Lesson 1: Tones, Sounds, and Characters

Igbo is a tonal language and this means that while it is made up of sounds like any other language, varying the tone of the sounds in Igbo changes the meaning of what is being said. As a result, when speaking Igbo, you must be very careful to express the correct tone or you could find yourself saying some very embarrassing things. (Case in point, Ike can mean strength, power, energy, - among other things - or anus depending on the tone)

Since the purpose of this blog is to teach the Ndebe Igbo writing system, all Igbo words will be written in Ndebe and Loma (Roman letters/Latin characters) will only be used for clarification.

Sounds and Characters

Each of the individual sounds that make up the Igbo language is represented by its own character. Below are the Igbo sounds (in Loma) and their characters (Ndebe).

Tips for Writing

When writing Igbo the characters for consonants and vowels are written very differently.

For consonantal characters, there are five basic stems and six basic radicals which can be interchanged to form the various characters that represent the consonant sounds. Each stem and radical has its own name.

These consonantal characters that are formed in this manner are collectively referred to as [NAME]

Here is a handy chart to help you remember all the [NAME]:

The vowel characters on the other hand are collectively referred to as [NAME] and must be memorised as they are. (Don't worry, it's much easier than you think!!! =D)

Tones

Now about those pesky tones. Tonal variations in Igbo have scores if not hudnreds of subtleties but generally speaking there are three broad tones: A Low Tone, a High Tone, and a Rising Tone.

The low and high tones are extremely easy to identify and self explanatory but the rising tone is perhaps a bit trickier. The third tone is called a rising tone for a reason. What this means is that a sound that carries a rising tone is higher than the low tone and tends to rise towards the high tone but is still MOST DEFINITELY LOWER than the High Tone.



A good judge of whether a sound has a rising tone is to compare it to a confirmed high tone (such as  Aka - hand).


Do not judge a suspected rising tone by comparing it to a low tone because a rising tone will always sound high right after a low tone.

In Igbo only two consonant sounds bear tones:  (N) and  (M), (and this is only in certain cases) but all vowel sounds bear tones all the time. For this reason, when writing Igbo, there are three versions of each vowel, one for the low tone, one for the rising tone, and one for the high tone. When N or M carry tones, it is denoted by strokes indicating high or low tone on the platform of each character, or by a dash if the tone is rising.

Remember! Memorisation comes with constant practice and reading so don't worry if you don't recognize all the characters right away. You will very soon.

~Igbo Rocks... Go forth and speak it~

Welcome to the Ndebe Project

Hello,

Hopefully you have found yourself here because of your interest in the Igbo language, the Igbo people, and our amazing culture. If you have never even heard the word Igbo before now that's okay. You're welcome too.

The Ndebe project is an ongoing development of a new writing system for the Igbo language. Igbo is a beautiful melodious language that is mostly oral although it can be written down using the existing English alphabet (with a few modifications of course). Unfortunately, increasing disinterest in Igbo of native Igbo speakers due to its general uselessness in the shadow of English is threatening the very survival of our language.

If Igbo dies out, one of the most beautiful languages in history will be lost to the world forever. For our language to survive it must be relevant. For our language to be relevant it must expand. For our language to expand it must be written down. And for our language to be written down, people must think it is worth writing down.

Many Igbo people have no use for Igbo outside their homes because the technology and circumstances in the world today have surpassed that which our language is able to describe. For those that do not know, that is what language is; description. Igbo cannot be relevant unless we can name every thing under the sun in our own language, not with words borrowed from English which grows ever bigger because it is not shy to make up new words as it needs them. The limited use of Igbo orally is compounded by the fact that written Igbo is so similar to English and so affected by its oral handicap that the modern Igbo speaker encounters nothing but frustration when trying to relay their daily activities in Igbo. Some people don't even bother anymore.

We're here to change their minds. We're here to change YOUR mind.

The Ndebe script is a new writing system designed exclusively for Igbo with the needs of Igbo speakers and hopeful Igbo writers in mind.

• It is visually distinctive from English eliminating any possibility of confusion with sounds that have been previously associated with English letters.
• It's interesting to look at. Pretty letters make a happy writer! :D
• It's economical. It reduces the length of all words by the total number of vowels in each word! Shorter words mean faster, happier writers!
• It provides a single letter for each of the bilabial implosive sounds (gb, gw, etc) as is proper since these are individual sounds.
  
• It is mostly cursive which gives writers greater flexibility when exploring other uses for written Igbo such as calligraphy
• It accomodates all dialects of Igbo and promotes writing of YOUR own dialect.
• The Ndebe writing system is embracive of the Nsibidi script and the Ndebe project is developing the Nsibidi script into a full logographic shorthand that can be used to pass secret messages! :D (Love notes anyone?)
  

Igbo is a great language spoken by millions of people and for too long it has suffered under the limiting clutches of the Latin alphabet. Igbo deserves its very own writing system, and the Ndebe writing system is the first truly Igbo complete writing system in history.

This blog will be continuously updated with Ndebe writing lessons, tutorial videos, learning aids, etc as well as discussion and updates on the expansion of Igbo (with your input of course).

It's time to fall in love with Igbo again