NASARAWA STATE UNIVERSITY, KEFFI

FACULTY OF ARTS
DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGES AND LINGUISTIC
COURSE CODE: LLL225
COURSE TITLE: WRITING AND ORTHOGRAPHY

ASSIGNMENT QUESTION
The Orthographic crisis in the east before and during the
time of Dr. Michael Okpara

REGISTRATION NO.: NSU/ART/LLL/1006/18/19

NAME: John Daniel

COURSE LECTURER:
Dr. Philip M. Imoh

SUBMITTED ON
9TH JULY, 2021
ABSTRACT
From the earliest attempt at Igbo codification by the protestant
missionaries and the Igbo ex- slaves resettled in Sierra Leone to the
present day, Igbo orthography is associated with criticisms, suspicion and
conflicts (Ogbo 1984; Achebe 1984; Capo 1990; Uwalaka 2001; Ugorji
2003, 2005, etc.). While the introduction of the official Onwu orthography
of 1961 seemed to have re-solved the seven-decade fiendish orthography
controversy which bedevilled the development of the language, it actually
only resolved those controversies that came along religious lines involving
the Roman and Protestant Missions. This research work (assignment)
discusses the series of events that went down during the Igbo orthographic
crises.

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Before the advent of Christian Missions and contact with Western

civilization through whose influence and efforts Igbo language was
reduced into writing, Igbo language was an unwritten one. Like the
language, the rich corpus of Igbo literature – folktales, myths, legends,
anecdotes, riddles, drama, songs and poems were orally transmitted from
generation to generation, from parent to child. Because the language, the
literature and the culture of the people were one and the same, no
institution was set apart for teaching them to the young and the
strangers. But this does not suggest that instructions in these were not
taken seriously. So serious was this that traditional education in all its
ramifications in the society started from infancy. The world of Igbo
folklore was opened to the young through which they gained a lot in
linguistic expressions, common knowledge, honesty, industry, courage,
endurance, devotion to duty, industry, courage, endurance, devotion to
duty, philanthropy, respect, truthfulness, common rules and the
established etiquette, and the entirety of good morals of Igbo society.
They were taught the literature, history, geography, civics of their
communities through stories, songs and dances, myths and legends end
contact with the environment. They were taught every lesson in the
society in practical terms. They were encouraged to observe, explore and

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interpret their local environment by knowing the names and species of
plants, mammals, reptiles, birds, fishes, insects, as well as the
description of appropriate periods and seasons, and the forecasting of the
weather.

This brief history of Igbo orthography is to illustrate the fact that

Igbo does not really have a long written tradition, if its standard
orthography only came into existence in 1961. In this work, we situate
Igbo standard orthography as not yet fully definitive due to its young
history. It is still being learned and internalized. Again, the dominance of
English affects its learnability. Nevertheless, a study of the Igbo
orthography and its co-relation to orthographic theories would shed light
on its learnability and standardization.

Before the arrival of Europeans in the Igbo land, the Igbos used the
Nsibidi writing system which was developed in the Cross-River Igbo areas
(Emenanjo 2005, Isichei 1976). Isichei (1976) further records that,
ninety-eight signs similar to the Chinese pictogram system made up the
Nsibidi writing system. The Lepsius alphabet followed suit. It was devised
by the protestant church (Church Missionary Society CMS) led by Schön
in 1841. After the coming of the Catholic church in 1922, the
International Institute for African Languages and Cultures (IIALC) set up
a language research and planning agency. Thereafter, in 1929, the
practical orthography for African languages was birthed – it was then
informally owned by the Catholic church (de facto). However, this caused
chaos as the CMS still used the Lepsius alphabet in all their publications
and teachings. This disconnect led to the establishment of the Ọnwụ
committee in 1961, to settle the orthography chaos. The committee then
developed what is now known as the Ọnwụ orthography, comprising the
twenty-eight consonants and eight vowels used in Standard Igbo today.
This Ọnwụ orthography has been heavily criticised for failing to represent
many dialects of Igbo which have distinctive phonological features unique

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to them. This explains why many dialects of Igbo exist only in spoken
form, because the Ọnwụ orthography best suits Standard Igbo Emenanjo
(2015:35). Oluikpe (2014:115) records that, the then regional government
in Nigeria later imposed this Ọnwụ orthography on all Igbos.

This research work covers the series of events that happened before
and during the administration of Dr. Michael Iheonukara Okpara, as
the premier of Eastern Nigeria (from 1959-1966)

1.1 The Lepsius alphabet

The Ọnwụ orthography is made up of 36 graphemes which, according to

Agbo (2013), are categorised into eight vowels < a, e, I, ị, ọ , o, u, ụ > and
twenty-eight consonants. The consonants are subcategorised into: nine
digraphs ( ch, gb, gh, gw, kp, kw, nw, ny, sh) and nineteen monographs
( b, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, ñ, p, r, s, t, v, w, y, z). He further joins his voice
with Ugorji (2009) to argue against the Standard Igbo orthography. They
both argue that the Standard Igbo orthography (Ọnwụ) falls short
because it does not represent all distinguishing speech sounds across all
Igbo dialects. Agbo (2013:121) citing Ugorji 28 (2009) further proposes a
‘socio-phonological model for Igbo orthography’ which states that Igbo
orthography should rather contain sociophonemes instead of phonemes
and I totally agree with this idea. Ugorji’s (2009) argument can be
referred to as a case of linguistic activism in the bid to give vitality to
dialect communities. He then defines sociophonemes as ‘all’ components
of spoken languages that are sociolinguistically relevant for language or
dialect communities. Emenanjo (1995) adds onto the argument by Ugorji
(2009) as he also postulates that Ọnwụ orthography has to be revisited to
effect key modifications thereby making it ‘morphophonemic, pan-
dialectical and self-consistent’ (1995:221) and one of the major
modifications is the inconsistency of the sound-to-letter correspondence
in some dialects of Igbo. Agbo (2013) lists several theories for a standard
orthography, in one of them, the simplicity theory, he states that ‘the

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dialect with the simplest phonological and morphosyntactic rules should
form the basis of the standard orthography’ (2013:123). He goes further
to quote Emenanjo (1975) who implied that the Standard Igbo
orthography is based on the dialects of central Igbo and Onitsha even
when there is no verifiable literature that shows the phonological and
morphosyntactic reason these two dialects made up the Standard Igbo
orthography (Ọnwụ orthography). Oluikpe (2014:117) is the only scholar
that even slightly mentions numeracy in the development of the Igbo
language in her discussion of research in the Igbo Language. She asserts
that of all the agencies and organisations that indicated an interest in the
development of the Igbo language, the most effective was the Society for
the Promotion of the Igbo Language and Culture (SPILC) whose primary
aim was to provide an acceptable Standard Igbo that is not dialect-
specific as is the ‘standard’ (central Igbo used now. The SPILC then
established an Igbo standardisation committee (SPILC 1977) which
published a document in which the old Igbo numeral was replaced by
what is known as Igbo metrics (Nwadike 2008:30) based on
decimalisation. Also, the Ọnwụ orthography is still used alongside the
New Standard Orthography (NSO) which has the following features: • the
replacement of sub-dotted vowels with umlauted ones ( ¡, Ö, ü ); • the
replacement of ch with c; 29 • alphabetical ordering of the letters of the
alphabet as follows: a b c d e f g gb gh h i j k kp kw l m n ñ nw ny o Ö p r
s sh t ü v w y z • the voiced velar nasal /ŋ / represented in the Ọnwụ
orthography as ń is represented as ñ (Echeruo 2001:29). She then
attempts to create a dichotomy between central Igbo and Standard Igbo.
She calls Standard Igbo an upgraded version (that is, the inclusion of
some vocabulary of other Igbo dialects) of central Igbo that is now being
spoken and understood by every Igbo person in all parts of Igbo land
Nwadike (2008:30).

1.2 The Igbo Orthography: An approach of study

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 There are two approaches to the study of orthographies. The first is
the a priori approach while the second is the a posteriori viewpoint. In the
a priori study of orthographies, the concern is about written
orthog`raphies, while the a posteriori aspect deals with a language that
has a long written tradition. The objectives of an a posteriori orthography
study are to discuss the merits and demerits of an established
orthography. In other words, the researchers interested in a posteriori
orthographies investigate the consistency/inconsistency and accuracy of
the written language and make recommendations for the updating of
such orthographies, if the need arises. This means that a posteriori
orthography research is aimed at drawing the attention of the users of
the language to the need for correct spelling and writing rules. On the
other hand, an a priori approach is a pilot study of an emerging
orthography of a language. Its concern is the linguistic analysis of the
language in order to produce the orthography of the language. The
researchers focus on the phonology, morphology and the syntax of the
language. These studies would enable the spoken form of the language to
be reduced to a written form that is easy to learn and efficient for
communication. The study of Igbo orthography is neither a priori nor a
posteriori. This is because, although Igbo has been reduced to writing, it
does not have a long written tradition, when compared to say Arabic,
English and French. The earliest written form of the language began in
1861 (Oraka, 1983:25), when J.F. Schon, a Christian missionary adopted
the Lepsius orthography of 1854 writing his Oku Ibo: Grammatical
Elements of the Ibo language. The Church Mission Society (C.M.S)
published An Ibo primer, written by a catechist, F.W. Smart in 1870.
According to Oraka (1983), by 1883 about 50 books including the bible
has been published in Igbo, all of them based on the Lepsius
orthography. However, by 1929, the Lepsius orthography was abandoned
for the Africa orthography designed by the International Institute of
African Languages and Culture (IIALC). This was because of the

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enactment of a decree by the colonial authorities which adopted the
Africa orthography. This led to the now famous great Igbo orthography
controversy that lasted for 32 years. This period was a setback for the
development of a standard Igbo orthography. The resolution of this
controversy came about in 1961, when the then Eastern Nigerian
Government adopted a standard orthography, popularly known as the
Ọ nwu orthography.

2.0 EVALUATION OF THE ORTHOGRAPHY CONTROVERSY

From the point of view of the present time, the Igbo orthography
dispute was a storm in a tea cup. People merely dissipated their energy
over an issue which is carried out in other languages with caution and
restraint. There was no justification for it but vestcd interest, prejudice,
conservatism and ignorance which brought people at one another’s
throats. Since the change was meant to be gradual and systematic, it
could neither have presented any difficulty nor jeopardized anybody's
interest if all and sundry involved in it has had genuine minds about it.
The CMS which had had an orthography before, was ruled by passion,
prejudice, conservatism and vested interest. Having received its
‘Decalogue’ on ‘Mount’ ‘Lepsius’ in 1854, it saw no need for a change and,
therefore, tried to maintain the status quo. Hence it was prejudiced over
the 'Africa Script' which it branded, in derogatory terms as ‘Ada Adam-
Ward Orthography’. To it, accepting and adopting the new system meant
admitting failure in its effort at reducing Igbo to writing in the first
instance.

Secondly, the CMS and its mentors, motivated by vested interest,

refused to adopt the new orthography. They had produced a sizable
literature which had sold in tens of thousands in the old. Accepting to
adopt the new meant an enormous task which would involve exorbitant
costs to re-write and re-print those pieces of literature. On its own part

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the Catholics had nothing at stake, hence it rejoiced at singing the
requiem of the ‘Union’ orthography.

On the other hand, the catholic ruled by passion, did not waste
time in accepting and adopting the new script because it had no
orthography it could call its own. Otherwise, it could have found itself in
the position of CMS. For favouring the adoption of the new script, it
earned for itself the ownership of an orthography, the so-called ‘Catholic
Orthography’. Again it accepted the new orthography, because adhering
to the old one used by the CMS, meant acquiescing to the superiority of
its rival.

The consequences of the controversy were obvious. The Igbo

Language was left with two orthographies existing side by side, and this,
in effect, limited the development of the literary language and the
production of literature. The period 1929-1961, is referred to as a ‘Blank
period in Igbo literary history’. This was because many publishers refused
to publish in Igbo.

Writing to F.C. Ogbalu during the orthography controversy, Rev.

T.T. Solaru, then the Oxford University Press, West African observed; As
Educational publishers, the O.U.P., is interested in questions of accepted
Orthography of Ibo Language until now, we have had to REFRAIN from
publishing in Ibo until the vexed question is cleared.

Worse than that was that Messes Longmans and Green published
Igbo books in the New Orthography but were unable to find enough
buyers because of the divided loyalties to the Orthographies. There is no
doubt that the authors of these unsold books had out of annoyance and
frustration, abandoned such works which could have helped to enrich
Igbo language and literature.

The Orthography and dialect polemics of the said period might have
scared Igbo literary geniuses like Chinua Achebe, Cyprian Ekwensi,

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Onuora Nzekwu, John Munonye, Flora Nwapa, etc. who would have
rendered their masterpieces in Igbo rather than in English.

The dispute created consciousness among the adherents of the

Catholics and the Protestants, the two giant missionary bodies that
participated in it. Because the matter was not settled once and for all, it
gave rise to resumed orthography debates, which resulted in the Onwu
Orthography in 1961. These conferences were as before, plagued with
religious bias because the members sided with one missionary interest or
the other. In this situation it was difficult for the committee to take any
meaningful decision quickly. This led
to the protracted nature of its work.

It is believed that the Igbo will never again engage in such a costly
exercise of looking for a perfect alphabet. The present Onwu Committee
Orthography which has been in use since 1962 is in itself full of
discrepancies, but they should be allowed to fossilize, for orthographic
discrepancies and dissatisfaction have existed and still exist in most
languages. In fact, no orthography perfect.

Undeniably, the controversy had very ugly consequences on Igbo

language studies.

1. It limited the development of the literary language and the

production of literature.
2. Publishers refused to publish in Igbo. Writing to F.C. Ogbalu
during the impasse, Rev. T.T. Solaru, the Oxford University Press
West African Representative had this to say: ‘As Educational
publishers, the OUP is interested in questions of accepted
Orthography of Ibo language until now, we have had to REFRAIN
from publishing in Ibo until the vexed question is cleared’.
3. Worse than that, Messrs Longmans and Green published Igbo
books in the new orthography but were unable to find enough
buyers because of the divided loyalties to the orthographies.

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4. It scared would-be authors in Igbo, many of whom turned to
English. An interview with late Mr. Cyprain Ekwensi in 1982
testified to this assertion when he said that he sent manuscripts in
Igbo to a publisher but they were returned to him because of the
vexed issue.
5. The dispute created consciousness among the adherents of the
Protestants and the Catholic Church.

CONCLUSION

The age-long controversies surrounding Igbo orthography indicate that

the consensual orthography (Onwu) was used as a means of easing the
controversy surrounding its orthography. Nevertheless, the Onwu
orthography despite its short comings, formed the basis for the central
Igbo language as we have toady. There appear to be no more controversy
about the orthography, but the alphabetical arrangement seems not to
enter deep into the minds of those who are already used to the old
orthography. Teachers have been now placed with the responsibility of
maintaining this Orthography as the use it (the Onwu Orthography as a
means of Teaching.

REFERENCES

Achebe, C. (1984) “Editorial and Linguistic Problems in Aka Weta: A

Comment”, Uwa Ndi Igbo. No. 1 pp 94-95
Afigbo, A. (1981) Ropes of Sand: Studies in Igbo History and Culture.
Ibadan: UPL.
Afigbo, A. E. (1975). The place of Igbo language in schools. In F. C.
Ogbalu, & E. N. Emenanjo (Eds.), Igbo language and culture.
Ibadan: Oxford University Press.
Echeruo, M.J.C (2001), Igbo English Dictionary, Lagos, Longman.

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Ekechi, F.K. (1971) Missionary Enterprise and Rivalry in Igboland: 1857-
1914. London Frank Cass.
Eme, C. A & Mbagwu, D. U (2011), ‘Cohesion without the ‘connectives’:
examples from Igbo’ in Perspectives of Language and Literature:
Essays in Honour of R.U Uzoezie, Awka, Nigeria, UJAH: Unizik
Journal of Arts & Humanities.
Ward, I. 1944. Ibo Dialects and the Development of a Common Language.
Heffer and Sons,
Cambridge.

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