Allahu akbar.

AfricanGod2:
[size=15pt]FURTHER INTRODUCTION TO THE IGBO WRITING SYSTEM[/size]

I have somewhat of a love-hate relationship with the Igbo writing system. The thing is:

The Igbo writing system is the most difficult part of learning Igbo.

And yet…

The Igbo writing system is the most fascinating part of learning Igbo.



It’s one of the first things you’ll ever study and one of the last things you’ll ever master. But don’t get intimidated. I can hardly study Igbo for an hour without learning something about language–the key to uniquely human thought–that seems at once perfectly obvious and absurd.

And often such an instance is sparked, for me, through the study of Igbo writing… Nsibidi, in particular.

It’ll take a while to be a pro-rockstar-nsibidi chief, but discipline and work will get you to where you need to be. And, luckily, it’s pretty easy to get started.


[size=15pt]The Two Kinds of Characters[/size]

Igbo characters are written on a page horizontally, from left to right, like English.

There are two kinds of Igbo characters:

Akagu
Nsibidi (In-see-bi-di)

Both of them are used together in sentences and It’s usually pretty obvious when to use which one. In the poem below the Akagu are the least elaborate characters while the Nsibidi are much more elaborate. Come back after reading the Akagu intro to see if you can identify them.


[img]http://1.bp..com/-sJob8eyBfMg/UZfNR-SmrXI/AAAAAAAABKI/93UyMSoVL3c/s1600/Nnena.png[/img]

[size=15pt]Akagu[/size]

Akagu is not hard to learn. It is used to represent the sound syllables that make up the Igbo language. So, for instance, ‘gb’ in Akagu would be Ω.
The Akagu syllabary (alphabets) has 51 basic characters (sounds). It is usually used to represent Igbo words and grammatical elements (e.g. particles), as well as words of foreign origin. So, for example, ndo, which means “sorry,” can be written in Akagu using the Akagu alphabets for n + d + o. Also, a word like websait, which means (get this) “web site,” would also be written in Akagu.

Often these loan words will just be English words with an Igbo pronunciation, like the example just shown. The cool thing about this is that once you learn Akagu, you more or less will have learned to read hundreds of words in Igbo. This is why Akagu is a great syllabary to learn if you’re just going to Eastern Nigeria for a short trip. It will come in handy, I promise.

Now, for your perusal, here is the complete list of the Akagu characters:



[size=15pt]Nsibidi[/size]

Before I even start, I gotta say: If you want to learn Igbo, then learn Nsibidi. It will seem impossible (it’s not). It will seem negligible (it’s not). You’ll meet people who are downright awesome at speaking Igbo that absolutely suck at Nsibidi. Don’t be tempted!

I am, of course, talking to people who are in this for the long haul. If you’re going to Eastern Nigeria in a month and just want to have some conversations with Igbo people, then forget Nsibidi. But if you want to read Igbo newspapers and books, to understand random stuff that's advertised in bright colors on streets, if you want to see a new, difficult word and already know what it means (though you might not know how to pronounce it), if you want to get a job, if you want to do anything that involves Igbo professionally, then start learning Nsibidi now.

It will be really, really hard. And I’m sorry for that. But as long as we keep moving forward, we can learn just about anything we want. The trick is to study “every day every day” –> “day in, day out”.

That aside, let’s talk about Nsibidi.


[size=15pt]The Purpose of Nsibidi[/size]

Long story short, the Nsibidi come from the Ejagham people of Cross River state. They are, technically, Ejagham characters that the Igbo adopted a long time ago in order to write their language.

Nsibidi represent meaning (unlike Akagu) and sound (like Akagu). Worry about their meaning first and their sound second (though you should learn both simultaneously).

[img]http://3.bp..com/-uMuC5G27XiM/TXVBsZmCvEI/AAAAAAAAAQc/yhHm6QpnPC0/s400/Dike.png[/img]
Fig 1

For instance, it’s more important to know that the character to the left in Fig 1 - the one that resembles a backward p, or if you look closely, resembles a mountain on it's side with an opening that needs guarding - means guard than it is to know that it is pronounced “nnche.” Still, ideally, you should know both of these things. Then, when you see the word shown in Fig1 (“guard” + “sword”), it won’t be too much of a stretch to find out that it means “warrior.”

This might seem not all that important, but the formation of words using different nsibidi, to me, is super fascinating! Sometimes, you get a little bit of a glimpse as to how we humans see the world, all through something as simple as understanding a warrior to be a guard and his sword. More insights will follow, but I’ll leave them for you to look forward to.

[size=15pt]Learning Nsibidi[/size]

Igbo people are expected to learn around 1,400 nsibidi by the time they finish JSS3. These are the characters you’ll be expected to learn if you want to enter a university, pass the Igbo tests, and read most of books, magazines, and school textbooks.

Some are simple (1-3 strokes); some are complicated (20+ strokes!); some are pictographic; some are symbolic. We will learn them all!

Now, I’m sorry to do this, but here is a chart of most of the Nsibidi you’ll need to learn to be considered chief-Eze:

Nsibidi chart
[img]http://3.bp..com/-k_hAzNCbJ2s/UyyXV-fQmSI/AAAAAAAABMI/0QYjicO_KCM/s1600/Ule+Nsibidi.png[/img]

Learning Nsibidi is a whole crazy task that you should start tackling right now.

Your Character Study Plan
Basically, I would stop everything right now and learn Akagu as soon as possible (less than a week, but ideally in 2-3 days). Gin claims that in this book he can teach you them in 3 hours each:

https://www.scribd.com/doc/117116336/Mu-ta-Akag%E1%BB%A5-Brief-for-the-Akagu-Alphabet

Then you can work on Nsibidi. Don’t forget, you are awesome. You are awesome. You are awesome. You are awesome.


cc:
Fulaman198, odumchi, bigfrancis21, lalasticlala




modified from http://nihongoshark.com/the-japanese-writing-system/ to explain how the writing system will be used

I'm ibo and I don't know what this writing system is about , I initiall thought it was chinese

I don't even know how to write regular IBO God! why am I this dumb I've only seen these sketches in igbiwood

AfricanGod2:
[size=13pt]Naìjíríyà[/size]
ChinenyeN do you want togive this a try in Akagu?

I'm not too good at messing with vectors, so I went old school and wrote it down by hand. I think I'm more partial to Nsibidi than I am to Akagu. I prefer it more for some reason.

Op, an innocent question please, since English letters already exist for Igbo characters, what makes this new style different?

ChinenyeN:


I'm not too good at messing with vectors, so I went old school and wrote it down by hand. I think I'm more partial to Nsibidi than I am to Akagu. I prefer it more for some reason.

That's a good attempt. With loanwords the akagu with the 'serifs' should be used. I also prefer nsibiri. I did a test a while backs and noticed writing akagu is easier, but reading nsibiri is easier.

Velocitron:
Op, an innocent question please, since English letters already exist for Igbo characters, what makes this new style different?

The letters of the akagu alphabet have characters that are not in the Latin alphabet that Igbo uses. The nsibiri characters or logographs, which means that each symbol represents a word similar to how $ often represents the word 'dollar' and & represents 'and' in various languages. The nsibiri characters (letters) are simplified from pictures representing the word or idea. For example, the nsibiri character for 'ọ́nwá' (moon) is simplified from the picture of a moon. 'Nà', 'and' in Igbo is represented by talking with a symbol for unity.

odensibiri:
That's a good attempt. With loanwords the akagu with the 'serifs' should be used. I also prefer nsibiri. I did a test a while backs and noticed writing akagu is easier, but reading nsibiri is easier.

Thanks. I believe more so than anything, I'm interested in the prospect of more literary intelligibility between lects with Nsibidi. Added to that, I can also envision some limited degree of specialized characters developed within communities to suit the linguistic and cultural contexts, and that prospect entices me. To me, Akagu is still just an alphabet and doesn't entirely capture the diversity of sound found in the region, but it's definitely still got room for growth.

odensibiri:


The letters of the akagu alphabet have characters that are not in the Latin alphabet that Igbo uses. The nsibiri characters or logographs, which means that each symbol represents a word similar to how $ often represents the word 'dollar' and & represents 'and' in various languages. The nsibiri characters (letters) are simplified from pictures representing the word or idea. For example, the nsibiri character for 'ọ́nwá' (moon) is simplified from the picture of a moon. 'Nà', 'and' in Igbo is represented by talking with a symbol for unity.

Thanks!

This needs to be taking to the appropriate channels so it can be refined and put into use, i don't how but we seriously need it (if nothing else but to give us an identity). I truly hope a governor or someone in positions see's this and slowly introduces it, that person will go down in history.

I've uploaded the font file here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/n2476tb37ahz7pm/Akagu.ttf?dl=0

Instructions: http://nsibiri..com

odensibiri:
Instructions: http://nsibiri..com

Sorry,are you also Gin of Ukpurublogspot?

Ihuomadinihu:

Sorry,are you also Gin of Ukpurublogspot?

Yes.

odensibiri:


Yes.

Wow! That's cool. You are doing so much on igbo history and for Igbo people. Pls keep up the good work.

Ihuomadinihu:

Wow! That's cool. You are doing so much on igbo history and for Igbo people. Pls keep up the good work.

Thanks!

Odensibiri that was quick.

I read the guys blog, and in a pdf he states he is modifying the script because the original "isn't true writing" and is attempting to "modernize" it by essentially changing it and adopting foreign scripts rules. Now of course we know this is bogus and that Nsibidi is a 100% complete script, but I would love to know just how much he is modifying it.

The above is a Nsibidi transcript of an Ikpe court case from the 19th-early 20th century. I really hope those who learn this modern Nsibidi and agaku are able to fully read the above. I fear the person putting this project together doesn't know enough about how the original Nsibidi system works to attempt this feat successfully.

ChukwuCantDie:
You dont know how to read? It is an ancient Igbo writing system called Nsibidi from many hundreds of years ago. Some of you people are idiots.

Nsibidi and Akagu should be made a part of the school curriculum in Igboland, there is no excuse not to.

must answer some one a question abusive words? must every one know every thing at the same time?

[quote author=odensibiri post=33970362]

Thanks!
Biko nnam I've gone through your work and am quite elated on what you're doing.
Am a fan of hanzi/hanja/kanji and maybe that's why am attracted to your work but I've noticed its deficient in some aspects
1]color names
2]Igbo town names
If possible try and borrow some characters from hanzi and moreover, I think its necessary to do away with the akagu stuff leaving only the vowels and nasals.
Am compiling your work into a format that would help me learn it and I hope you'd increase the vocabulary to at least 2000 characters

Just my last request biko the character for mountain doesn't really reflect the geographic landmark..it only describes those mounds made by farmers in their farms. In my honest opinion, I'd suggest the adoption of the hanzi for mountain 山 kos from my view, it correctly describes it.
Jisike biko

Wait, Cheruv. Why would the work need to include color names and Igbo town names to be non-deficient? Don't take this as a statement of my disagreement. I simply want to understand your logic. Also, why do you advocate that akagu be discarded? (Again, just looking to understand your reasoning). Or was all of that just with regard to the posts here in this thread and not specifically about the script itself?

Lastly, I would disagree with you only one thing, the character for 'mountain'. The general ethno-graphical terrain is largely devoid of mountains (unless there is something I don't know). Most Igbo lects (I say most, because I am not familiar with all lects) do not even have a word for 'mountain'. So, the word for 'hill' is often used in its place. To that effect, I say we leave the current character for 'mountain', which actually reflects the word for 'hill' and not be concerned with the adoption of a new character for 'mountain'. I'm practically positive that a more unique character for 'mountain' will develop organically before we even know it.

ChinenyeN:
Wait, Cheruv. Why would the work need to include color names and Igbo town names to be non-deficient? Don't take this as a statement of my disagreement. I simply want to understand your logic. Also, why do you advocate that akagu be discarded? (Again, just looking to understand your reasoning). Or was all of that just with regard to the posts here in this thread and not specifically about the script itself?

Lastly, I would disagree with you only one thing, the character for 'mountain'. The general ethno-graphical terrain is largely devoid of mountains (unless there is something I don't know). Most Igbo lects (I say most, because I am not familiar with all lects) do not even have a word for 'mountain'. So, the word for 'hill' is often used in its place. To that effect, I say we leave the current character for 'mountain', which actually reflects the word for 'hill' and not be concerned with the adoption of a new character for 'mountain'. I'm practically positive that a more unique character for 'mountain' will develop organically before we even know it.

Dede,
Asusu Igbo can't continue to be in the classical period.. It has to modernize and become universal!
I see nsibiri as the vehicle to achieve that,but it can't be so if we restrict it to things found within the Igbo realm.
Take for an example the character for ocean..even though there's no Igbo tribe with direct access to the sea,there's still a character for it.
Igbo and nsibiri need to go hand in hand for it to compete with the world lingos of English, Espanol and Mandarin

Oh okay. I get where you're coming from. I appreciate the explanation. I actually agree with you. The only difference is that what you perceive to be a restriction, I perceive to be a healthy vacuum.

As I see it, the power behind literacy or writing is its capacity to both reflect and influence spoken language. To the best of our collective knowledge right now, there exists no term for 'mountain' among the Igbo languages. However, the vacuum created by lack of lexicon can by quite easily filled by compositing the characters for 'hill' and 'grand'. The meaning is decipherable, and the corresponding, spoken expression can be easily rendered across the Igbo languages without stressing over orthography or standardization. I have in fact already used this composite character once before in communication with someone else.

The character for 'ocean' is also a composite of the characters for 'body' or 'body of' and 'grand'. In essence, the character for 'ocean' transcribes as 'grand body of [water]'.

In my honest opinion, the current character set for Nsibidi is off to a good and very solid start. Aside from that, you can't solve every issue for everyone everytime. Sometimes it is both more practical and beneficial for solutions to develop on their own and as a consequence of active use.

ChinenyeN:
Oh okay. I get where you're coming from. I appreciate the explanation. I actually agree with you. The only difference is that what you perceive to be a restriction, I perceive to be a healthy vacuum.

As I see it, the power behind literacy or writing is its capacity to both reflect and influence spoken language. To the best of our collective knowledge right now, there exists no term for 'mountain' among the Igbo languages. However, the vacuum created by lack of lexicon can by quite easily filled by compositing the characters for 'hill' and 'grand'. The meaning is decipherable, and the corresponding, spoken expression can be easily rendered across the Igbo languages without stressing over orthography or standardization. I have in fact already used this composite character once before in communication with someone else.

The character for 'ocean' is also a composite of the characters for 'body' or 'body of' and 'grand'. In essence, the character for 'ocean' transcribes as 'grand body of [water]'.

In my honest opinion, the current character set for Nsibidi is off to a good and very solid start. Aside from that, you can't solve every issue for everyone everytime. Sometimes it is both more practical and beneficial for solutions to develop on their own and as a consequence of active use.

Ya
Igbo is an agglutinative language.. and I've taken time to study his script and I found to be agglutinative too
Igbo now has no nkowa okwu(dictionary) and I see his efforts as laying the foundation for one..that's why I implored him to increase it to at least 2000 characters.
With the kind of people Igbos are,I see nsibiri being borrowed to write other tonal languages in Africa, just as hanzi was borrowed to write Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese and some other far Eastern languages.
Am already learning how to write it..you know memorizing the nsibiri for different terms even from what I see on Biafran sites,some are suggesting that upon independence, nsibiri would replace or supercede Latin as the premiere script for Igbo language.

cheruv:
[quote author=odensibiri post=33970362]

Thanks!
Biko nnam I've gone through your work and am quite elated on what you're doing.
Am a fan of hanzi/hanja/kanji and maybe that's why am attracted to your work but I've noticed its deficient in some aspects
1]color names
2]Igbo town names
If possible try and borrow some characters from hanzi and moreover, I think its necessary to do away with the akagu stuff leaving only the vowels and nasals.
Am compiling your work into a format that would help me learn it and I hope you'd increase the vocabulary to at least 2000 characters wink

Just my last request biko the character for mountain doesn't really reflect the geographic landmark..it only describes those mounds made by farmers in their farms. In my honest opinion, I'd suggest the adoption of the hanzi for mountain 山 kos from my view, it correctly describes it.
Jisike biko

The reason I didn't add town names is because they can either be broken down like in the attached image or they can be written in akagu, the same usually goes for colours which are usually only in an adjectival stage in Igbo like in the case of green (ndu ndu), in some cases there are nouns. We cannot feasibly expect Igbo writers to remember 1400 characters at all times, in the case of them forgetting the characters, akagu is there as a 'net' to fall back on, I know this because I do it myself.

I have capped the writing system currently at the 1400 characters because with every character added the script becomes more difficult to learn, the reality is that different communities may choose to add their own characters, but these are the standard characters. Many Igbo words can be easily broken down to their verb root, which is why these 1400 characters cover a lot more vocabulary than you think, there are also character combinations that may be used to sound something completely different from the two characters but only use the characters for their semantic meaning. If you are familiar with Hanzi and its Japanese derivative Kanji you'll know that most Chinese writers only need to know 8000 common Chinese characters, and even they struggle with that because they have no alternative like we have akagu, they also use a standard set of Chinese characters to approximate foreign names and new ideas, for example they may use characters that have the sounds 'nai' and another that's 'ji' + 'ri' + 'ya' for Nigeria (尼日利亞), but these characters also have a meaning of their own each and it may be confusing, that's led them to simplified Chinese vs traditional, controversially introduced by the Communist party and used for more than 50 years now, and Chinese even a suggested syllabary called Bopomofo. With the Japanese, which only around 2000 words are needed for a good vocabulary, they made their life easier by creating kana symbols that were just syllables that had no value other than the syllable sound. Ask yourself how would a young child learn how to spell and be helped to pronounce 'anwu' without learning a system like akagu or just going directly to nsibidi?

The reason for this project is to use indigenous symbols to approach Igbo literacy in a way that would, I think, work better. I've tried to keep as many original nsibidi characters intact as possible, if you look at the key of the Ikpo Nsibidi you'll see where I've shown the type of nsibidi characters in relation to 'old' nsibidi, whether they are modified in terms of form or meaning, whether they are simplified, whether they are newly constructed from the radicals or basic elements that recur in most 'old' nsibidi characters, and whether they are wholly original or not modified from the pre-1900 nsibidi. Many of these nsibidi symbols were simplified or modified from their original shape so that the symbols are as simple as possible and therefore easier to learn and remember, but at the same time keeping the integrity, heritage and consistency of nsibidi. There are around two symbols adopted from uri motifs. To adopt characters or symbols from foreign scripts would be contradictory to the mission of the project. I mean, if we adopt some hanzi characters, I may as well stop trying to preserve this system and just start writing Igbo in hanzi.

ChinenyeN:
Oh okay. I get where you're coming from. I appreciate the explanation. I actually agree with you. The only difference is that what you perceive to be a restriction, I perceive to be a healthy vacuum.

As I see it, the power behind literacy or writing is its capacity to both reflect and influence spoken language. To the best of our collective knowledge right now, there exists no term for 'mountain' among the Igbo languages. However, the vacuum created by lack of lexicon can by quite easily filled by compositing the characters for 'hill' and 'grand'. The meaning is decipherable, and the corresponding, spoken expression can be easily rendered across the Igbo languages without stressing over orthography or standardization. I have in fact already used this composite character once before in communication with someone else.

The character for 'ocean' is also a composite of the characters for 'body' or 'body of' and 'grand'. In essence, the character for 'ocean' transcribes as 'grand body of [water]'.

In my honest opinion, the current character set for Nsibidi is off to a good and very solid start. Aside from that, you can't solve every issue for everyone everytime. Sometimes it is both more practical and beneficial for solutions to develop on their own and as a consequence of active use.

That's the idea, to encode Igbo to nsibidi first, and then not only can new symbols be composed using the precedent set by the other characters, but also new words can be formed by joining words together. This may be obvious, but a problem I had before starting this project was that it was difficult to understand some new terms others made because all I could see was the sound and often people don't bother or don't even know how to mark tones, but with nsibidi not only is the issue of marking tones less crucial to the pronunciation, but I can see what the poster is getting out since nsibidi characters (usually) provide semantic explanation. Like if I were to make a word up for a threading machine and called it iga, you wouldn't know 'ga' meant threading, but in nsibidi you would.

Something like that.

[quote author=odensibiri post=36603125][/quote]
Good...
Am quite familiar with your script so pls permit me to make a correction.
The nsibiri glyphs for Awka/Oka should be
O= the glyph for nasalized O is appropriate.. As in the "O" for 3rd place reference eg O di mma.
Ka= the glyph you gave is correct
Another thing..how do you use it to write on the net,that's any software or something of that sort I can download to use it in writing online.

As for the glyphs number,I think something between 1200-1500 is OK for Igbo.. Kos our vocabulary isn't that large and am happy you took note of the fact that the language is agglutinative in nature.
So maybe you try and revise it and cap it at 1500 characters.. Then try and see whether you can produce it in a format we can use on our phones and laptops. Also ensure that the revised version has Latin alphabet instead of the akagu you used in this one.
God help you as you beautify our language

cheruv:

Good...
Am quite familiar with your script so pls permit me to make a correction.
The nsibiri glyphs for Awka/Oka should be
O= the glyph for nasalized O is appropriate.. As in the "O" for 3rd place reference eg O di mma.
Ka= the glyph you gave is correct
Another thing..how do you use it to write on the net,that's any software or something of that sort I can download to use it in writing online.

As for the glyphs number,I think something between 1200-1500 is OK for Igbo.. Kos our vocabulary isn't that large and am happy you took note of the fact that the language is agglutinative in nature.
So maybe you try and revise it and cap it at 1500 characters.. Then try and see whether you can produce it in a format we can use on our phones and laptops. Also ensure that the revised version has Latin alphabet instead of the akagu you used in this one.
God help you as you beautify our language

Nice that you caught that out, you can see where I substituted the character with akagu in absence of nsibiri. Thanks.

We'll see as the writing develops as writing systems are really just at the mercy of the people who use it. The writing will have to be sent to the unicode consortium to be used on phones and computers, but that's a bit later after more people use the script.

I can see momentum for this picking up over the next few years. As at now, I'm aware of one media project that intends to make use of Nsibidi in the production of short films. Essentially Nsibidi will serve as the sole writing system in the fictional storylines. It's also very likely that the developers of the project will capitalize on the healthy vaccuum and the agglutinative nature of the language and script to coin new usages. This could easily be seen as an example of the vacuum problem resolving itself.

ChinenyeN:
I can see momentum for this picking up over the next few years. As at now, I'm aware of one media project that intends to make use of Nsibidi in the production of short films. Essentially Nsibidi will serve as the sole writing system in the fictional storylines. It's also very likely that the developers of the project will capitalize on the healthy vaccuum and the agglutinative nature of the language and script to coin new usages. This could easily be seen as an example of the vacuum problem resolving itself.

Which media house
Pls tell me so that I can wait for them..you don't know how happy I'm for this.

odensibiri:


Nice that you caught that out, you can see where I substituted the character with akagu in absence of nsibiri. Thanks.

We'll see as the writing develops as writing systems are really just at the mercy of the people who use it. The writing will have to be sent to the unicode consortium to be used on phones and computers, but that's a bit later after more people use the script.

Ya..
But try and produce a Latin based one at least before the year runs out to enable peeps like us master the script faster kos as you know we're already exposed to Latin and the akagu letters are a bit cumbersome
Then try and look into the phenomena where one word has like more than 2 characters to it for eg
The word "na" has 3 variables in Igbo
1] ná
2] nà
3] nā
The thing am talking of is a situation where one of the variables eg >nà< has more than a character representing it.it presents something like a dilemma kos some peeps might be confused on which one is which.
Am still in the learning process and would offer criticisms needed for the betterment of the script while waiting for it to come out so that I can download for use on my phone and system
Thanks alot