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A contrastive study of the phonology of Igbo and Yoruba
Cecilia A. Eme
2016, UJAH: Unizik Journal of Arts and Humanities
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A Contrastive Study of the Phonology of Igbo and Yoruba Cecilia Amaoge Eme & Ebele Deborah Uba
http://dx.doi.org//10.4314/ujah.v17i1.4
Abstract
This paper, a contrastive study of the phonology of Igbo andYoruba, is aimed at finding out the phonological problems the Igbo learners of Yoruba and the Yoruba learners of Igbo willencounter in their learning Yoruba and Igbo, respectively, astheir L2. Using existing works on the phonology of Igbo andYoruba, the researchers compared the consonants, vowels andtonal systems of both languages. Igbo is made up of twenty-eight consonants and eight oral vowels, while Yoruba haseighteen consonants, and twelve vowels comprising seven oralvowels and five nasal vowels. The contrastive analysis carriedout evinced that there are some sounds in Igbo which are not present in Yoruba; also some sounds in Yoruba are not in Igbo. For example, /p kw gw v z
ŋ
ŋ
w
ɲ
ɣ
ʧ
/ are Igbo phonemes which Yoruba lacks. Another striking differencebetween the two languages is the presence of nasal vowels inYoruba, /
ĩ
ɛ ̃
ã
ɔ ̃
ũ
/, which do not exist in Igbo. Also, /
ɪ
/ and /
ʊ
/ are in Igbo and not in Yoruba, while /
ɛ
/ is present inYoruba but absent in Igbo. Although both languages havehigh and low tones, Yoruba also has a mid tone while Igboalso has a downstep tone. Following the tenets of contrastiveanalysis (CA), these differences are presumed to constitutelearning difficulties. To make the learning of these languageseasy for our stated learners, all the predicted areas ofdifficulties must be properly handled by the language teachersto avert the manifestation of the predicted errors in the speechof the learners. This could be achieved by making the Igbo
UJAH: Unizik Journal of Arts and Humanities
66
learners of Yoruba master the production of those Yorubasounds they are not familiar with; and the Yoruba learners of Igbo to internalise how to produce those Igbo sounds that theyare not familiar with. On the issue of tone, the students shouldbe made to be conscious of the tonotactics of mid tone anddownstep tone and apply them appropriately in their speech.
Introduction
Nigeria is a multilingual nation. Speakers of differentlanguages come in contact everyday in such areas as business,office, market, school and law courts. There is a need for oneto learn an additional indigenous language apart from one’smother tongue, that is, an Igbo man, for instance, to speak,read, write and interact with an Hausa or a Yoruba man, or theother way round. Our interest in this paper is on the Igbospeakers learning Yoruba and vice versa. In line with thefindings of Contrastive analysis (CA), Igbo learners ofYoruba, and vice versa, should ordinarily experience languagelearning problems bordering on interference as a result ofdifferences between Igbo and Yoruba phonology. Theproblem could make it difficult for the Igbo learners ofYoruba and Yoruba learners of Igbo to achieve success intheir language learning endeavour.In order to assist learners, this paper discusses theconsonants, vowels and tonal system of standard Igbo andstandard Yoruba, predicting the problem areas and profferingsolutions which would help them not to develop the initialpronunciation problem they ordinarily would face during thecourse of their learning their target language.
Literature Review
Contrastive analysis (CA) is the systematiccomparison of two or more languages, with the aim ofdescribing their similarities and differences (Fries, 1945;Lado, 1957; Filipovi, 1975). James (1980:63) and
Cecilia Amaoge-Eme &Ebere Deborah Uba: A Constrastive study of Phonology of Igbo & ..
67Chestermann (1998:52), summarize CA to include two mainprocesses - description and comparison. For them, languagesare described and compared in CA; from the comparison,potential difficulties for learners are predicted from thedifferences and the extent to which the languages are alike areequally shown from the similarities.According to Firbas (1992:13), “the contrastivemethod proves to be a useful heuristic tool capable ofthrowing valuable light on the characteristic features of thelanguages contrasted.” This means that when we comparelanguages, the features of each language are clearly seen andthis, in addition, contributes to a better description of eachindividual language. Moreover, CA is often and primarilydone for pedagogical purposes, with the aim to provide betterdescriptions and better teaching materials for languageteachers and learners (cf. Lado, 1957; Firbas, 1992).Westermann and Ward (1990) and Wardhaugh (1998) explainthat languages and dialects are known to differ from eachother in such areas as grammar, idiom, vocabulary, productionof the sounds which make up the language, in the way soundsare linked together to make words and sentences i.e. thedifferences could be at the level of syntax, morphology, lexisor phonology. CA can, therefore, cover a particular level.Obimma (1998) does an introductory analysis of thephonology of Edda dialect and standard Igbo. She shows thatthere are thirty-eight phonemes in Edda Igbo, comprisingtwenty-nine consonants and nine vowels while there arethirty-six phonemes in standard Igbo, comprising twenty-eightconsonants and eight vowels. According to her, Edda does nothave /h/ which standard Igbo has. She explains thatnasalization is a significant feature of Edda dialect. Edda, likestandard Igbo, does not permit consonant cluster or closedsyllable; though these could be found in some borrowedwords.
UJAH: Unizik Journal of Arts and Humanities
68Ogbonnaya (2006) discovers nine vowels and forty-one consonants in Item dialect of Igbo, that is, fifty phonemes.He identifies the half-open unrounded vowel /
ɛ
/ in Item,pointing out that it does not exist in standard Igbo. In Item, itoften occurs at morpheme initial position; and tends tocorrespond to the open front unrounded vowel /a/ in standardIgbo:
Standard Igbo Item dialect
anya /á
ɲ
á/ /
ɛ ́ ɲ
á/ ‘eye’aka /áká/ /
ɛ ́
ká/ ‘hand’aja /á
ʤā
/ /
ɛ ́ʤā
/ ‘sand’This, he says, reduces the use of /a/ at word initialposition in Item to only a few words. He points out someconsonants found in Item which are not in standard Igbo:aspirated plosives /p
h
t
h
k
h
/breathy voiced plosives /b
ɦ
d
ɦ
g
h
/nasalized alveolar roll /r˜/nasalized fricatives /f
̃
ṽ
s
̃
z
̃
/Elugbe (1986), as cited in Uba (2009:18), is acomparative study of Edoid languages. He identifies tenvowel qualities for Edoid. He observes that many of the Edoidlanguages have ‘weak’ consonants which are different fromtheir corresponding ‘strong’ consonants. According to him,weak consonants could always be distinguished by beingwritten with an ‘h’ in the orthography. In this paper, which isa contrastive study, we shall discuss the vowels, consonantsand tones of Igbo and Yoruba languages; bringing out thesimilarities and differences that exist between the twolanguages. We shall also provide examples of words wherethe sound segments and tones of both languages occur. Fromthe contrast, we shall look into the implications for the Igbo
Cecilia Amaoge-Eme &Ebere Deborah Uba: A Constrastive study of Phonology of Igbo & ..
69learners of Yoruba and Yoruba learners of Igbo, and suggestways of making the teaching and learning of the languageseasier.
Methodology
As many works have already been done on thephonology of Igbo and that of Yoruba, the researchers have torecourse to the existing literature on the segmental phonemesand tones of both languages. For such works on Igbophonology, see Emenanjo (1975), Eme and Anagbogu (2000),Iloene (2007), Eme and Odinye (2008), Ikeke
ọ
nw
ụ
,Ezikeojiak
ụ
,
Ụ
ban
ị
and Ug
ọ
j
ị
(1999). These show that Igbo ismade up of thirty-six phonemes, comprising twenty-eightconsonants and eight vowels. Igbo is a tone language withthree tones: high, low and downstep. Tone Bearing Units(TBUs) are vowels and syllabic nasals. This study adopts thedescription of Igbo consonants and tone in Eme and Odinye(2008), and the vowel description of Iloene (2007). For thephonology of Yoruba, see such works as Bamgbose (1990),Oyebade (1992), Akinlabi (2004). This paper adopts Oyebade(1992) on the phonology of Yoruba. According to him,Yoruba has eighteen consonants and twelve vowels made upof seven oral vowels and five nasal vowels. Yoruba is also atone language with three tones: high, mid and low. Also, theTBUs for the language are vowels and syllabic nasals.For the two languages of our investigation, we haveadopted the tone marking convention where we have markedhigh tone with acute accent [
ˊ
], low tone with grave accent [
ˋ
],downstep tone with macron [
ˉ
], and mid tone left unmarked.
Phonology of Igbo
The standard Igbo has thirty-six phonemes comprisingtwenty-eight consonants and eight vowels.
Igbo vowels
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