates are always labials and alveolars. Izi has both a lateral and non-lateral liquid, but some speakers replace the non-lateral with the lateral liquid.

Table 1. Consonant Inventory [2]
LabialAlveolarPalatalVelarLabio-velar
Nasalsmnŋŋm
StopsVlptkkp
Vdbdɡɡb
AffricatesVlpfts
Vdbvdz
FricativesVlɸ ~ fsx
Vdβ ~ vzɣ
LiquidsLaterall
Centralɹ
Semivowelsjw

Vowels

Izi has an average vowel inventory. There are nine vowel phonemes in Izi, including the canonical vowels and two more front vowels and two more back vowels. Below is a table of the vowels divided by their places of articulation in the oral cavity as well as the position of the root of the tongue:

Table 2. Vowel Inventory: [2]
(Position of tongue root)FrontCentralBack
HighAdvancediu
Retractedɪʊ
MidAdvancedeo
Retractedɛɔ
Lowa


Syntagmatic features

Syntagmatic features are related to the syntactic relationship between morphological or phonological units. In Izi, every syllable is marked with one or more features of pitch and quality. The three features of quality in Izi are palatalization, labialization, and neutral. They are regarded as syllable features for several reasons but most importantly since they cause contrast between syllables rather than between individual phonemes. [2]

Palatalization is phonetically realized as strong palatal friction or as slight vowel fronting in the syllable and occurs if a syllable margin is a palatal /j/ and sometimes when the margin is an alveolar consonant (with the exception of liquids) or bilabial stops. For example, /jɔ̀/ 'to shake a rattle' and /àpjà/, 'a bird' are marked by the palatalization feature because they contain a syllable with a /j/ margin. [2]

The labialization feature is phonetically realized by the semivowel /w/ between a consonant margin and a vowel nucleus, as in /ákwɔ̀/ 'razor'. It can also occur when the syllable margin is a velar stop, nasal or liquid. The contrast in meaning is exemplified by comparing it to the word /ákɔ̀/ 'story'. Lip rounding occurs throughout the entire syllable of /ákwɔ̀/, which differentiates it from /ákɔ̀/.

The neutral feature is simply the absence of the other two features of quality. There are no consonant margin restrictions other than the absence of /w/ and /j/ margins found in syllables marked by the labialization and palatalization features. An example of a neutral syllable is /únú/ 'salt'. [2]

Syllable structure

There are two distinguished types of syllable structures in Izi: CVN, whose the consonant onset and nasal coda are optional, and N, which consists of a syllabic nasal. Thus, the five possible combinations are V, CV, VN, CVN, N (V is a vowel, C a consonant, and N, a syllabic nasal. There are a few syllable restrictions in Izi:

Tone system

Izi, like many Niger–Congo languages, has a two-tone system, a high tone and a low tone. Low tone has two variations: raising low tone (L) and non-raising low tone (^L). High tone has only raised high (R). The tone system also has three features: downstep (!), upstep (^) and latent low (‘ placed before the word). Rules for the operation of the tonal variations are as follows:

Tone can often change meaning. /eka/, pronounced with a high tone followed by a high tone, means 'hand'. However, with two low tones, it means 'worm'. It changes again to mean 'notch mark' when it is pronounced with a high tone followed by a low tone. Finally is a fourth meaning when the high tone follows the low tone, 'place'. [2]

Morphology

Izi is a fairly isolating language, and it has equal suffixing and prefixing, as in the following example.

sʊ́

Say

ɪꜜjá

him

lɛ

that

ɔ̀ɔ́

it is

ńdʊ́

people

mkpùkpú

village

̂ànji

our

́kùrù

called

mí́tìná

meeting

ònó

that

sʊ́ ɪꜜjá lɛ ɔ̀ɔ́ ńdʊ́ mkpùkpú ̂ànji ́kùrù mí́tìná ònó

Say him that {it is} people village our called meeting that

'Tell him it is the people of our village who called that meeting.'

Instead of the morphemes combining to form one sentence, each morpheme in the sentence is unconnected, which suggests that Izi is an isolating language. The sentence also reveals that the word order of this language is subject–verb–object (SVO), like English. The sentence means 'It is people'.

Syntax

Another feature illustrated by the sentence is the order of nouns and genitives, and nouns and demonstratives, which are head-initial, and the noun head comes before both the genitive and the demonstrative. For instance, in the sentence, 'village' appears before 'our', and 'meeting' appears before 'that'. Adjectives usually precede the noun but can follow it.

The order of the adposition in relation to the order of the object and verb is typical. Izi, like other languages whose verb precedes the object reference. The following shows the preposition-object relationship:

é,

yes,

lɛ́

in

mgbábʊ̀

garden

lɛ

in

ɛ̀ká

place

ònó

that

é, lɛ́ mgbábʊ̀ lɛ ɛ̀ká ònó

yes, in garden in place that

'Yes, in the garden there.'

ḿꜜbʊ́

meaning

ndʊ

people

kɛ

of

ónjìkwá

Onyikwa?

ḿꜜbʊ́ ndʊ kɛ ónjìkwá

meaning people of Onyikwa?

'You mean Onyikwa people?'

Related Research Articles

In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and [b], pronounced with the lips; and [d], pronounced with the front of the tongue; and [g], pronounced with the back of the tongue;, pronounced throughout the vocal tract;, [v], and, pronounced by forcing air through a narrow channel (fricatives); and and, which have air flowing through the nose (nasals). Contrasting with consonants are vowels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lepsius Standard Alphabet</span> Transcription system developed by Lepsius for Egyptian hieroglyphs and other African languages

The Standard Alphabet is a Latin-script alphabet developed by Karl Richard Lepsius. Lepsius initially used it to transcribe Egyptian hieroglyphs in his Denkmäler aus Ägypten und Äthiopien and extended it to write African languages, published in 1853, 1854 and 1855, and in a revised edition in 1863. The alphabet was comprehensive but was not used much as it contained a lot of diacritic marks and was difficult to read and typeset at that time. It was, however, influential in later projects such as Ellis's Paleotype, and diacritics such as the acute accent for palatalization, under-dot for retroflex, underline for Arabic emphatics, and the click letters continue in modern use.

Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Igbo language</span> Niger–Congo language of the Igbo people, mainly spoken in Nigeria

Igbo is the principal native language cluster of the Igbo people, an ancient ethnicity in the Southeastern part of Nigeria.

In phonetics, palatalization or palatization is a way of pronouncing a consonant in which part of the tongue is moved close to the hard palate. Consonants pronounced this way are said to be palatalized and are transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet by affixing the letter ⟨ʲ⟩ to the base consonant. Palatalization cannot minimally distinguish words in most dialects of English, but it may do so in languages such as Russian, Japanese, Norwegian (dialects), Võro, Irish and Kashmiri.

Hopi is a Uto-Aztecan language spoken by the Hopi people of northeastern Arizona, United States.

Labial–velar consonants are doubly articulated at the velum and the lips, such as. They are sometimes called "labiovelar consonants", a term that can also refer to labialized velars, such as the stop consonant and the approximant.

The phonology of Vietnamese features 19 consonant phonemes, with 5 additional consonant phonemes used in Vietnamese's Southern dialect, and 4 exclusive to the Northern dialect. Vietnamese also has 14 vowel nuclei, and 6 tones that are integral to the interpretation of the language. Older interpretations of Vietnamese tones differentiated between "sharp" and "heavy" entering and departing tones. This article is a technical description of the sound system of the Vietnamese language, including phonetics and phonology. Two main varieties of Vietnamese, Hanoi and Saigon, which are slightly different to each other, are described below.

Velarization or velarisation is a secondary articulation of consonants by which the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation of the consonant. In the International Phonetic Alphabet, velarization is transcribed by one of four diacritics:

The phonological system of the Polish language is similar in many ways to those of other Slavic languages, although there are some characteristic features found in only a few other languages of the family, such as contrasting postalveolar and alveolo-palatal fricatives and affricates. The vowel system is relatively simple, with just six oral monophthongs and arguably two nasals in traditional speech, while the consonant system is much more complex.

The phonology of Sesotho and those of the other Sotho–Tswana languages are radically different from those of "older" or more "stereotypical" Bantu languages. Modern Sesotho in particular has very mixed origins inheriting many words and idioms from non-Sotho–Tswana languages.

This article is about the sound system of the Navajo language. The phonology of Navajo is intimately connected to its morphology. For example, the entire range of contrastive consonants is found only at the beginning of word stems. In stem-final position and in prefixes, the number of contrasts is drastically reduced. Similarly, vowel contrasts found outside of the stem are significantly neutralized. For details about the morphology of Navajo, see Navajo grammar.

Wahgi is a Trans–New Guinea language of the Chimbu–Wahgi branch spoken by approximately 100,000 people in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. Like other Chimbu languages, Wahgi has some unusual lateral consonants.

This article discusses the phonology of the Inuit languages. Unless otherwise noted, statements refer to Inuktitut dialects of Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Babanki language</span> Grassfields Bantoid language of Cameroon

Babanki, or Kejom, is a Bantoid language that is spoken by the Babanki people of the Western Highlands of Cameroon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Palaeotype alphabet</span>

The Palaeotype alphabet is a phonetic alphabet used by Alexander John Ellis to describe the pronunciation of English. It was based on the theory of Bell's Visible Speech, but set in roman script, and attempted to include the sounds conveyed by Lepsius's Standard Alphabet as well. It in turn inspired Henry Sweet's 1877 Romic alphabet, which itself served as the basis for the International Phonetic Alphabet.

Adyghe is a language of the Northwest Caucasian family which, like the other Northwest Caucasian languages, is very rich in consonants, featuring many labialized and ejective consonants. Adyghe is phonologically more complex than Kabardian, having the retroflex consonants and their labialized forms.

Medumba phonology is the way in which the Medumba language is pronounced. It deals with phonetics, phonotactics and their variation across different dialects of Medumba.

References

  1. ↑ Izi at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Paul Meier, Inge Meier & John Bendor-Samuel, A Grammar of Izi: An Igbo Language, Summer Institute of Linguistics (1975)
  3. 1 2 "The Igbo People: Origins & History (2008) Archived 2008-12-08 at the Wayback Machine
  4. 1 2 "Igbo language and alphabet". www.omniglot.com. Retrieved 2024-02-16.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.