HISTORY
The Igbo have no common traditional story of their origins. Historians
have proposed two major theories of Igbo origins. One claims the
existence of a core area, or "nuclear Igboland." The other
claims that the Igbo are descended from waves of immigrants from the
north and the west who arrived in the fourteenth or fifteenth century.
Three of these are the Nri, Nzam, and Anam.
European contact with the Igbo began with the arrival of the Portuguese
in the mid-fifteenth century. At first the Europeans confined themselves
to slave trade on the Niger Coast. At this point, the main item of
commerce provided by the Igbo was slaves, many of whom were sent to the
New World. After the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, British
companies pushed beyond the coastal areas and aggressively pursued
control of the interior. The Protectorate of Southern Nigeria, created
in 1900, included Igboland. Until 1960, Nigeria remained a British
colony, and the Igbo were British subjects. On October 1, 1960, Nigeria
became an independent nation structured as a federation of states.
Known as Ṇ́dị́ Ìgbò in the Igbo language and sometimes identified by their respective Igboid dialects or subgroupings, such the Anioma and the Ngwa,
the culture of the Igbos has been shaped primarily by Igboland's
rainforest climate, its historic trades, ancient migration folklore and
social ties with its neighbours as well as far-flung trading and
political allies and lately with the Europeans through colonization and the entire Western World through globalization. They speak Igbo, which includes various Igboid languages and dialects.The Igbo homeland is almost surrounded on all sides by other ethnic peoples of southern and central Nigeria namely, the Ijaw, Edo, Isoko, Ogoni, Igala, Tiv, Yako, Idoma, and Ibibio.
The Igbo language belongs to the Niger-Congo language family. It is part
of the Kwa subfamily. A complicated system of high and low tones
indicates differences in meaning and grammatical relationships. There
are a wide range of dialects.
Here are a few Igbo expressions:
| English | Igbo | |||||
| Hello, how are you? | Keku ka imelo? | |||||
| What is your name? | Kedu ahagi? | |||||
| Thank you | Ndewo |
