The Present Linguistic Situation in Ibo Country

Opening Paragraph A Bird's eye view of the present Ibo linguistic situation is not in one sense an inspiriting prospect. A rich profusion of dialects makes intercommunication a problem both for the 3 1/4 million Ibo-speaking people themselves and for the Europeans who live among them. The European attempt—a gallant effort in the face of extreme difficulty—to produce a lingua franca known as Union Ibo will be regarded either as a mitigating factor or an added complication according to the onlooker's point of view. In any case it has become to some extent a bone of contention as has also the question of orthography. Two different scripts are at present in use in the country, adding thus to the difficulty of the Ibo who wants to read and write his own language and of the European who wishes to learn it. And the lot of the Europeans faced by a difficult tonal and dialect-riven language is made harder by the fact that few if any of them get adequate linguistic training before going to the country or enough time to work at the language after arriving in it.