User:Kgondim/sandbox

Article Evaluation:

This article appears to be written with a neutral point of view, though there are substantial portions that are lacking citations and some portions that the citations are not complete. There are also some unreliable sources cited, and many of the cited works may be outdated, as they are decades old.

The portions that explain the linguistics seem to be thorough and comprise most of the article, but perhaps the content is too complex for the average reader to understand. The charts are well-made and are helpful visual tools.

The History and the Usage in the Diaspora sections seem to be underdeveloped in comparison to the other sections of the article. As a reader, I would like to understand more about these aspects of the language. The History section cites from mostly one source.

As I was researching materials for contributing to the diaspora and usage portion of the article, I realized there is a dearth of material relating to that subject. However, I found some interesting articles about the endangerment of the Igbo language that I believe will add a forward-looking piece to the overall article. In particular, what are the implications of the extinction of the language, and what efforts are being made to preserve it. My working bibliography is as follows:

Asonye, Emma, “UNESCO Prediction of the Igbo Language Death: Facts and Fables.” Journal of the Linguistic Association of Nigeria, 16:1&2 (2013): 91-98. Retrieved 9 Jul. 2017 from http://www.academix.ng/documents/papers/1463491669_1870.pdf

Azuonye, Chukwuma, "Igbo as an Endangered Language" (2002). Africana Studies Faculty Publication Series. 17.

http://scholarworks.umb.edu/africana_faculty_pubs/17  

Igboanusi, Herbert. "Is Igbo an endangered language?" Multilingua - Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication, 25.4 (2008): 443-452. Retrieved 7 Jul. 2017, from doi:10.1515/MULTI.2006.023 

Obadan, Maria I. “Language Endangerment: Issues of Igbo Proverbs.” English Linguistics Research, 4.3 (2015): 1-12. Retrieved 7 Jul. 2017, from http://www.sciedu.ca/journal/index.php/elr/article/view/7283

Draft Additions for article:

History of Igbo Orthology

Before the existence of any official system of orthography for the Igbo language, travelers and writers documented Igbo sounds by utilizing the orthologies of their own languages in transcribing them, though they encountered difficulty representing particular sounds, such as implosives, labialized velars, syllabic nasals, and non-expanded vowels. In the 1850s, German philogist C.R. Lepsius published the Standard Alphabet, which was universal to all languages of the world, and became the first Igbo orthography. It contained 34 letters and included digraphs and diacritical marks to transcribe sounds distinct to African languages. The Lepsius Standard Alphabet contained the following letters:

• a b d e f g h i k l m n o p r s t u v w y z gb gh gw kp kw n̊ nw ny o̥ s ds ts

The Lepsius orthography was replaced by the Practical Orthography of African Languages (Africa Orthography) in 1929 by the colonial government in Nigeria. The new orthography, created by the International Institute of African Languages and Cultures (IIALC), had 36 letters and disposed of diacritic marks. Numerous controversial issues with the new orthography eventually led to its replacement in the early 1960s. The Africa Orthology contained the following letters:

• a b c d e ɛ f g gb gh h i j k kp l m  n ŋ ny o Ɔ ɵ p r s sh t u v w y z gw kw nw

In the early 1960s, a Nigerian government committee created the Ọ́nwụ́ (/oŋwu/) orthography, named after committee chairman S.E. O̥nwu̥, to replace the Africa Orthography as the official Igbo orthography. Ọ́nwụ́ (/oŋwu/) consists of 28 consonants and 8 vowels. Up until the present, it has been utilized in government publications, academic environments, journalistic mediums, and literary works.

A variety of issues have made agreement on a standardized orthography for the Igbo language difficult. In 1976, the Igbo Standardization Committee criticized the official orthography in light of the difficulty notating diacritic marks using typewriters and computers; difficulty in accurately representing tone with tone-marking conventions, as they are subject to change in different environments; and the inability to capture various sounds particular to certain Igbo dialects. Calls for reform have been based in part on the rogue use of alphabetic symbols, tonal notations, and spelling conventions that deviate from the standard orthography. The current Ọ́nwụ́ (/oŋwu/) alphabet, a compromise between the older Lepsius alphabet and a newer alphabet advocated by the International Institute of African Languages and Cultures (IIALC), is presented in the following table, with the International Phonetic Alphabet equivalents for the characters:

Present State of Igbo Language

There is some discussion as to whether the Igbo language is in danger of extinction, advanced in part by a 2006 UNESCO report that predicted the Igbo language will become extinct within 50 years. Professor of African and African Diaspora Literatures at University of Massachusetts, Chukwuma Azuonye, emphasizes indicators for the endangerment of the Igbo language based on criteria that includes the declining population of monolingual elderly speakers; reduced competence and performance among Igbo speakers, especially children; the deterioration of idioms, proverbs, and other rhetorical elements of the Igbo language that convey the cultural aesthetic; and code-switching, code-mixing, and language shift.

External and internal factors have been attributed to the decline of Igbo language usage. Preference for the English language in post-colonial Nigeria has usurped the Igbo language’s role and function in society, as English is perceived by Igbo speakers as the language of status and opportunity. This perception may be a contributor to the negative attitude towards the Igbo language by its speakers across the spectrum of socio-economic classes. Igbo children’s reduced competence and performance has been attributed in part to the lack of exposure in the home environment, which impacts intergenerational transmission of the language. English is the official language in Nigeria and is utilized in government administration, educational institutions, and commerce. Aside from its role in numerous facets of daily life in Nigeria, globalization exerts pressure to utilize English as a universal standard language in support of economic and technological advancement. A 2005 study by Igboanusi and Peter demonstrated the preferential attitude towards English over the Igbo language amongst Igbo people in the communication, entertainment, and media domains. English was preferred by Igbo speakers at 56.5% for oral communication, 91.5% for written communication, 55.5-59.5% in entertainment, and 73.5-83.5% for media.

The effect of English on Igbo languages amongst bilingual Igbo speakers can be seen by the incorporation of English loanwords into Igbo and code-switching between the two languages. English loanwords, which are usually nouns, have been found to retain English semantics, but typically follow phonological and morphological structures of Igbo. Lexical items conform to the vowel harmony intrinsic to Igbo phonological structures. For example, loanwords with syllable-final consonants may be assimilated by the addition of a vowel after the consonant, and vowels are inserted in between consonant clusters, which have not been found to occur in Igbo. This can be seen in the word sukulu, which is a loanword derived from the English word school that has followed the aforementioned pattern of modification when it was assimilated into the Igbo language. Code-switching, which involves the insertion of longer English syntactic units into Igbo utterances, may consist of phrases or entire sentences, principally nouns and verbs, that may or may not follow Igbo syntactic patterns. Igbo affixes to English verbs determine tense and aspectual markers, such as the Igbo suffix -i affixed to the English word check, expressed as the word CHECK-i.

The standardized Igbo language is composed of fragmented features from numerous Igbo dialects and is not technically a spoken language, but it is used in communicational, educational, and academic contexts. This unification is perceived by Chukwuma Azuonye as undermining the survival of Igbo by erasing diversity between dialects. Each individual dialect possesses unique untranslatable idioms and rhetorical devices that represent Igbo cultural nuances that can be lost as dialects disappear or deteriorate. Newly coined terms may fail to conform to a dialect's lexical formation in assimilating loan words.

Proverbs are an essential component of the Igbo language that convey cultural wisdom and contextual significance to linguistic expression. Everyday usage of Igbo proverbs has declined in recent generations of speakers, which threatens loss in intergenerational transmission. A recent study of the Ogwashi dialect of Igbo demonstrated a steep decline in youth’s knowledge and use of proverbs compared to elder speakers. In this study, youths employed simplified or incomplete proverbial expressions, lacked a diverse proverbial repertoire, and were deficient in their understanding of proper contextual usages as compared to elders who demonstrated competence to enhance linguistic expression with a diverse vocabulary of proverbs.

 

Hi Kgondim, this is Reanna Shah. I think your article is really good and there aren't really any major changes you need to your article. I think in this sentence ''The standardized Igbo language is composed of fragmented features from numerous Igbo dialects and is not technically a spoken language, but it is used in educational, academic, and communications contexts.'' you should change communications to communicational or some other word because ''communications contexts'' sounds a little off. Also in your last sentence I would change the last sentence by making it more concise and not be so repetitive with the word "lacking."

Hello, I'm Cythirixs. I agree with your article evaluation.

Agreeing with Reanna, your article is very well researched and well written and there is not much for me to say about them. Though, in your second paragraph, about the present state of the Igbo Language, you did mention Loan Words. Since there is currently no section in the wiki that references loan words, you may want to add a few examples to supplement your paragraph as references. Cythirixs (talk) 03:18, 25 July 2017 (UTC)