amenuveve:
Nice post op, I have been thinking about this issue for something now, we have to take the message to everyone around us. By the way anyone with an idea of urhobo name that start with letter " J". I need suggestions. I have a plan to create a association for URHOBO living in Ghana, if interested contact me on +233248209704 or orsoft2489@gmail.com

Jesuovie
Jite

fratermathy:


Some people are trying to fix the problem. If you goto YouTube, you can search for Urhobo Cartoons and learn Urhobo from the basics very well. After that, you can proceed to watch Urhobo films (with English subtitles). The films are on YouTube too and they are quite good. Then we should befriend ourselves and enforce Urhobo as the only means of communication except on official terms. Someone even mailed me that he wants to develop an application for PCs, Android, etc, to learn Urhobo. Our children should be made to learn Urhobo as well. If we do this, we can complement the efforts of Urhobo Historical Society and Urhobo Progress Union so that Urhobo will not go extinct.

Quite true, I saw some Urhobo movies as a teen and even though I didn't really know what was fully going on at the time, I somewhat loved it and would watch with other members of the family. Not sure if they still make them.

I'm sure you missed one; listening to Urhobo songs. They help a lot in learning new words, particularly when they grease proverbs effortlessly. I'd recommend Jerry Ekpekuro anytime, anyday.

fratermathy:


Jesuovie
Jite

Jite is an incomplete name and the short form of 'Onajite'. Urhobo names are largely compound names and a few are compound complex, with prefixes. I doubt if the poster would be able to get a name starting with 'J' without a prefix. Most prefixes attached to these names rarely start from 'J'.

blues20:

Do you have a dictionary/bible on your language? That could be a starting point of for those you who cannot speak the language

There are dictionaries in Urhobo and Bibles as well, but they are not properly circulated. Besides, it would be very difficult for beginners to read without understanding the Urhobo orthography, the syntactic structure and special characters. Urhobo as a language, is somewhat difficult to read or write down, due to the heavy consonant clusters for in almost every word.

Ishilove:
Will I say I'm good with languages? I think not. I was 12 when I began forcing myself to learn my native dialect. Before then my parents spoke to us in ukwuani and we responded in English. When I had my epiphany, I began learning the language, and now, many years later, I still can't boast of being fluent. I understand it up to 90% but can only speak about 55% of Ukwuani.

I have personally resolved to teach my children the little I know because truth is our languages are dying out. I even recall a student I once taught telling me her parents banned her and her sibs from speaking their native Yoruba. Imagine!!

Who is to blame? Media which has brainwashed us? Western influence? Western influence can still be traced to media.

so my wife you be ukwuani lol,i am also partly ukwuani and urhobo fraternally and maternally ,,the truth is our languages are dying and my parents hardly spoke to me and my younger ones in either urhobo or ukwuani so my case is worse because i no undersand ''shishi'', for urhobo and ukwuani even english na struggle i dey struggle to speak sef

fratermathy:


Jesuovie
Jite

ur email no dey go oh ,we need to discuss bro

Efewestern:


Lolz.. Don't know why we love getting married to outsiders, To me thats the no. 1 problem, We love getting married to Yoruba , Edo e.tc and at d end those tribe subdue ours .. Take for example Fatia balogun, that Yoruba actress, She is from Urhobo But can't speak her language fluently

I already made up my mind to get married to an Urhobo lady.. so i go preserve our identity.. I can't speak Urhobo, Imagine me getting married to an Itsekiri, Yoruba, ijaw or an Igbo lady.. I won't b able to Urhobonize my kids..

I think You should come up with Ideas on how to promote our language online.. many of us might contribute to the success of such program. please think about it.

Lolz... Not necessarily true. I believe it all depends on how deeply rooted YOU are and not about who you marry. True, Urhobos are very liberal people when it comes to marriage. Perhaps, one of the most liberal sef. However, losing or retaining your root after marriage depends on you. You could choose a wife from wherever and still assert your root in the home, spell out what is expected of an Urhobo woman in marriage and also teach your children to love everything about the Urhobos, particularly the foods, stories, dress sense, mostly for the males and many others.

I for one used to have a wicked stereotype about our girls. I used to think they are all too loud and dramatic and uncouth. I'm changing this already because I keep meeting Urhobo ladies now who keep changing my mentality on this. Gold help us.

stephenmorris:
so my wife you be ukwuani lol,i am also partly ukwuani and urhobo fraternally and maternally ,,the truth is our languages are dying and my parents hardly spoke to me and my younger ones in either urhobo or ukwuani so my case is worse because i no undersand ''shishi'', for urhobo and ukwuani even english na struggle i dey struggle to speak sef

Nna na wa o. So na pidgin level you dey since Urhobo you no dey, Ukwuani you no dey, English, you still no dey

Africans need to take a queue from Asians that bought into the western technology, without buying into their culture. Hence, their cultures and identities have never been threatened by western language and culture.

If you like speak English with phonetics that surpasses that of the Queen, you are still a bloody black and African, in the eyes of the whites and you can never be more Roman Catholic than the Pope. In the eyes of the whites, you are a mere subject of the western world that is privileged to learn their language and culture and you are being used to propagate their language an culture.

Therefore, teach your kids their African Language or they will point accusing fingers at you in the nearest future, for making them to lose their identity and touch with their roots.

There is nothing cool in you not being able to speak your language. It only makes you part of a lost generation.

Onegai:


He is worse. Barely speaks and doesn't care. [b] I'm not Urhobo but I'm from Delta [/b]and my language is dying too. So I'm learning small Urhobo and my language to teach our kids. But I've already told him we are getting them lesson teachers in both languages from age 3 to 5.

What? Where else do you find the urhobos?

CeoMYN:
Na wetin?

U registered on 13th september 2016 and claim to be Ogba man. what a joke

Eastfield1:

U registered on 13th september 2016
and claim to be Ogba man.
what a joke

Please don't derail this thread any further.

This is a beautiful thread that shouldn't be derailed in the first place. The writer is only worried about the dearth of Urhobo language and only want something to be done about it before it becomes too late. How and why some of my brothers ala Igboid and Enuguboy4nsk derailed it is something am ashamed of.
You guys are not Urhobo in the first place, the dying language here isnt yours and your participation to the discuss of this thread should be as an observer. I know the complaint of someone here would be he roped us (Igbo) into it first. And so what? Even if his mentions were offensive to Ndigbo, your response should have being of civility and not rancour. It wouldnt a bad idea to call his attention to the foul statment and demand an edit. Why turn this beautiful thread into an Igbo vs Urhobo war? Why I ask.
Lastly, to the oga @ the top Bigfrancis. You as a mod shouldn't have allowed this war in the first place. Sorry if I picked on you. But that's the truth. You should have acted fast the moment you saw the derails and give initial warnings before it got to this stage. The onus now if for you to clean up the mess, these warriors created.

CeoMYN:
Please don't derail this thread any further.

my friend!! swerve!!

***

LorDBolton:


Smh. See delusion? Igbos that do not even know their history telling us OUR own history? If not cos it's 2016 you will even claim igbos 'own' lagos that many of your ancestors settled here. Mtcheeew

The fact u cannot distinguish between a settlement and owners of a land shows you even a kid who wasn't well groomed.

Even the obi of onithsa cannot open his mouth to say this crap... only GOD can punish the white men who came and released you guys from the captivity oyo, benin and other hausa kingdoms have subjected ya'll to.

Core igbos are black... go and find out the history of the fair skinned ones (they started popping up when the whites came guess u already know y)

It's rather hypocritical of you to lambast someone speaking on matters that they know nothing about, according to you, yet decide to do the same in the very same post.

As for the bolded, what kind of nonsense is this? I bet you wouldn't even be able to distinguish between 'core Igbos' (not a real thing but I understand what you mean) and non-core Igbos. Can you tell us why the white men commented on the Igbos having fair skin when they first arrived?

Joavid:
just urhobo?

let's not even start with various almost extinct languages in the middle belt aka north central.

I was shocked to know that there are various tribes in Kaduna and plateau states with thier unique languages, but go there today, everyone speaks Hausa!!!

Thank God the Hausa language did not have so much influence in my state. if not.....

I guess you are from Benue, because the other states in North Central have to a large extend lost their culture, tradition and language to Hausa.

Sanchez01:

Lolz... Not necessarily true. I believe it all depends on how deeply rooted YOU are and not about who you marry. True, Urhobos are very liberal people when it comes to marriage. Perhaps, one of the most liberal sef. However, losing or retaining your root after marriage depends on you. You could choose a wife from wherever and still assert your root in the home, spell out what is expected of an Urhobo woman in marriage and also teach your children to love everything about the Urhobos, particularly the foods, stories, dress sense, mostly for the males and many others.

I for one used to have a wicked stereotype about our girls. I used to think they are all too loud and dramatic and uncouth. I'm changing this already because I keep meeting Urhobo ladies now who keep changing my mentality on this. Gold help us.

Urhobo ladies av dere own problem.. But i love them for something.. They are strong and hardworking.. The reason i said we need to Marry ourselves is because marrying each other will go a long way in preserving our culture... i hope u know hw our land was taken in Warri ?. if we married ourselves those problem wouldn't av originated.

As for me. Urhobo Wife or i remain single.. And y is our language not taught in Secondary schools ?.. wats wrong with this state self

Ishilove:

Nna na wa o. So na pidgin level you dey since Urhobo you no dey, Ukwuani you no dey, English, you still no dey

Asin i tire for the guy..

XaintJoel20:

I guess you are from Benue, because the other states in North Central have to a large extend lost their culture, tradition and language to Hausa.

To the extent an Hausa man is ruling a Yoruba land..( kwara) ... They know dere boundary sha..

Efewestern:


Urhobo ladies av dere own problem.. But i love them for something.. They are strong and hardworking.. The reason i said we need to Marry ourselves is because marrying each other will go a long way in preserving our culture... i hope u know hw our land was taken in Warri ?. if we married ourselves those problem wouldn't av originated.

As for me. Urhobo Wife or i remain single.. And y is our language not taught in Secondary schools ?.. wats wrong with this state self

You made a whole lot of sense. Our women are indeed very hardworking. And the stereotype about our women being more hardworking than their male counterpart is true to an extent.

Cultural preservation is key, but it would be a whole lot of disaster for a man who understands just little or no aspect of the culture and then embarks on a journey of upholding cultural values in the home. Unfortunately, inter marriages cannot stop among Urhobos. We've been groomed to be liberal from the outset, which is good, but not all too good.

@the bolded, I find it very funny ... We can't do a thing because we are a minority tribe like other minority tribes. Only the three major ethnic groups are given prominence in schools. I filled an international form recently at my workplace and I was asked to list the languages I speak. Wetin concern me? I added Urhobo as a language. If dem like, make dem check for Google.

fratermathy:


That last statement you made is the reason why no Niger Delta ethnic group will ever trust Igbos, or follow them for anything. It's as simple as that.

Igbos are not trustworthy. Sorry to the good ones that I'm generalizing. My fiancee is Igbo yet she doesn't behave as these online miscreants do.




The Urhobo language is dying and Urhobos are the sole cause. We need to declare a state of emergency in this regards. I don't even know what UPU is doing with regards to this. Whether Urhobo survives as a mere intellectual curiosity in the future depends on what we do now.


As for the igbos derailing this thread with their annexation syndrome. I say "Dallu so". You can feel big when minorities are concerned but when Hausas trash you, you guys will be the ones to cry "Biafra"! . May Biafra ever remain a shadowy vision.

I'm sorry but this post has truly disgusted me. There are so many Igbo haters like you who just can't get enough of Igbo women! How can you claim to love a woman yet hate her tribe? That makes absolutely no sense to me.

This is why, by the grace of God, I will marry an Igbo man and it's also why I encourage my Igbo sisters to do the same. If they can't or won't marry an Igbo man then they should look for a non-Nigerian, who is less likely to have been infected with this anti-Igbo propaganda, or an Ibibio or Efik man, to marry. The worst thing is that guys like you have the audacity to come on Nairaland and complain if your Igbo in-laws reject you for this very same reason. No offence but you seem like the type who'll get very angry with his wife for teaching their kids Igbo. This type of union tends to produce very confused children .

Sanchez01:

You made a whole lot of sense. Our women are indeed very hardworking. And the stereotype about our women being more hardworking than their male counterpart is true to an extent.

Cultural preservation is key, but it would be a whole lot of disaster for a man who understands just little or no aspect of the culture and then embarks on a journey of upholding cultural values in the home. Unfortunately, inter marriages cannot stop among Urhobos. We've been groomed to be liberal from the outset, which is good, but not all too good.

@the bolded, I find it very funny ... We can't do a thing because we are a minority tribe like other minority tribes. Only the three major ethnic groups are given prominence in schools. I filled an international form recently at my workplace and I was asked to list the languages I speak. Wetin concern me? I added Urhobo as a language. If dem like, make dem check for Google.

Lolz.. we are over 5million , i see no reason why they can't teach atlease 5 Local languages in our school.. atleast we re the 5th largest ethnic group in Nigeria

Also i think our men re lazy, Reason y our ladies don't love getting married to us.. don't know if its cous of Oil money. whats ur view on that

Efewestern:


Lolz.. we are over 5million , i see no reason why they can't teach atlease 5 Local languages in our school.. atleast we re the 5th largest ethnic group in Nigeria

Also i think our men re lazy, Reason y our ladies don't love getting married to us.. don't know if its cous of Oil money. whats ur view on that

A lady asked me recently where I'm from and I told her I'm Urhobo. Guess what she said? 'No no no no, I'm sorry, Urhobo men are very lazy and I know this to be true'

In my mind I was like 'so it has gotten to the point where everyone now knows us (Urhobo men)'

I think beyond laziness, our ladies believe we all have this polygamy tendency, which is not entirely true. Most Urhobo men love polygamy though.

On why we are lazy, I think it all stems from the fact that we believe we have a lot (Oil). Also, it stems from the very many peer groups a typical Urhobo man belongs to, which largely involves gisting unnecessarily while they drink and say nonsense. Urhobo men love conversations. The women get busy during this time while the man is unaware that he is wasting time over nothing. Blame the alcohol too.

While our ladies don't have problems with the alcohol, their fear is that we'll just sit at home and do nothing, yet, brag as the man. An Urhobo man who loses his job is even worse. Those ones don't bother to get busy again.

I really admire Urhobo ladies. They're indeed exceptional

Chiwude:
This is a beautiful thread that shouldn't be derailed in the first place. The writer is only worried about the dearth of Urhobo language and only want something to be done about it before it becomes too late. How and why some of my brothers ala Igboid and Enuguboy4nsk derailed it is something am ashamed of.
You guys are not Urhobo in the first place, the dying language here isnt yours and your participation to the discuss of this thread should be as an observer. I know the complaint of someone here would be he roped us (Igbo) into it first. And so what? Even if his mentions were offensive to Ndigbo, your response should have being of civility and not rancour. It wouldnt a bad idea to call his attention to the foul statment and demand an edit. Why turn this beautiful thread into an Igbo vs Urhobo war? Why I ask.
Lastly, to the oga @ the top Bigfrancis. You as a mod shouldn't have allowed this war in the first place. Sorry if I picked on you. But that's the truth. You should have acted fast the moment you saw the derails and give initial warnings before it got to this stage. The onus now if for you to clean up the mess, these warriors created.

thats your opinion and should be used to wipe the wet pvssy of your gal friend
any other thing

Sanchez01:

A lady asked me recently where I'm from and I told her I'm Urhobo. Guess what she said? 'No no no no, I'm sorry, Urhobo men are very lazy and I know this to be true'

In my mind I was like 'so it has gotten to the point where everyone now knows us (Urhobo men)'

I think beyond laziness, our ladies believe we all have this polygamy tendency, which is not entirely true. Most Urhobo men love polygamy though.

On why we are lazy, I think it all stems from the fact that we believe we have a lot (Oil). Also, it stems from the very many peer groups a typical Urhobo man belongs to, which largely involves gisting unnecessarily while they drink and say nonsense. Urhobo men love conversations. The women get busy during this time while the man is unaware that he is wasting time over nothing. Blame the alcohol too.

While our ladies don't have problems with the alcohol, their fear is that we'll just sit at home and do nothing, yet, brag as the man. An Urhobo man who loses his job is even worse. Those ones don't bother to get busy again.

I really admire Urhobo ladies. They're indeed exceptional

Lolz.. Also they see Urhobo men to be strict and harsh.. me for example i don't take nonsense from any woman... dare cross my part.. u gonna receive a beating of your life.

Also the Alcohol issue is not limited to Urhobo men alone.. d ijaw , Itsekiri e.tc also love alcohol..

As for the polygamy, Its in our blood.. In the olden Days our forefathers married alot of women.. my granddad married 3 Wives.. Lolz.. Reason our girls don't want to marry us.

XaintJoel20:

I guess you are from Benue, because the other states in North Central have to a large extend lost their culture, tradition and language to Hausa.

am not from Benue. but you can add, Benue, nasarawa, Niger states to the group.