CONCLUSION -
WHAT PROSPECTS FOR THE IGBO LANGUAGE IN THE 21ST CENTURY? AND HOW THE COLONIALIST TRIED TO EXTINCT IGBO HISTORY
WHAT PROSPECTS FOR THE IGBO LANGUAGE IN THE 21ST CENTURY? AND HOW THE COLONIALIST TRIED TO EXTINCT IGBO HISTORY
Today the state of Igbo language is a sorry one. The language is in a state of near extinction, and is actually facing total extinction. It is hoped that Igbo teachers and Igbo people generally will be encouraged to protect Igbo language and to learn more about it and teach it with added gusto, if they know the global importance of the language and culture that the ancestors bequeathed to them. Ndi Igbo should be aware that Igbo traditional heritage is world heritage, because world civilization started in Igbo land. As such they should prepare themselves for the a new surge of interest in Igbo language and culture that will see Igbo citizens at home and abroad around the world being called upon to teach and share aspects of this heritage (tangible and intangible) with other citizens of the world. This is without prejudice to the fact that everything we have so far studied suggests that Igbo civilization was actually programmed for extinction by the colonists. Many do not know that the colonialists found ten step-pyramids, each the size of a single storey building in Abaja, Nsude in Nsukka region of Igbo land, but made sure that they were not entered into any existing official records, and that they were subsequently destroyed and forgotten. The discovery of these step-pyramids (plate 3) adds to our pile of proofs that original Egypt was ancient Nigeria, part of which was known as ‘Median Biafra’ in ancient maps of the world, and Igbo Ukwu was its sacred capital.
Colonial linguists have posited that the Igbo, along with the Yoruba, Igala, Ashanti, Idoma, Ijaw, Edo and a host of other West African tribes, are under the Proto-Kwa linguistic family group, which means that it was their collective ancestors that founded the ancient Kushite civilization, for Kwa is short for Akwa in Akwa Nshi. Professor Adiele Afigbo insisted that Kwa was a Mega Igbo civilization. We think our work has amply demonstrated that he was right. Afigbo’s thesis is that the Mega Igbo phenomenon was the cultural hub (navel) of West African civilizations. We cannot agree more because after all, as the Median of ancient world maps, Biafra was the ‘Navel of the Earth’! The Bantu tribes who migrated from ancient Nigeria, two millennia ago, we also from the Kwa linguistic and cultural family group. The fact that the Bantu tribes, which actually make up three fourths of Sub-Saharan Africa, were also of ancient Nigerian cultural, linguistic and geographical origin, says much about Nigerian peoples as the bearers of civilization and as about Nigeria as an ancient hub of world migrations and world civilizations. In The Gram Code, we discussed at length the compelling religious and spiritual causes of the expansion migrations with respect to the presence in the area of a Manu or a Group-Soul/God Man who initiates these migrations for the purpose of disseminating knowledge and religious beliefs, in other words, these migrations were the earliest forms of missionary activity, and their impacts reached worldwide including North and South America, Asia, Europe and Australia. Though this topic is outside the scope of this paper, suffice it to say that the Pre- and immediate Post Deluge migrants were mostly the earliest inhabitants of the places to which they migrated. And where such was not the case, the migrants brought an enduring new knowledge and religion which they planted among those they settled with. They also brought the knowledge of stone writing, symbols, body tattoos, pottery and bronze inscriptions. They were predominantly smiths, stone cutters, megalith builders and architects of enduring stone structures, miners, traders, sea farers and farmers, which skills they also imparted to their hosts.
With what has been said, it is obvious that the prospects of Igbo language in the 21st Century cannot even be quantified at this time. Much research needs to be done. Government and relevant institutions in Nigeria and Igbo land must sponsor cultural research, for that is where the future lies. It is important to emphasize that the study of Igbo civilization has now become a global phenomenon and that the entire Kwa civilization was originally one people. Therefore any deep study of Igbo culture needs to be Kwa-based and must also look at the Igbo global Diaspora to learn from what the ancient Kwa-Igbo West Africans bequeathed to the Old world (and also from the mistakes they might have made) towards the edification of the modern-day Igbo, Nigerian, African and all members of the ecosystem.
With the work we have done, and with the immediate success that greeted our work on the world stage, Igbo language and culture will most certainly, in the not so distant future be the subject of global research interest, Pilgrimage and Cultural Tourism; thus Igbo and Kwa-based governments ought to prepare their citizens for cultural Tourism through the establishment of Cultural Tourism Industries as enabling environments for growth in the sector.
Igbo growing populations need to be exposed to the various Igbo dialects, because it was through our own understanding of many Igbo dialects that we were able to correctly carry out the linguistic research analyses that were the basis of most of our discoveries.
Colonial linguists have posited that the Igbo, along with the Yoruba, Igala, Ashanti, Idoma, Ijaw, Edo and a host of other West African tribes, are under the Proto-Kwa linguistic family group, which means that it was their collective ancestors that founded the ancient Kushite civilization, for Kwa is short for Akwa in Akwa Nshi. Professor Adiele Afigbo insisted that Kwa was a Mega Igbo civilization. We think our work has amply demonstrated that he was right. Afigbo’s thesis is that the Mega Igbo phenomenon was the cultural hub (navel) of West African civilizations. We cannot agree more because after all, as the Median of ancient world maps, Biafra was the ‘Navel of the Earth’! The Bantu tribes who migrated from ancient Nigeria, two millennia ago, we also from the Kwa linguistic and cultural family group. The fact that the Bantu tribes, which actually make up three fourths of Sub-Saharan Africa, were also of ancient Nigerian cultural, linguistic and geographical origin, says much about Nigerian peoples as the bearers of civilization and as about Nigeria as an ancient hub of world migrations and world civilizations. In The Gram Code, we discussed at length the compelling religious and spiritual causes of the expansion migrations with respect to the presence in the area of a Manu or a Group-Soul/God Man who initiates these migrations for the purpose of disseminating knowledge and religious beliefs, in other words, these migrations were the earliest forms of missionary activity, and their impacts reached worldwide including North and South America, Asia, Europe and Australia. Though this topic is outside the scope of this paper, suffice it to say that the Pre- and immediate Post Deluge migrants were mostly the earliest inhabitants of the places to which they migrated. And where such was not the case, the migrants brought an enduring new knowledge and religion which they planted among those they settled with. They also brought the knowledge of stone writing, symbols, body tattoos, pottery and bronze inscriptions. They were predominantly smiths, stone cutters, megalith builders and architects of enduring stone structures, miners, traders, sea farers and farmers, which skills they also imparted to their hosts.
With what has been said, it is obvious that the prospects of Igbo language in the 21st Century cannot even be quantified at this time. Much research needs to be done. Government and relevant institutions in Nigeria and Igbo land must sponsor cultural research, for that is where the future lies. It is important to emphasize that the study of Igbo civilization has now become a global phenomenon and that the entire Kwa civilization was originally one people. Therefore any deep study of Igbo culture needs to be Kwa-based and must also look at the Igbo global Diaspora to learn from what the ancient Kwa-Igbo West Africans bequeathed to the Old world (and also from the mistakes they might have made) towards the edification of the modern-day Igbo, Nigerian, African and all members of the ecosystem.
With the work we have done, and with the immediate success that greeted our work on the world stage, Igbo language and culture will most certainly, in the not so distant future be the subject of global research interest, Pilgrimage and Cultural Tourism; thus Igbo and Kwa-based governments ought to prepare their citizens for cultural Tourism through the establishment of Cultural Tourism Industries as enabling environments for growth in the sector.
Igbo growing populations need to be exposed to the various Igbo dialects, because it was through our own understanding of many Igbo dialects that we were able to correctly carry out the linguistic research analyses that were the basis of most of our discoveries.