The Ibibio and Igbo Sound Systems. A Contrastive Study (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2018 in the subject African Studies - Linguistics, grade: A, , language: English, abstract: This research strives to contrast the consonant phonemes, vowel phonemes and tones of Ibibio and Igbo in order to describe their similarities and differences. It adopted the descriptive method, and relevant data on the phonology of the two languages. They were gathered and analysed within the framework of CA before making predictions and conclusions.

Ibibio consists of ten vowels and fourteen consonant phonemes, while Igbo is made up of eight vowels and twenty-eight consonants. The results of contrastive analysis of the two languages showed that there are similarities as well as differences in the sound systems of the languages. With the assumptions of Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (CAH), these differences may constitute learning problems to the learners of either language, while similarities may facilitate learning. The paper predicts issues and proffer solutions to helps teachers as well as learners tackle these difficulties.

Nigeria is a densely populated country with many languages. The 21st edition Ethnologue data listed 509 indigenous living languages for Nigeria. Among them are Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba, which are recognized as the three languages spoken by the three major ethnic groups. Speakers of these different languages usually come in contact in areas of endeavour such as tourism, trade/ business, education and even in hospitals and law courts. So, learning an additional indigenous language apart from one's mother tongue is necessary, though these languages may be similar or different in their sound inventories and structures.

It is in view of this that this research intends to look at the sound systems of Ibibio and Igbo, with specific attention to segmental phonemes (consonants and vowels) and tones. Ibibio is a tonal language spoken in the South-South region, predominantly in Akwa Ibom and Cross River States, and it is spoken by about four million people.

Igbo is one of the four official languages of Nigeria and is a member of the VoltaNiger branch of the Niger-Congo family of languages. It is spoken in Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea by about 25 million people. In Nigeria, it is spoken in the South Eastern part of the country in states like Abia, Enugu, Delta, there are numerous Igbo dialects some of which are not mutually intelligible, but the standard written form of Igbo is based on the Owerri and Umuahia dialects, and has been in use since 1962.