MYEKEE IGEDE LANGUAGE MONTHLY DIGEST.

MYEKEE IGEDE LANGUAGE MONTHLY DIGEST. onakingston@gmail.com 07031870710/08054446801 EDITION 6 MAY 2021. WELCOME!!! SYLVANUS OGWUNA OBOH AND GODWIN OKEBE ALOBO: SINCE YOU WERE GONE. How I wish we could turn the hands of time, but wishes are not horses. I remember with nostalgia these two heroes that were strongly advocates of quality speaking and writing of Igede language. Oboh and Alobo, since your departure, things have fallen apart and all the efforts to adhere to our standard orthography and correct way of writing has been thrown to the dust bin by our new generation of writers both in book publication and social media platforms. Majority now wake up at the comfort of their homes and write whatever they like without regards and considerations to the laid down pattern of writing. We wake up to see, self-made authors, self-made social media platform managers that know close to nothing the correct way of writing our dear language; but pride themselves as heroes and heroines and genuine advocates for the promotion of Igede language. This is my message from this realm to you, if the dead hears at all. How I wish, all your labours past shall not be in vain. All hope is not gone anyway; we have some remnants they are still adhering to the standard Igede orthography but in the minority. We have people like Dr Victor Oboh, who painstakingly came out with Igede dictionary using the correct way of writing, Rev. Peter Onah of the Bible Translation, Chief Isaac Onwu- Oleju 1 of Iyeche a strong advocate, Mr. Abraham Ogaji Ona who will always call my attention to this ugly trend even far away in Rivers State, Mr Moses Atu Aja from Adum East and Mr. Joel Ikpobu whose concern for correct writing is unparalleled, he is working to gather all linguists of Igede extraction for a unity conference and few others that space will not allow me to mention. The extinction of an indigenous language is one of the biggest tragedy that a particular people might experience. The loss of language undermines the people’s sense of identity and original worth. Language extinction starts to occur when rules guiding its qualities are compromised, when quality speaking, quality writing is grossly or partially neglected. We can be speaking the language, but when it is not matched with correct writing, the language is on an edge of a cliff and need just a little push. Speaking correctly only or oral transmissions are not enduring as they are form according to the mould of an individual speaker. Oral transmissions are not guided by general rules; as everybody sits in authority to say what they want and how they want. So it boils down to the fact that, if we like posterity to inherit our language in a proper form; then we have no option than to speak correctly and more importantly write correctly. So anybody writing the language wrongly in print and social media is rather doing our dear language a disservice. The journey into the present spelling system took off when in 1986, Professor John Egbe Enyi’s administration as Chairman Oju local government council hosted the National Conference on Igede Language, literature and culture. The main proponents of the orthography then were Mr Ogwuna Oboh and Rev John Adimah, guided by Dr. John Adive, a linguist, who was the Director of the Nigeria Bible Translation Trust, Jos. They gathered all the data needed for their proposals. They attended meetings within and outside Igede land and made preliminary presentation of the proposed orthography. Finally, in 1992, it was approved and published in manual VI of Nigerian orthographies by National Educational and Research Development Council (NERDC), Abuja. Back home, Ogwuna Oboh and Adagba Ede coauthored an official publication on the orthography in 1999. This gave an overview of everything involved in the making of the Igede standard orthography in a popular book- Igede Gedegede. I write this with great caution, not in anger or hatred, but in the hope that common sense would prevail. I humbly make my case with no intention to slight anyone; but in order to minimize the problem. Now we have writers that decides on what they feel they want to write and what we see now is mostly from their imaginations and not according to laid down rules. The distressing thing is- some are publishing and campaigning with a wrong thing and lack the boldness to call a meeting to prove why we should abandon the status quo and change to their own. Instead of advancing superior arguments why theirs is correct, they whip up sentiments and malicious campaign for sympathy. We hope not to be severe in our dealings with those profiteers who try to stand in the way of our hard earned legacy, but to appeal to their conscience. I have several and handy examples of these wrong writings to give either from the social media platforms, from textbooks, from billboards, from e-publications, from organizational names and other formations, but I want to exercise a professional restraint to avoid name calling and avoid attack on personalities. We all know and see their handiworks. I have love for them as they may not be malicious advocates, but maybe, just exhibiting uniformed zeal that they do not realize is counterproductive. For the sustenance of the labour of our heroes past, we are duty bound not to support and encourage them in this ridiculous project of writing Igede language without resort to standard. We should remember the virus of wrong writing and its capability of making us laughable toys among the committee of majority languages that are very careful in writing. Do a check, no Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo writes their language anyhow, the Central Bank of Nigeria were careful to tone mark the writings on our naira notes. Let me do a little problem analysis. The place of adopted consonants namely ‘f. s, v’ are for loan words that have no roots in the language formation like ‘olivu’ the Olive tree in the Bible or ‘isombyi’ which is for soyabeans or ‘ifada’ which is a Catholic father. But when people write groundnut as ‘evuna’ instead of ‘Ebwuna’ and dog as ‘evu’ instead of ‘ebwu’ then we have issue greatly to address. When the standard orthography made provision for tones, the high, the upper mid, the lower mid and the low, which are designated as Ogaku, oreji, amiragbo and ogwugu and are blatantly ignored by the self-styled experts. With the tone marking, you can make demarcation from words like “LA” La is to chew a stick; Lá is to miss a target in shooting; Là is to grow underground as in yam; Lā is to have/own. But people write without tone marking now When we ignore the use of dots in a tonal language like ours, then is either we are not serious or wicked. Non dotted vowels or Olikponge group of vowels-a e i o u. and the dotted vowels or the Aputuja group of vowels- ẹ ị ọ ụ helps us to demarcate between words with the same spelling but different meaning like ori – rope /ọrị – oil palm or ela – lice /ẹla – matter or eji – egg /ẹjị – foolishness. In Igede, like many other languages that are tonal, when two vowels come in contact at a word boundary, one of them is dropped. This is what is called vowel elision. Vowel elision is done only in speaking and never in writing. In Igede, it is the first one that is dropped, this helps the reading to flow smoothly, fluently and naturally. Writing is different from reading, people who write the short form or elide a vowel just because it is said like that caused a serious problem as the meaning remain ambiguous and with multiple interpretations. The use of apostrophes does not solve the problem associated with this form of writing. There is no rule that ‘apostrophe’ must always mean ‘a’, it could mean any letter in our vowels. Ra iju means ‘buy yam’ but if you decide to write like ‘r’iju’, this could possibly mean ‘ra iju’ which is ‘buy yam’ or ‘ri iju’ which is ‘eat yam’ or ‘ri iju’ which is ‘roll yam’. The orthography that used “H” to denote high tone and absence of “H” to signifies low tone that accounted for names like ONAH, ODEH, ADIMAH, has been replaced with tone marking; but you see writings using ‘H’ but not in a form of h, hy, hw, but to end a writing. Igede like English language and other languages have noun, verbs, pronoun and other parts of speech. When you have people write our dear language like this- Mmchehyi kaka yhe oyheno uwa instead of Ḿ chị ẹhi kaka yẹ ọyẹnọ ụ-ụwa. Apart from wrong use of ‘h’ and no dots, you have broken the grammatical structures (Ḿ is pronoun, chị ẹhi is to look with eyes which is verb, yẹ is to look, ọyẹnọ is a young lady, nobody mix nouns, pronouns and verbs together and get a pass in WAEC). And so on and so forth. Space will not allow me to talk of writing different vowels together; like ‘ioh’ instead of ‘iyo’ for meat. Language is necessary in order for human to be a rational creature, in other words, language is what made the growth of civilizations possible. The only means of understanding the great minds of the past is by studying the contemporary written documents. Who are we exactly helping if we write our dear language wrongly? What will happen in the next 50 years to a generation unborn? The social media platforms and e-publications are global and this means, people of Igede extraction in other countries of the world will be feeding on poison. The most commonly used factor in evaluating the vitality of a language is whether or not it is being transmitted correctly in all forms from one generation to the next. So if we get the writing wrong now, we can be very sure that after many years from now, the error will dominate the document space that it will be seen as the correct one. Language maintenance is partly done in speaking and majorly in writing. A language that will be maintained, perpetuated, or developed must have a complete and correct documentation pattern. In recent times, apart from the Igede Bible Translation Project that saw to the completion of the Bible using the approved orthography; another organization that made a commendable effort in promoting the use of the approved orthography is Association for Promoting Quality Education in IgedeLand. They organized Igede Stakeholders Conference for three consecutive years drawing several professionals for paper presentation on the need to use the approved orthography and harmonized the writing of Igede language in all aspect of our formation. I make bold to challenge the self-made gurus to organize a conference and called all stakeholders to prove why their own will be use. If that is not done, then it means they have resorted to a weak and primitive way of rebellion. We all share the responsibility of ensuring that Igede language will be maintained and perpetuated into the future generations in a proper form. We must not only discipline ourselves but take full responsibility to pass a well-documented writing to posterity. The reason why we must fortify our strategies to call all the stakeholders or people involved in writing to write according to pattern and standard. Therefore, I call on Omyi Nya Igede, the Traditional institutions, the Chairmen of the two Local Governments that house the majority of Igede people, Religious leaders, non-Church organisations, Community Leaders and Organisations, Youth Organisations, National Union of Igede Students, the Igede Writers Bureau led by Mr. Dickson Odo, all Linguists of Igede extraction to help in raising the banner of reason and warn all those concerned. I particularly call on the crowned Facebook influencer recognised by the Facebook Founder-Comrade Andyson Egbodo who doubles as the President of IYC, the most popular online news platform Jamesibechi.com to lead the campaign on the social media front. I pray other relevant stakeholders that space will not permit me to list to lead in mobilization, synergy with relevant stakeholders to educate writers on the need for proper writing of our language in all platforms or domains. The labour of our heroes and heroines past shall not be in vain, so help us God.