---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Obiwu
Date: Oct 7, 2006 12:02 AM
Subject: Re: "Umunna m read the attached please."
To: ISA


Dear Professor Osuagwu

Thank you for the very incisive appeal you made on the survival of Igbo language and discourse. We will ensure that it gets around many Igbo virtual communities.

On a related note, the umlaut (super dot) seems evidently to cohere with your reading of the letter "n" in " oñu" - "joy" or "happiness." This would produce a symmetry in the writing and pronunciation of the words " üwa" ("world"), Nd ï Igbo" ("The Igbo"), and so on. This example tends to demonstrate one of the advantages of the New Igbo Orthography as recommended in Professor Echeruo's Igbo-English Dictionary.

I have reproduced an edited version (without adding or removing anything) of your appeal below for easier circulation. I have also attached the same version in Microsoft Word format for those who prefer it in the original.

Ndeewo.

Obiwu

"Umunna m Ndi Igbo: Provide Alternative Structures to Complement Government Efforts and Receive Your Compliments"



By



Dr. Bertram I. N. Osuagwu (KSC)
(Arkansas Traveler & Hon. Citizen of Little Rock)
Appeal to the Igbo on the Survival of Igbo Language and Discourse, October 6, 2006



I salute every one of you in Jesus' name. I know that this year has been a glorious one to all of you and will continue to be so to the end and thereafter. "Onye kwe, Chi ya ekwe."



First, let me say that I shall be making some important requests of you all as individuals, groups and as a corporate body. Let me as a first step write out properly the correct way some of the words some people write otherwise should be written:



Ndi Igbo (Correct): Not Ndigbo or Ndiigbo. The Ndi is an article and should be so used. Igbo should always be written with a capital "I". We cannot write The english and we cannot write Ndi hausa, Ndiyoruba. So let's write Ndi Igbo or ndi Igbo depending. Nzuko Ndi Igbo is correct. Note that the "I" in ndi should always be dotted below.



Loolo (with dot under the "os"): Not lolo (with or without dot under the "os").



Others are Nwaanyi, nwaanyi (double "a" and with a dot under the "i"): Not Nwanyi or nwanyi and not a single "a' with or without a dot under the "i".



Naani (double "a" and with a dot under the "i": Not Nani or nani with or without a dot under the "i".



Niile, niile (Correct with double "i "): Not Nile or nile (with a single "i")



You see the problem of expressing these to you .



Request

Then comes our dilemma and my first request to you. How can we have "an Igbo computer?" The background to this dates as far back as September 1974 when by the grace of God I had the singular honor of starting off the first-ever-Department of Igbo Language and Culture in a tertiary institution in our country at The Alvan Ikoku College of Education, Owerri. We were battling with the insertion of diacritic marks. You know that without the diacritic marks some words may not be easily distinguished one from the other, e.g. "Onu" is "neck" in some Igbo dialects. If the "o" and the "u' are dotted below, we have "mouth." Another meaning "joy' or "happiness" can be got if the "n" in the spelling of the word "mouth" had a dot placed on it.



So the first time I visited here and I stayed in Connecticut, I went and bought a typewriter and got a typewriter engineer near Yale University to fix an extra key unto it. With that one key we were able to insert those diacritics appropriately. It cost me $140.00 and I took it to Alvan and gave it to them for 140 naira. It was an innovation and we were using it till it got bad as different heads used it. The machine is still there but the computer has overtaken the type writer.



Back home I have a computer with Igbo font but not all can use or manipulate it easily.



Here let me very reverentially thank all who have contributed tremendously to the uplifting of the Igbo language. I thank the early writers in Igbo; those who gave us the orthography, those who "fought" for the Language, Chief F.C.Ogbalu, Eze Ogo Akanu Ibiam, Nnamdi Azikiwe and many others. Our thanks go to those who spent their resources, time and energy and their intellectual prowess to give us the current Igbo -English Dictionaries after encountering such problems and surmounting them. We pay respect to Prof. M. J. C. Echeruo, Dr. Egemba Igwe, Late Prof. Kay Williamson, Mr. Nnaji, the authors Of Igbo-English and English-Igbo phrase book who are in the States here and Mr. Ejela Emenako and others who are trying or who have tried in this area. We thank also SPILC under the late Chief FC [Ogbalu].



For "The Recommendations"

We cannot forget the early translators of the English Bible into Igbo like the Late Archdeacon Dennis in Egbu (1905) and Igbo people who have recently worked on it. We raise our heads and say "Thank You" to Archbishop Obinna for his ODENIGBO lectures and with his Onitsha counterpart, for the the new Baibulu Nso. We thank also most warmly the retired Anglican Bishop of Aba Diocese, Bishop Augustine O. Iwuagwu (Professor Emeritus) and his group for the launching, this last July, a very new translation of the Bible Nso and its first-of-its-kind, a duo King James' Version written in English and Igbo on the same page from Genesis to Revelation. Wonderful to behold and innovating to read! Another translation into the present Standard Igbo writing completed recently by some of us hand-picked, is awaiting publication.



We will wish to recognize many who have written profusely in Igbo- Pita Nwana who wrote the first Igbo novel - Omenuko (1933); Dr. A. B. Chukuezi, an eminent medical officer now in charge of the Teaching Hospital in Orlu, who has written over 9 books in Igbo. He wrote one of the first Igbo drama books titled Udo Ka Mma (1974). This was the same year Prof. Okechukwu Mezu wrote his own titled "Umu Ejima." The third Igbo drama book was "Nwa Ngwii Puo Eze" (1977). I had to write this because after the first two, there was a dearth of such genre. We salute these fellows and many others who are not mentioned here.



We thank all the people concerned and wish the Igbo language a noble status in a competitive world. May we all help it so to be!



With this background, I wish to make this request to you eminent, wonderful and respected Professors in different endeavors, engineers, medical practitioners, big workers and financiers, famous linguists, including polyglots, to see if you can get manufacturers of computers to manufacture a computer, with a simple way to operate, may be with just one extra key i.e. an orthographic character, to give us what we need to take care of our diacritics. One person, or a group joining hands and resources together, can do it. The tedium of typing Igbo scripts will be over. TRY.

.

The next issue I want to raise, is the question of what many of you have been doing the best ways you know of but which I shall solicit that you do more to assist individuals and communities and the Igbo-speaking states to benefit in larger measures. Many of you have built elegant, gigantic and imposing structures be they for yourselves, your family or community or churches, but you need to build for the state, if you can.



What about building some resort and tourists' places as a group or as individuals or all hands on deck in the name of Igbo in Diaspora? One structure in each state, one after another, with specific functions, properly secured systems, and managed by people who share your goals and aspirations and who are transparent.



As you enter Onitsha from Delta state, can you build a Tower or a Light house or something to show "Hey" that you are now in real Igbo area? WHAT CAN YOU BUILD IN Owerri? What about up-dating the Oguta Lake with its pontoon facility and creating a real attraction there? I wonder how many of you have visited the Pier house On the Board Walk in Atlantic City built on top of the ocean where the waters (fountains) dance to the rhythm of music played! People rush there to see how over or near 200 fountains are made to dance to classical music; its rhythm and tempo while at same time changing to all the colors of the rainbow; better experienced than its effect being described to anyone.



How many have watched the Niagra Falls during Christmas with the near- heaven –on –earth –lights? How about the Abadaba and Agulu lakes, the Ogbunike cave, the Ngwu spring in Nkwere, for harnessing, the Otamiri river for boat-racing, the former Arochukwu oracle area and numerous other places where there can be built tourist, resort and attraction institutions? In Rome there is a fountain place where one drops in money, if that individual wishes to be in Rome again. Since cracking that expensive joke, I have not returned to Rome. Still they have some hole somewhere where people test whether they speak the truth or not by paying and putting in their hands in the hole and if not hurt, then the person rejoices for innocence. I was declared innocent but I know that sometimes when kids ask phony questions, I do not tell them the truth. But that is it!



In Dakar, Senegal, a country in our continent, recreation grounds, playgrounds, swimming areas are situated all over the capital that all and sundry especially the youths can play all sorts of games till as late as 10pm when it begins to get dark.



Many of you must have gone round some places here and visited their zoos, their arts galleries and museums. What about special primary or even a secondary school any where? Are there some of these and more that could be copied from all these and more and "transported" to our area of Igbo land in each state with just Govt. approval but with your own initiatives, construction, management and supervision with accountability. You create jobs, bring excitement, entertainment, and show transparency and exemplary attitude and respect and response to human dignity. With years you can recoup and be complimented upon for these and more. This is a big challenge!



Lastly

I most respectfully urge you to speak, write, and use the Igbo language or loose it and it will die. In 1979, a white American lady who lives in Little Rock and who is now the Secretary of The Society for The Promotion of Igbo Language and Culture, USA, Inc., came to SPILC meeting at Nsukka. She read her paper all through in Igbo and ended this way:



"Umu Igbo unu jisie ike ka Bekee ghara igbagbu Igbo na mmiri."



Can we give heed to this?



I went to a marriage feast in Ibadan in the late 80s. It was "a big shot" affair. It was the marriage of the daughter of the then MD of Macmillan Publishers and the couple just flew home. The veil was flowing about 20 feet away and the brides-maids were just holding the tips of it. They danced into the church and after the service lie that. There were many Hausas, many Igbos and many Yorubas and over 20 whites. Inside the Baptist church where the wedding took place, there were 7 priests, 5 of them were Ph. D. holders. I did not hear any other language than Yoruba. It was only when they were singing a song that goes this way: s:l:s:- .d .d.td.rm:r// that I said so these people are singing the song that I told my wife that any time I die, it should be sung severally for my soul. Then I sang it in Igbo and English; Nedu m gi Jehovah Uku; Guide me O thou Great Redeemer. In Igbo land this will not happen. During the reception when people were being ushered into the reception hall the announcer made a "mistake" when he said "Ladies and gentlemen" and this was the only English used. Tell me what in that circumstance could have happened in our Igbo land!



Therefore, umunne m, let us patronize and promote our language. Teach your wife, if she is a foreigner, and teach your children their language plus English. In our conversation with one another, in meetings where only Igbo people are supposed to be and participate and write certain things in Igbo where others will not understand or must force themselves to learn the language- IGBO. (See Obiwu Oct. 5 e-mail: " Malaysia to Levy Fines for Poor Speech," Thu Oct 5, 7:52 AM ET, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061005/...anguage_police)



Our revered, Dr. The Rt. Hon. Nnamdi Azikiwe is remembered for several things including this funny one in respect of where they were in a meeting overseas in those days and how he told some of those who accompanied him when they were dipping their bread in tea this in Igbo:



"Unu esunyezina achicha unu na mmiri oku Bekee."



Pardon me for anything you do not appreciate in my above random write-up, and may God be with us all.


C x