*Review of the Book: A handbook on Isekiri language authored by Dr. Mark Ogharaerumi

By ARUBI EMMANUEL
Isekiri is one of the many indigenous languages spoken in Delta State. It is mono_dialectal and is spoken by the relatively small but prominent Itsekiri people located in the lands around the western part of the Niger-Delta.

The Itsekiri homeland shares boundaries with the Ijaw in the South, the Yoruba in the West, the Bini in the North, and the Urhobo in the East. As with many other languages around the world, the spelling style of Isekiri words has undergone many evolutionary changes occasioned by to interactions with the external environment.

Suffice it to say that, in this book, the author has chosen the linguistically appropriate spelling ‘Isekiri’ to refer to the language while the historically and politically more acceptable norm ‘Itsekiri’ is used to refer to the people.

According to the author, the book is the first and most detailed academic study of the Itsekiri language in terms of understanding the important and inalienable nuances of the language, which the speakers themselves may not even be aware of in everyday usage. This is the underlying distinction in the continuum of deep and surface structures of expressions in a language.

The content of the book is rich and highly educative, comprising 21 chapters and covering various topics from all the levels of linguistic analysis: Phonetics and Phonology, Syntax and Semantics,

The author begins this repertoire of knowledge with a brief but informative chapter on the orthography of Isekiri and concludes it with a chapter that succinctly contrasts some points of departure between the English language and Isekiri, particularly the problematic area of pronunciation, a well_known universal linguistic problem commonly referred to as “Mother Tongue Interference” largely caused by the difference between the sound system of the speaker’s mother tongue and the target language.

Of the twenty_one chapters of the book, the chapter on ‘Numerology’ is most intriguing because of the challenge it throws out to users of the language. This chapter challenges the reader and all users of the language to embrace some revolutionary linguistic changes in Isekiri in order to expand the mathematical capability of the language. The author reveals that until recently, the highest number that could be counted in Isekiri was ‘ugba’ which is 200 and nothing more.

By adopting new names for larger denominations, upcoming generations can then count up to four figures and beyond. In addition to expanding the minimum scope of counting that Isekiri can embrace from 200 {two hundred to 1,000,000,000,000 {one billion}, the modern numerological system Dr. Mark Ogharaerumi outlines in the book also formulates new  names for the numbers 15_19 and 20_1,000,000,000,000.

In the old numerological system, after counting up to 14 {meren_le_egwa} in chronological order, we jump to 20 {ogun} and begin to count backwards. That is, instead of 10 plus 5, as is done for 11_14, we jump to 20 minus 5{maru_ejoto_ogun} to count 15, 20 minus 4{mefa_ejoto_ogun} to count 16, and so on.

This vitiates the chronological order of counting. The new system thus advocates a system where 5{maru} is added to 10{megwa} to count 15{maaru_le_egwa}.

It also forms new names for numbers 20, 30, 40 and so on by combining  part of the old unit sounds with new sounds, so that 20{formerly ’ogun’} becomes ‘oji’ derived from ‘meji’{the unit sound for 2} and 30 becomes ‘ota’ derived from ‘meta’{the unit sound for 3} and so on.

Expectedly, all these changes and development have elicited a lot of criticisms, as the author himself admits. The major fear, no doubt, is the fear of change and man’s natural resistance to change. Secondly, the new ideas sound very simple now but, there might also exist the fear that all these new developments might eventually go the way of various universal languages postulated in the past and now extinct due to lack of universal application and acceptance which gradually killed the enthusiasm of the proponents and their supporters.

If the Itsekiri people refuse to embrace these changes, then the author’s efforts would have been in vain.  Nevertheless, in the final analysis, the work is a brilliant and thoroughly researched academic study that has so much to offer all users of the language: native speakers, students, teachers, researchers and linguists. The book is well_able to answer practically any question one may have to ask on Isekiri as a linguistic entity, as it discusses in great details more topics in phonetics, phonology, syntax and semantics than any textbook I have come across on Isekiri.