Grammar 4: The Ubiqitious Verb "To Be"

If you're reading this, chances are you've already met our enigmatic friend, the verb 'To Be'. If you haven't, go back to Grammar 3, and check him out, then come back here.

This post is about the verb To Be's most common manifestation, the "Ọọ" form. Specifically, Ọọ is a form of the "Ibụ" variant of the verb "To Be".

The "Ọọ" form is a form of the verb To Be that means "It is" or "It was"

It is the simplest way to make a sentence in Igbo and really really easy.

The form is "Ọọ XYZ" where XYZ is any word.

It translates to "It is XYZ." or "It was XYZ."

Okay, let's try it out.

In the last post, we looked at some common Igbo nouns that are encountered in every day speech.

We'll use three of them in our examples below.

Mili - Water

Afia - Market

Nwoke - Man


Examples:

Ọọ mili - It is water / It was water

Ọọ nwoke - It is a man / It was a man | It is men / It was men

Ọọ afia - It is a market / It was a market


It's that easy!

Just put Ọọ before any word to form a sentence.

Vocabulary 2: The 20 Most Common Nouns in Igbo

Here's a list of the twenty most common nouns in Igbo. These are words that you hear every day, so learn them quickly and you'll be eavesdropping on Igbo conversations in no time.

#	Noun	Tone	Meaning	Listen
1.	Madụ	HIGH-LOW	Person / People	Madụ
2.	Nwa	HIGH	Baby / Child	Nwa
3.	Ụzọ	HIGH-LOW	Way / Path / Road	Ụzọ
4.	Ifẹ	HIGH-HIGH	Thing	Ifẹ
5.	Nwoke	HIGH-MID	Man	Nwoke
6.	Nwaanyi	MID-LOW	Woman	Nwaanyi
7.	Anya	HIGH-HIGH	Eye	Anya
8.	Aka	HIGH-HIGH	Hand	Aka
9.	Nni	HIGH-HIGH	Food	Nni
10.	Mili	HIGH-MID	Water	Mili
11.	Ẹbẹ	HIGH-HIGH	Place	Ẹbẹ
12.	Ndụ	HIGH-LOW	Life	Ndụ
13.	Arọ	HIGH-LOW	Year	Arọ
14.	Ọlụ	HIGH-HIGH	Work	Ọlụ
15.	Akwa	HIGH-LOW	Clothes / Cloth / Fabric	Akwa
16.	Nsogbu	HIGH-LOW-MID	Trouble / Problem	Nsogbu
17.	Afia	HIGH-HIGH	Market	Afia
18.	Ụnọ	HIGH-LOW	Building / House	Ụnọ
19.	Bẹ	HIGH	Home	Bẹ
20.	Ọnụ	HIGH-HIGH	Mouth	Ọnụ

Practically 70% of all Igbo spoken involves these nouns in some way, shape, or form. You can't go wrong learning these to start with.

Vocabulary 1: The 20 Most Common Verbs in Igbo

Ever wondered what the most common words in the Igbo language are? Now's your chance to find out.

Here's a list of the twenty most common verbs in the Igbo language. Knowing the verbs on this list inside out is ABSOLUTELY essential to being able to communicate in Igbo. These are the verbs without knowledge of which your life in a purely Igbo speaking region would be completely miserable so learn them as quickly as possible.

#	Infinitive	Root	Meaning	Listen
1.	Ibụ	Bụ	To Be	Ibụ
2.	Idi	Di	To Be	Idi
3.	Iwẹ	Wẹ	To Have, To Get, To Take	Iwẹ
4.	Imẹ	Mẹ	To Do, To Make	Imẹ
5.	Isi	Si	To Say	Isi
6.	Ijẹ	Jẹ	To Go	Ijẹ
7.	Ima	Ma	To Know	Ima
8.	Ifụ	Fụ	To See	Ifụ
9.	Ibia	Bia	To Come	Ibia
10.	Ichẹ	Chẹ	To Think, To Wait For	Ichẹ
11.	Inẹ	Nẹ	To Look	Inẹ
12.	Ichọ	Chọ	To Want, To Look For, To Find	Ichọ
13.	Inyẹ	Nyẹ	To Give	Inyẹ
14.	Iji	Ji	To Use, To Hold	Iji
15.	Igwa	Gwa	To Tell	Igwa
16.	Ijụ	Jụ	To Ask, To Refuse	Ijụ
17.	Ilu	Lu	To Work, To Build	Ilu
18.	Ili	Li	To Eat	Ili
19.	Irapụ	Rapụ	To Leave	Rapụ
20.	Ikpọ	Kpọ	To Call	Ikpọ

Practically 70% of all Igbo spoken involves these verbs in some way, shape, or form. You can't go wrong learning these to start with.

Grammar 3: The Mysterious Verb "To Be"

In Grammar 2, I talked about the Infinitive. Now you may or may not have noticed, but missing in the list of verbs I gave in the last post was one of the commonest verbs in any language, much less Igbo: The verb "To Be".

I deliberately omitted the verb "To Be" from the list because the verb "To Be"s situation in Igbo is very complicated .... to say the least.

While in English there is only one verb "To Be", the Igbo version of the verb is an international master of disguise.

It has many forms and lurks in many shadowy corners waiting to jump out at you when you didn't even realise it was in the sentence. And when you think you need it to say something? It simply isn't there.

Needless to say, the Igbo verb "To Be" is not to be taken lightly and requires the utmost attention.

Here are the three most common forms "To Be" in Igbo, but by no means, the only ones.

Listen   Ibụ - To be

Listen   Idi - To be

Listen   Inọ - To be


Telling the difference: 

If you're familiar with the Spanish language (a language which like Igbo has more than one form of the verb To Be) understanding the difference between the three above will be pretty obvious to you. For the rest of you, here's how you tell the difference:

As a rule of thumb,

Ibụ  - expresses identity, essential qualities, personality, occupation, and origin.

Listen   Identity  - She is a Nigerian (Ọ bụ onye Naijiriya)
Listen   Essential Qualities - I am a woman (M bụ  nwaanyi)
Listen   Occupation - You (all) are doctors (Unu bụ  dibia )
Listen   Origin - They are from Anambra ( Fa bụ  ndi Anambara)


Idi - expresses condition, characteristics, emotions, and TEMPORARY location

Listen   Condition - It is alive  ( Ọ di ndụ  )
Listen   Characteristics - You are tall ( I di ogonogo )
Listen   Emotions - He is happy (Ọ di anwụli )
Listen   Temporary location - It is there (Ọ di ẹbẹ a)


Inọ - expresses SEMI-PERMANENT and PERMANENT location

Listen   More Permanent Location - She is in Abuja  (Ọ nọ  Abuja)

There are of course other forms of the Verb not shown here. 

Its most common form, the "Ọọ" form will be discussed in the next lesson.

Grammar 2: The Infinitive

The Igbo Infinitive is a verb form representing 'to + any action'.

In Igbo, The Infinitive is formed by adding any verb root to the suffix " i " (pronounced ee - high toned).

Igbo Infinitive =  i + Verb Root

For instance, the infinitive of the verb root bia would be Ibia ( i + bia ).

Below is a list of verb roots and their infinitive forms showing how to form the Infinitive.

Verb Root	Infinitive	Meaning	Listen
Bia	Ibia	To Come	Ibia
Wẹ	Iwẹ	To Have, To Get, To Take
Mẹ	Imẹ	To Do, To Make
Si	Isi	To Say
Jẹ	Ijẹ	To Go
Ma	Ima	To Know
Nyẹ	Inyẹ	To Give
Chẹ	Ichẹ	To Think
Nẹ	Inẹ	To Look
Fụ	Ifụ	To See
Jụ	Ijụ	To Ask, To Refuse

Now you know how to form the Infinitive. It's really really easy. Whenever you want to say "To do something" you just add the infinitive marker "i" to the verb root!

"i" (infinitive marker) + "chẹ" (verb root meaning 'Think')

=

ichẹ

(To think)

Grammar 1: Igbo Sounds :: Mkpọtụ Igbo

Where do you start when you want to learn a language?

At the beginning of course!

You can't learn Igbo if you don't know the sounds that make up the Igbo language so this is probably one of the most important lessons to learn.

Igbo is made up of consonant sounds and vowel sounds.

The consonant sounds are not a big deal, it's the vowels you should keep an eye out for. 

Because Igbo is a tonal language, each of the vowels have different tones (ranging from high to low).

The most common tones are High and Low, but occasionally, you'll come across a tricky mid tone that is always rising.

Vowel Sounds

A (AH) as in Cat	E (AY) as in Fame	Ẹ (EH) as in Bed
I (EE) as in Pin	O (O) as in Show	Ọ (O) as in Hot
Ụ (U) as in Put	U (UU)as in Shoot

Consonant Sounds

B (as in Bee)	CH (as in Chair)	D (as in Dog)	F (as in Food)	G (as in Goat)
GB (as in Gbenga)	GH (as in Ghee)	GW (as in Guido)	H (as in House)	J (as in Jump)
K (as in Kangaroo)	KP	KW (as in Queen)	L	M
N	NW	NY	P	R
S	SH	T	V	W
Y	Z (as in Zebra)

These are the basic sounds needed to speak Igbo

We Got Featured!!!!

The Ndebe Project is featured this week on African Digital Art as part of the fourth installment of their African Weekly Inspiration.

Click the screenshot to visit our feature

A big thank to African Digital Art for featuring us, and thank you to everyone that loves and supports the Ndebe Project.

History 1: Meet your (very recent) Ancestors

The following pictures are of two Igbo women in different traditional Igbo attire. The first is of an Igbo woman wearing the huge Igbo ankle plates that were very fashionable at the time, a torque, a short wrapper and a head scarf. Notice also the mbubu marks that run down the middle of her torso and on her arms. These marks are raised scar bumps that are made on a girl either right before or right after she is pregnant for the first time.

The huge ankle plates deliberately overlap in order to give the woman a rolling gait when she walks which is of course, more attractive. At the time, girls were so crazy about them (and the effect they had on men) that they wouldn't take them off, and many fashionable young Igbo girls would even sleep with their legs hanging off the bed just so they could keep them on at all times!

Also, covering the breasts is optional in traditional Igbo society. Girls and women could wear tops or they might choose not to. It was entirely up to the personal discretion of the individual and public display of the breasts was not frowned upon at all.


In the second picture below, a young girl is dressed in all her finery for her wedding. She is wearing a beautiful woven hat with a line of coral beads coming down the middle and ending in a loop across her forehead, a necklace, bracelets and armbands, coral jigida (waist beads) around her waist, anklets, leg bands, and of course, a huge ivory bracelet to denote her exulted status as a bride. In her right hand she carries an intricately carved wooden staff and in her left hand she carries a horse tail whisk. She is also wearing a waist cloth (ogodo) that passes between her legs and hangs on the other side to cover her privates and buttocks. This young lady hasn't had her mbubu done yet but will when she has her first child.
What is fascinating about these pictures is that both of them were taken in 1922. Most Igbo people have no idea that this is the real traditional Igbo dress because Igbo children are not taught about their ancestors in school. In fact, it is very rare to be taught about anything in Nigerian history that happened before 1960.

The fact that these photographs were taken in 1922 is extremely significant because it shows that most of Igbo traditional culture was still preserved and highly pervasive as recently as the 1920s and 1930s before the missionaries and the colonists managed to wipe it out.

Now a lot of people when they think of traditional Igbo attire immediately think of something like this:

What most people don't realise is that these clothes are fashions that have arisen as a result of European influence in Nigeria during colonialism and especially in Eastern Nigeria where most Igbo people are because of the extensive activities of the Catholic Missionaries who weren't exactly fond of bare breasts.

Most of the fabrics used in so-called 'traditional' Igbo clothing today isn't even Igbo in origin. Igbo fabrics will be discussed in more detail in future 'History' posts on The Ndebe Project.

What does this mean for you? If your grandparent was born in 1912, they would have been 10 years old when this picture was taken and they would be 97 today. That means that quite a number of the people that were born or that were children during this time are still alive today. If you're lucky a grandparent (or a great grandparent if you're fortunate to have one) might still remember stunning and precious details about their childhood especially the aspects that have almost been destroyed by westernization such as traditional Igbo dress, and certain customs.

Have fun mining your grandparents, great grandparents and those of your friends for information!! You'll be surprised and delighted at what you find!

The original photos can be found here (along with the date taken):

http://www.fotosearch.com/IST516/1631591/

http://www.fotosearch.com/IST513/1631578/