Takeproft:
I think you're a weakling. You've used similar words on this thread and nobody called the mod. Like I didn't see your responses to others

Igboid:

By the way given that the lexical similarity between Bini and Yoruba is somewhere between over 40 and over 50%, I don't find 77% between Ika and Owerri to be too large.

This is a mischievous comment.

Which Yoruba dialect are you speaking of.
I'd be surprised if Oyo dialect is anywhere up to 50% mutual intelligibility with Bini.

If you meant Akokoid dialects of Yoruba,and the dialects of places like Irele in Ondo who are contagious with Edo state, then you might be right, because even Oyo people would struggle to understand those Yoruba dialects, but that would mean that you are also been stingy with the truth, comparing Owerri which is not contagious with Ikaland with Ika dialect.
The best suited Igbo dialect to compare Ika with is Enu-ani, if you do this, the mutual intelligibility between Ika and Enu-ani Will be found to be up to 85% or more, if you then compare Enu-ani with Onitsha/Idemili/Ogbaru cluster, you will again get up to 85% mutual intelligibility.

Igbo dialects exist in continuum, the closer dialects are, the greater the mutual intelligibility, and the farther they are, the lesser.

If you want to compare Ika with Owerri, you must first compare Ika with Ndokwa, then Ndokwa with Oguta, and Oguta with Orlu and lastly Orlu with Owerri.
If done that way, the mutual intelligibility as you move along will remain well above 80%, that's why it's called a continuum.
The only exception to this rule will be Ekpeye.

YourNemesis:


Not true.
Slavery started in the bight of Benin before the Bight of Biafra sef.
You might say the bulk were lade "late" as in like 1700s to late 1800s, but that does not mean there were no early Yoruba slaves. Look at Haiti for example that had an early slave revolution and hence had the input of newcomer slaves cut short early due to independent status, yet there is still Yoruba influence there.

Also, the reason you gave earlier is NOT the reason Yoruba culture survives in the Americas. Why did Fon and Yoruba culture survive in the USA , when they were there under the same conditions as those you claim their cultures were totally removed from them?
That other thread you posted its link here is just a wild generalization.

Cire80:
During the war, Ika people were shuttling from Benin to Onitsha buying and supplying salt, cigarettes, local snuffs and gun powder to the Igbos because of the big profits they were making. Do you know what saved them from the Nigerian Troops? Ika language.

I've heard tales from lots of people that engaged in such risky tales and they all recount their encounters at the hands of the Nigerian troops. When they are confronted by the Nigerian troops, they engage in interrogation sessions where they're asked many things especially their hometown. If they say they're Ika, the only license they have to life is to speak Ika language and they're saved. Murtala was so in love with Ika that there are Ika indigenes in all the companies.

YourNemesis:
And how do you know the ethnic make up of slaves from the Bight of Benin before the 1800s or that Yoruba groups were not there?
There are significant recorded Yoruba presence in places like Haiti, Louisiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique and other places well before the 1800s.

Even if your assertion were true, it is on record as well, that Igbo slaves also kept on arriving into the Americas (although not the USAA) as late as the Yoruba kept arriving. Compare and contrast the cultural legacies of the late arrivals on both sides.

Besides, Congo influences in the new world are very visible in the places were they concentrated. Palo Mayombe, Conga music, Zombies, Capoeira are all said to be Kongo legacies.

YORUBA SLAVE NUMBERS EXPORTED FROM BIGHT OF BENIN FROM 1650 TO 1865

The image below is a table of all slave ports in the Bight of Benin and the number of slaves exported from these ports during the entire slave trade period from 1650 to 1865.

Of all these ports, Lagos/Onim port was the number 1 source of Yoruba slaves. A quick look shows that from 1651 to 1750, Lagos exported 0 number of slaves for nearly 100 years. We begin to see the exports from Lagos (mostly Yoruba slaves) start from 1751, attaining its all time high between 1826 and 1850 (during the time of the Oyo empire wars) and dropping thereafter. The table indicates that between 1751, when Lagos slave exports began, and 1865, (end of slavery), 317,300 slaves (let us assume all were Yorubas for simplicity) were exported from Lagos port. That is, 317,300 Yoruba slaves were exported from the port of Lagos during the entire slave trade period of 215 years for Bight of Benin.

Now, there are high chances that some Yoruba slaves were also exported through nearby ports of Badagri and Epe. The slaves from these ports would have included Fon slaves, Ga slaves, Akan slaves, Ewe slaves, Yoruba slaves etc. However, let us assume that all the slaves exported from these 2 ports were also Yoruba slaves, the figures are 53,700 and 85,500 for Epe and Badagry respectively, for a combined total of 139,200.

Assuming all the slaves exported from Lagos, Epe and Badagry were of Yoruba descent, the overall number of all 'Yoruba' slaves exported from these 3 ports in the Bight of Benin is 456,500, or less than half a million. However, realistically speaking, given the fact that many non-Yorubas were often labelled 'lukumi' by the Spanish/Portuguese (see second image below) and not all slaves from these 3 ports were actually Yorubas, especially from the ports of Epe and Badagry, the actual number of Yoruba slaves taken from these 3 ports would be a figure between 300,000 and 400,000.

To add also, that not all 300,000 to 456,500 Yoruba slaves who left the shores of West Africa did make it to the new world. A substantial percentage who were destined for slavery were intercepted by the British and rerouted to Sierra Leone where they settled. They never made it to Latin America. Some of these Okun/Aku Yorubas later returned to Lagos (Saros).Out of the majority who made it to Latin America, a small percentage returned (Agudas) to Lagos where they also settled. Taking into consideration the Okun Yorubas (sent to Sierra Leone), the Agudas (Roman Catholic Portuguese-speaking returnees), and those that died during the rigorous transatlantic slave trade trip to the new world, the final number of Yoruba slaves settling in Latin America (mainly Brazil) is a figure between 250,000 and 400,000.

https://books.google.com/books?id=Uk1Tbdsq99gC&pg=PA179&dq=yoruba+slave+population+numbers&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjkzI34o8zRAhWH34MKHZDPDaEQ6AEIJTAC#v=onepage&q=yoruba%20slave%20population%20numbers&f=false

The image below confirms that proportion of Yoruba slave compared to the overall Bight of Benin slave exports was quite little (2% - 10%) between 1640 to 1740, even dropping to as low as 0% in the 1700s, then we begin to see slight increases from 16% in the 1750s to 53% in 1820s, to as high as 85% in the 1830s (once again coinciding with the period of Oyo-Dahomean wars) and dropping to 79% between 1840s and 1860s.

Interesting! The Aja peoples overwhelmingly dominated the Bight of Benin slave trade from as high as 97% in the 1680s up until 1800s (49%) and were at par with Yoruba slaves at 36% in the 1810s.

Once again, the only period Yoruba slaves dominated the Bight of Benin slave trade is between 1820 to 1860 during the fall of the Oyo empire and the Oyo-Dahomean wars.

Realistic figure from SW Nigeria: 437,700, still within the initial estimate of 456,500.

pazienza:
"Despite being smaller, their cultural impact in the
New Word is DOMINANT. Yorubas are the single
most culturally influential ethnic group in the Black
Diaspora. By contrast, the Igbo who were sold in
much larger numbers are almost culturally invisible
in the New World. This is a clear indicator of who
among the two had a more advanced, impactful
culture".

https://www.nairaland.com/3580290/comparing-slave-numbers-bight-benin/1

Imagine this unrepentant confused amphoteric Igala- Igbo man talking about someone scattering Igbo unity, like he knows the meaning of Igbo unity.

Chimoo!

Probz:


Old thread bump. I just can’t help but ROFL at hardline Biafra nationalist claiming everything for himself. Tribes have their own strengths.

I’m sure Redbone’s done more for Igbo unity than a fervent Nairaland warrior like you.

pazienza:



Goes to show how impervious to reasoning and common sense some people can be, if you had to produce this reply to justify a very wrong conclusion of Igbo culture being weaker than Yoruba culture, as ignorantly propagated by redbone, despite plethora of evidence produced by Bigfrancis and other posters here to explain the reasons for the seemingly dominance of Yoruba religion and cultural imprints in the Americas.

I can't come online to boast of how much I had contributed to Ndiigbo, but I'm damn sure that people who believe Igbo culture is inferior to that of any group are completely incapable of contributing to Igbo uplifltment, for one can't offer what one lacks.

pazienza:



Goes to show how impervious to reasoning and common sense some people can be, if you had to produce this reply to justify a very wrong conclusion of Igbo culture being weaker than Yoruba culture, as ignorantly propagated by redbone, despite plethora of evidence produced by Bigfrancis and other posters here to explain the reasons for the seemingly dominance of Yoruba religion and cultural imprints in the Americas.

I can't come online to boast of how much I had contributed to Ndiigbo, but I'm damn sure that people who believe Igbo culture is inferior to that of any group are completely incapable of contributing to Igbo uplifltment, for one can't offer what one lacks.

Probz:


Sometimes the best things in life need to hold onto certain primitive features. That’s something that’s directly opposed to advancement but that’s the point.

Some latent Igbotic tendencies come to their fullest expression in the Yoruba. Definitely doesn’t mean the parent tribe’s behind on the whole. Just in certain areas.

Igbo culture doesn’t need to be as advanced or sophisticated as Yoruba culture because we’re not as deeply rooted in culture as a people and that’s because we don’t need to be. Dynamism and conservation are two opposed qualities meant for two different people. Parralels, equivalents.

One nation can’t have it all.

pazienza:



You are not making any sense, I hope you know that, right?

There is nothing whatsoever to prove Yoruba culture being more sophisticated or advanced than those of Ndiigbo, if you hold unto this opinion, then by everymeans do, but don't for once think they could pass for anything other than ignorance driven jaundiced opinion and don't pretend to speak for Ndiigbo, for no true Igbo man holds such opinion.

Bigfrancis had already explained why Yoruba culture survived in Americas, While in contrast, the Igbo, Kongo, Malian, etc cultures barely survived, now you can go on to continue believing that this happened dude to phantom sophistication and superiority of Yoruba culture that you can't prove, or you can simply accept the logical and rational explanations Bigfrancis21 offered.

Wulfruna:
Your so-called Igbo proper Enuani still have a lot of clans that claim Bini, Esan and Igala blood.

Probz:


Yoruba culture is more sophisticated and advanced than Igbo culture because Yoruba people are more deeply rooted in culture. Igbos are more dynamic. Fact. End.

I know you won’t agree being the hardline Biafra nationalist you are but I made a plain point uo there. Igbo world influence is mirrored across the globe in many different ways. Not in direct culture.

You can carry on being the fanatical nationalist that you are and claiming everything for yourself or you can look at it from another perspective and admit that Igbo doesn’t need to have the most influential or refined direct culture to be the progenitor of world civilisation as a whole.

German, Jewish, Indian, Italian and especially Yoruba cultures are direct expressions of Igbo in more ways than someone like you could imagine. Igbo mustn’t be the obvious dominant black cultural force in the diaspora for that to happen. Our cultural influence is more subtle.

Eberejesus111:

to me you hadn't really made any point.

bigfrancis21:

@bold
1) I never implied that Yoruba slaves were not exported before the 1800s, but rather their numbers were more substantial in the 1800s compared to the mid-late 1700s. The Oyo-Dahomey wars of the 1800s is the major causative factor that swelled the Yoruba slave population in the diaspora. I am very sure that you are familiar with image 1 attached below.



2) There was Yoruba presence pre-1800 in those places you mentioned but statistics show that they were hardly 'significant' until after the 1800s. Time after time and record after record, statistics all reveal the Yoruba becoming more prominent in the slave trade mostly in the 1800s - towards the end and after slavery ended. It is also on record that even after slavery ended, Yorubas kept arriving Haiti, not as slaves, but as indentured servants. Indentured servants often had way more rights than slaves did.

3) Those few things you mentioned as Congo influence are very minute compared to their much larger numbers taken.

There is no gain-saying the fact that Yoruba cultural long-lasting legacies in the new world were as a result of time and changing circumstances. Many Afro-descended people clinging onto Yoruba culture nowadays are not necessarily of genetic Yoruba ancestry but embrace the religion as an African connection. You, very well, cannot dispute this fact.

Probz:


Yoruba culture is more sophisticated and advanced than Igbo culture because Yoruba people are more deeply rooted in culture. Igbos are more dynamic. Fact. End.

I know a guy like you won’t agree but I made a plain point up there. Igbo world influence is mirrored across the globe in many different ways. Not in direct culture.

You can carry on being the fanatical nationalist that you are and claiming everything for yourself or you can look at it from another perspective and admit that Igbo doesn’t need to have the most influential or refined direct culture to be the progenitor of world civilisation as a whole.

German, Jewish, Indian, Italian and especially Yoruba cultures are direct expressions of Igbo in more ways than someone like you could imagine. Igbo mustn’t be the obvious dominant black cultural force in the diaspora for that to happen. Our cultural influence is more subtle.

Probz:


This thing’s not for you.

pazienza:



Since we had eviscerated the very idea that the survival of Yoruba culture in the new world was as a result of the sophistication or superiority of their culture.

Please, can you list concrete reasons and examples to prove Yoruba culture sophistication over the Igbo.

Isn't it ironic that in an era when people are claiming that they were Binis who mere interactions with Igbo people resulted in them assimilating Igbo culture in terms of Language, Market days, ancestral god's, and names, some one like you that support such views would still come forward to project the jaundiced opinion that a culture capable of robbing its neighbors of their own natural language and ways of life, without use of force or coercion, is an inferior culture?

You need to keep your thoughts and narratives straight, bro.

Eberejesus111:
:
Really... OK then... But truly you made no point.

Probz:
The Igbo race show their world superiority in other ways than direct culture. I’ll end it there.

pazienza:


Yet we have many people who claimed to be originally Igala, Bini, Chinese, Japanese , who had all been culturally influenced by Ndiigbo to jettison their supposedly sophisticated cultures, for a supposedly primitive Igbo One.
What a paradox.

Anakogheli.

Eberejesus111:
Read all your comments, and I must say I'm the most impressed... Well let me bring it down to you, for the Delta Igbos and River Igbos, these sort of groups were primarily Igbos, but had denied their identities based on the onset of the civil war and it's aftermaths. A case study: Rivers igbo, these groups had started denying their cultural names, changing it to English or German names, just to bring home their point, and had also denied any cultural attributes with the Igbos, based on the juicy returns the government of that period would want to give them, so in basic terms "they had sold their identity for a morsel of meat(gains)"...
Anioma/Anoicha likewise.
And as for the prevalence of the said "Yoruba culture having prevalence in the Americas", this could be a mockery,because most African descents in landing in the Americas had been stripped off their culture, and identity, and as for the Igbos, if you could research in history, you'll found out that the Igbos being resisting, and also industrious (had used this kind of trade as a means of making wealth) resisting because the colonist couldn't impose their rules on them, they were tiring to govern, and industrious because there was a demand, and the Igbos had to make a supply in that period. This two criteria, had brought in an overlap of igbo slaves in the Americas and also stripping of identities by their colonist. Making what we call Creoles(making British men out of black individuals). The Yorubas came at a latter period, around the 1800's when slavery was being abolished and sentiments of slave emancipation was on the way. In that period, the yorubas, brought their folklore, and traditional practices, in which most slave workers accepted because of its dejavu effects and African culture remembrance.

Nzita:

@Bigfrancis
You said that "... While in contrast, the Igbo, Kongo, Malian, etc cultures barely survived.."

I'm not sure if you really are aware of how your statement is totally wrong about the Kongo in the USA, Central America, the Caribbean and South America including in Africa. Kongo's cultural impact (art, music, dance, religious) and political impact is very visible in the Americas and Caribbean. Many of the carryover effects were wrongly attributed to YORUBA culture.

Proof of Kongo's culture in the USA (2013-2015)

[1] Princeton University Art Museum
KONGO across the Waters
Exhibition October 25, 2014 – January 25, 2015

http://artmuseum.princeton.edu/art/exhibitions/1619

The second paragraph of the press release says:

“Kongo across the Waters examines 500 years of cultural exchange between the Kongo, Europe, and the United States, showing the rise of Kongo as a major Atlantic presence and the transmission of Kongo culture through the transatlantic slave trade into American art."[/color]


[ 2 ] Harn Museum examines cultural legacy of Kongo kingdom (University of Florida)

http://news.ufl.edu/archive/2013/10/harn-museum-examines-cultural-legacy-of-kongo-kingdom.php

[3] Kongo across the Waters
A National Legacy with Special Hampton Connections
Mary Lou Hultgren

http://iraaa.museum.hamptonu.edu/page/Kongo-across-the-Waters

[4] Introduction: Kongo Atlantic Dialogues by ROBIN POYNOR, SUSAN COOKSEY and CARLEE FORBES
African Studies Quarterly | Volume 15, Issue 3 | June 2015
Google this PDF Article

Explore these 4 references for the time being.

Caribbean English is a broad term for the dialects of the English language spoken in the Caribbean and Liberia, most countries on the Caribbean coast of Central America, and Guyana and Suriname on the coast of South America. Caribbean English is influenced by the English-based Creole varieties spoken in the region, but they are not the same. In the Caribbean, there is a great deal of variation in the way English is spoken. Scholars generally agree that although the dialects themselves vary significantly in each of these countries, they primarily have roots in British English and West African languages. Overview The English in daily use in the Caribbean include a different set of pronouns, typically, me, meh, or mi, you, yuh, he, she, it, we, wi or alawe, wunna or unu, and dem or day. I, mi, my, he, she, ih, it, we, wi or alawe, allayu or unu, and dem, den, deh for "them" with Central Americans. Other features: Consonant changes like h-dropping or th-stopping are common. Some might be "sing-songish": Tri ...more...

danye8:
calling other people's dialect intelligible,calling some ethnic groups/tribe "TRUE" and others "false" is disrespectful.i am an enuani man from anioma part of delta state,my language is igboid doesn't make it igbo.ENUANI is my languge and ethnicity,ANIOMA is my land and that should be respected.and i also admit i share linguistic similarity with the igbos but i am not igbo first,i am ENUANI first.period

bigfrancis21:
For what is is, Ika is simply an Igbo dialect with Bini loan words and sometimes Bini inflections, the Bini influence thereof being due to massive settlers from Edoid areas in Ika land. This phenomenon of bini families settling in Ika land was noted by a writer in one of his books I do not remember currently. Thus those Ika people with Bini surnames who are anywhere between 10% to 25% of Ikas may be right after all when they say they[the settlers] are from Bini but it is wrong to drag the 'ndi nwe ana' or entire Ika people (those with Igbo surnames) into their Bini ancestry tirade. If these settlers care so much about their bini ancestry, would it not be reasonable for them to return back to Edo state? I am sure that the Oba of Bini would gladly welcome these Edoid returnees back after so many centuries.