Africa History, Inside Africa

5 places aside Nigeria where Igbo people can be found and Igbo language is spoken

5 places aside Nigeria where Igbo people can be found and Igbo language is spoken

One of the biggest ethnic groupings in Africa is the Igbo, often known as the Ibo. The majority of Igbo speakers reside in southeast Nigeria, where they account for over 17% of the population. They also call their language Igbo.

Nigeria’s five most populous Igbo states are Anambra, Abia, Imo, Ebonyi, and Enugu. Additionally, the Igbos make up over 25% of the population in various states of Nigeria, including Delta State, Kogi State and Rivers State.

Igbo language and the Igbo people are also found in Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea.

Sold into slavery, Igbo people spread the language throughout slave colonies as a result of the Atlantic slave trade. According to Wikipedia, examples can be found in Jamaican Patois. Red eboe refers to a fair-skinned black person due to the recorded accounts of a fair or yellowish complexion tone among the Igbo. The pronoun /unu/, used for ‘you (plural)’, is taken from Igbo.

Also according to Wikipedia, Barbadians frequently referred to Barbados as “Bim,” a nickname for the island (Bajans). This word is thought to have originated in the Igbo language and be derived from the phrase “my people,” which is bi mu (or bem, Ndi bem, Nwanyi ibem, or Nwoke ibem.

The Igbo language is still spoken in Cuba, along with the Efik language, but in a creolized version. In ceremonies of the Abakuá culture, you can see traces of the Igbo Culture.

About Igbo Tribe

Igbo, also called Ibo, people living chiefly in southeastern Nigeria who speak Igbo, a language of the Benue-Congo branch of the Niger-Congo language family. The Igbo may be grouped into the following main cultural divisions: northern, southern, western, eastern or Cross River, and northeastern. Before European colonization, the Igbo were not united as a single people but lived in autonomous local communities. By the mid-20th century, however, a sense of ethnic identity was strongly developed, and the Igbo-dominated Eastern region of Nigeria tried to unilaterally secede from Nigeria in 1967 as the independent nation of Biafra. By the turn of the 21st century, the Igbo numbered some 20 million.

Most Igbo traditionally have been subsistence farmers, their staples being yamscassava, and taro. The other crops they grow include corn (maize), melonsokrapumpkins, and beans. Among those still engaged in agriculture, men are chiefly responsible for yam cultivation, women for other crops. Land is owned communally by kinship groups and is made available to individuals for farming and building. Some livestock, important as a source of prestige and for use in sacrifices, is kept. The principal exports are palm oil and palm kernels. Trading, local crafts, and wage labour also are important in the Igbo economy, and a high literacy rate has helped many Igbo to become civil servants and business entrepreneurs in the decades after Nigeria gained independence. It is notable that Igbo women engage in trade and are influential in local politics.

Except for the northeastern groups, the Igbo live in rainforest country. Most Igbo occupy villages of dispersed compounds, but in some areas villages are compact. The compound is typically a cluster of huts, each of which constitutes a separate household. Traditionally, the village was usually occupied by a patrilineage (umunna).

Before the advent of colonial administration, the largest political unit was the village group, a federation of villages averaging about 5,000 persons. Members of the group shared a common market and meeting place, a tutelary deity, and ancestral cults that supported a tradition of descent from a common ancestor or group of ancestors. Authority in the village group was vested in a council of lineage heads and influential and wealthy men. In the eastern regions these groups tended to form larger political units, including centralized kingdoms and states.

Traditional Igbo religion includes belief in a creator god (Chukwu or Chineke), an earth goddess (Ala), and numerous other deities and spirits as well as a belief in ancestors who protect their living descendants. Revelation of the will of the deities is sought by divination and oracles. Many Igbo are now Christians, some practicing a syncretic version of Christianity intermingled with indigenous beliefs.

Comments are closed.