Ingligbo

By

Obododimma Oha

We know the type of influence that celebrities, especially those of the media, have over ideas. They just have to identify with this or that or give their endorsement, their “signatures,” and those things achieve popularity instantly, too.  Let a celebrity wear rags and it becomes fashionable to wear rags. Let a celebrity, say a musician, turn their song to a classroom, and soon it is on many lips and many become their student.In that vein, the late Igbo highlife musician, Oliver de Coque, got hold of “Ingligbo,” a coinage that Igbo sociolinguists had been talking about for a long time, and, soon, many globally were talking about the phenomenon associated with English-language and Igbo in the Outer Circle, the previously colonised, even in speech! The phenomenon refers to a variety of hybrid speech in English and Igbo that reveals the speakers' wavering bilingual competence. Sadly, the speaker is losing competence in first language (Igbo) or has already lost it and cannot make a full sentence in it without adding a word or two from English. That unfortunate development, which is often associated with a predicted death of Igbo, is very common among the Igbo elite – lecturers, lawyers, media practitioners, traders, and even students.We can simply identify it as a sign of their sad linguistic hybridity, and growing forgetfulness or loss of competence in the first language. Oliver de Coque, in an album, playfully calls its “Ingligbo,” just like many Igbo sociolinguists, and proceeds to imagine scenarios and to give examples.

As Oliver de Coque enjoins fellow Igbo people in his song, “Onye asụzina Ingligbo” (Let no one continue speaking Ingligbo). Now, you have heard it from a beloved musician, Igbo speakers, not a normal teacher standing behind you with a cane! Teachers of language are sometimes idealized in the so-called "postcolony" as masquerades with their long, frightening canes, or, worse still that terrible imposition of fines on whoever would speak the other language, especially vernacular, in this class! So, I have to seal my mouth and only speak when the teacher unfortunately points at me!

“Ingligbo” has relatives in India (in Hinglish) and South Africa. So, it is in “bad” company. Ok; in "good" company! However, language activists are not giving up easily. Currently, they have mounted campaigns of various kinds on social media platforms (Facebook, WhatsApp, etc), public enlightenment conferences, and even through advocacy in government. It may be too early to claim that they are succeeding. But the following, with particular reference to Igbo, are noteworthy: (1) Igbo ọja poetry performance, talks, and Igbo language advocacy in schools and social media by Nwaada Amarachi Atamah, (2) serious public and creative writing efforts, (3) important Igbo writings by Maazị Ogbonnaya and Chijioke Ngobili on Facebook and their popularly travel writings that invoke Igboness, (4) writing of books and softwaring for Igbo learning at the diasporic and global level by Nwaada Yvonne Mbanefo, (5) sharing of punchy Igbo proverbs on Facebook by Nwaada Chinemerem Mary Anyị, etc. Or, is it Nnamdi Kanu on video speaking faultless and attractive Igbo while answering questions asked by a BBC reporter (Just watch)? These are certainly heartening and do show that Ingligbo is carrently in trouble.

“Onye asuzina Ingligbo, “ as Oliver de Coque has advised, even consolidated by another Igbo highlife musician, Bright Chimezie. Ingligbo is a weakness not a fashion or “showing off” elite culture. Ingligbo is a signification of a loss: it says that its speaker is nowhere, is an ụsụ (bat) linguistically, and we know that the bat said that it knows it is monstrous and ugly and that is why it chooses to be nocturnal! Ingligbo indicates that its speaker is going downhill and needs an urgent help!