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Igbo

Igbo

Summary

Igbo, our reference, is natively spoken by approximately 38 million people, predominantly in Nigeria, where it is one of the country’s major languages. Belonging to the Niger-Congo language family, Igbo uses the Latin alphabet and features an analytic grammar structure with subject-verb-object (SVO) word order. It has a tonal system with two tones, which are crucial for distinguishing meaning. Igbo culture is rich with oral traditions, proverbs, and folklore, reflecting the heritage of the Igbo people and their diverse communities. (We used Standard Igbo as a grammatical reference).

Stats

  • Language Family: Niger-Congo

  • Writing System: Latin

  • Writing System Type: Alphabet

  • Writing Direction: L to R

  • Tones / Pitch Accent: 2

  • Morphology: Analytic

  • Cases: 0

  • Grammatical Gender / Noun Class: None

  • Number of Verb Tenses: 5

  • Word Order: SVO

  • Number of Vowels (Monophthongs): 8

  • Number of Consonants: 22

Areas Where Spoken

  • Nigeria (17.0%) (38 mil)

Resources

Books


News


Lessons

Phrasebooks

Podcasts

Radio

YouTube Channels

Websites

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