A contrastive study of two varieties of Onicha and the Central Igbo language

Abstract

He crux of this paper is to compare the Onicha and the Central Igbo varieties of the Igbo language. Igbo is a language spoken in south eastern Nigeria, precisely in the present Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo states. It is the sole language of the Igbo ethnic group of the south east states. Igbo is also a minority language of the people of Delta, Rivers, and Edo states in the present south-south geopolitical zone. It is fraught with numerous dialects which can be arranged in clusters. Some Igbo linguists recognize merely two major dialect areas, namely Onicha (Onitsha) and Owere (Owerri) on which this study is based. The objective of the paper is to present the morphosyntactic and phonological analyses of the two lects (by comparing them) in order to highlight their similarities and differences. It is observed that there are variations in the speech forms of the Central and the Onicha Igbo varieties. These variations are attested both in the lexical and the morphosyntactic domains.