Abstract
Ibeme is a variety of Igbo spoken in Ibeme clan comprising four vast autonomous communities namely Ibeme, Abala, Oberete-Isiala and Abala-Nkamiri in Obi-Ngwa Local Government Area, Abia State. Previous studies have classified Ibeme as a patois of Ngwa dialect and it is often glossed over with Ngwa. This study attempts to show that Ibeme is a distinct dialect. Lexicostatistics method using Swadesh wordlist comprising 100 lexical items as guideline was adopted. Introspection was also involved in data gathering as a native speaker (that is, the lead author). From the lexicostatistics report, ethnographic description and some phonemic and morphological variations, it is identified that Ibeme is a separate dialectal area. It is concluded that Ibeme is not a patois of Ngwa as claimed by previous study (Oluikpe ). The lexico-statistics report and ethnographic information show that Ibeme is separate dialect area. Key words: Dialect, Patois, dialect differentiation, cognates and lexicostatistics.
Highlights
Igbo, like many other human languages exhibit variations which are consistent with the widely held view among linguists that language of a group of people may show regular variations within the group
To further reveal the status of Ibeme and perhaps confirm the postulation of Oluikpe (1979), we present an enlarged corpus of lexico-statistics involving 100 basic wordlist
It is important at this point to re-analyze Oluikpe (1979)‟s postulation in which he observes the following: the corpus is not large enough to establish that Ibeme is a dialectal community distinct from Ngwa, one could reasonably postulate that Ibeme is a separate dialectal area [emphasis added]
Summary
Like many other human languages exhibit variations which are consistent with the widely held view among linguists that language of a group of people may show regular variations within the group. For example, spoken in different social groups shows systematic differences. Such variations are regarded as dialects of the same language. Every language is made up of dialects. This is a function of the primacy of speech in human language. Every language has two major forms – the „standard‟ and the „nonstandard‟, otherwise called dialect
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