ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN LANGUAGE - Onyeji Nnaji

EVOLUTION OF HUMAN TONGUES: MOTHER TONGUE AS ROUTE TO THE TRACE OF HUMAN HISTORICAL GENESIS

By

Onyeji Nnaji.

Source: Journal of Linguistics, Language and Igbo Studies. V.1; No.1. Pages 113-149.

                                             Abstract

The leading novelist and critique in Kenya, James Ngugi Wa Thiongo, noted that “languae is the carrier of culture”. Since culture is the totality of the life of any people – the same also which derived its root from the people’s history – having language as the conveyor belt – history and language become interwoven and closely tied. It is pertinent to note that as a language user leaves a particular language community to another, the language in his possession changes its forms; sometimes sounds, codes and meaning. When this happens, the same language does not lose completely every possible feature that traces its root to its original source. By this view, this paper suggests that any language whose features are found in the languages of the major ancient civilizations around the globe would possibly be the mother language. This is because language is not separated from history. This paper sets to examine the conclusion drawn by researchers alongside the evidence from fossil skulls and DNA records which relates language dating to the human history to justify the claim that humanity originated in Africa. If language should be found with various ancient signals that point to the assumed original history of man, it is apparent that the language found with greater portion of these signals is or had been the mother of the human tongue. Considerations here extend to the earliest language tree (the Indo-European family) so far reconstructed, including English, to far back as 9,000 years at most.

(1.0) Introduction

The earliest civilization the world had emanated from the time of the early fathers. Language is the earliest form of this civilization which the earth had unanimously, and it emanated from the first people who occupied this earth, possibly before the creation of Adam. To this end, this paper believes that history is never complete and as well does not prove true until it is able to establish a solid relationship among different people through a common language. Language consolidation may prove truer than cultural affinity among any people belonging to a common historical background. Yes, culture can be easily overtaken by the insurgence of another which may be regarded to be of more relevance to the people owing to the dominant situation around them at that given time. For instance, many parts of the world had lost the truest part of their culture to the over-lording European imperialism. Colonialism beclouded many countries in Africa, suppressing their cultural and religious practices to the mud/ground, then as recompense, the victims lost what they held supreme and sacred within themselves to the later. The conclusion was that Africa lost her identity.

There is no part of Egypt today that sustains the ancient culture of the eminent Egyptian civilization of old. The first ever civilization after the flood that involved almost the entire continents of the world was lost to the Arabian world whom Egyptians had allowed to take over their land. What this aptitude paid the Egyptians with was the lose of their history and origin. It is very pathetic to hear that all the ancient books excavated in Egypt were sold out by the Arabs who did not and were not prepared to know what historical relevance those tabulates hold to Egyptian history. That is why the position of pharaoh, which was one of the most sophisticated monarchies in the history of Africa, was claimed to have ever been taken by a foreigner different from the pharaoh bloodline. I believe that such faulty historians spreading lies in the bid to assigning certain credence to the foreigner who did not have a history actually did not know the meaning of the word Pharaoh. For if they knew, they would understand that it was a family affair which was never done by selection. 

In a condition where a people had lost their heritage to foreign culture and its civilization, the only surviving historical proof is language. These include terms and their meanings, names of the inhabitants; especially those involved in different legendary acts. Language also includes writings. As we progress we shall understand that Egypt became much more disillusioned to the point that the name of the architect who designed the stepped pyramid in Saqqara was replaced with Imhotep. Imhotep was still associated with the cosmic architecture (see Bauval and Brophy, Imhotep: The African Architect of the Cosmos). But the Egyptian Book of the Dead (P. 120) proves these later records wrong. We shall get the real architect of the cosmos in the succeeding pages. Language made us to know him, not history.

(1.1) The Birth of the Human Tongue

The history of the development of the human tongue should be rightly traced to the account of creation. This, in another way, will still pose problems since the conclusion that might be drawn by any people would mostly be relevant to their oral tradition or myths bothering the account of creation. For instance, if the Christian Bible is followed ultimately, one would conclude that the language of creation was the Hebrew tongue. But, the controversy remains that Hebrew as a tongue belongs to the later generations after the deluge. The question now is, which language was spoken by the generation of Adam and the generations possibly before him? The attempt to discover this language brings us closer to deciphering the original language which could be taken as the first language the earth had.

In the radical argument posed by Late Professor Catherin Acholonu, in her bestseller book entitled They Lived before Adam, she vehemently asserts that, “the God of creation, whosoever He may be, spoke Igbo”. She was of the conclusion that since the Igbo father was proven by researches to have lived before Adam, it was certain that the language of creation belongs to God; and the same language was what later became the Igbo, the language spoken by the Igbo. She may be correct, in another way she may be wrong. Our research from various ancient books and cave libraries (such as the The Nag Hammadi Scripture, The Sacred Book of the East and the   anonymous book in the internet entitled, The Book of Creation by the Sons of Fire and others) proved that there were populations who were on earth before Adam was created. The Christian Bible also echoed these suggestions in the various parts of the book of Genesis. We can find this from Cain’s words in Genesis 4: 13-15 and the account of the sons of God in Genesis 6:1-9. If there is a consonance in these assertions, we should think about the language the people used to communicate with God, first, and their fellow beings. The account of Job remains a clear version of the language proof. The sons of God used a language to communicate with God. The Bible, Egyptian book for the creation of the world (Nag Hammadi Scripture) and the Jewish Cabbala all agree that God gave commands before things were in their places. The command is in English Bible translated as “Let there be…”. From this we may conclude that the earliest language was naturally imperative and declarative in nature. Its pattern, Nnaji suggested, was discursive. 

The last suggestion on the features of the earliest language spoken on the earth plane favours the definition of tongue in Igbo. In the eastern part of Nigeria, tongue is defined as the palm oil used in the craving of speech. This definition, perhaps, had come from the fact that the easterners believed that what are spoken today as languages emanated from one mother tongue. Asserting thus, the easterners (the Igbo) hold that the first tongue humanity had was Afa. They maintain that Afa was the language of creation used by Chukwuokike at the time He created man. Afa is the language of the priests and dibias in the Igbo society of the present age. It was believed to be the language of the ancestors. And as such, it is the best tongue to address the ancestors and equally pass the message of the ancestors and gods, even the almighty God, to the people around. In the Christian doctrine, Afa is used mainly during prophecies. Listen to the tongue of the prophet anytime he prophesies you will hear afa. Dibias have afa as the only language of communication at the time they are engaged in the affairs of the spirits. Priests and heads of deities employ afa at the time of duty.

As the palm oil with which speeches are craved, afa had to employ the language of nature to make explicit the information intended of the speaker at every given time. The language of nature is the language that is peculiar to each particular setting. The secret of the stemming of the language of nature was born from the fact that language is conditioned by the dominant physical nature of every area. This is true in the sense that the dominant physical setting of a particular locale is usually found prominent in the proverbs and wise saying of the inhabitants of the area. A society that is dominantly forestry usually experienced the influence of vegetative and cosmic features in their speech art. Their proverbs and wise sayings are dominated by things related to plants and animals and their relationship with the solar bodies. In the same way, people living in the ocean side usually experience this influence. This time, the influence will be dominantly aqua cultural. The bulk of the presence of animals, plants, wind, the sun and spirits in the Igbo proverbs show the dominant nature of the ancient Igbo society.  

The inclusion of these natural features in the tongue of any people contributes a lot in the formation of symbols which stand the language out amidst other languages spoken on the planet earth. In the book, Strands of Literary Theory and Criticism, Nnaji asserts,

Language embodies all kinds of signs, images, codes, gesture, sound, object and others which form the complex association of the component of language whose meanings are analyzed at the bases of Semiology. Semiology therefore aims at accommodating all system of signs, whatever may be there substance and limits, to make language meaningful.

The complex association of the features of any language, as indicated by the expression above, derived their existence in such a language via the cultural or natural composition of the language community. Nnaji believes that the stemming of such a language composition by the elements mentioned above take place gradually and with time. These features are mainly the characters that differentiate one language from the other and played a veritable role in ascertaining the relationship between one language and another. Therefore, when more than one language are found sharing identical features similar to those mentioned above, such languages may be concluded to have a common source. These features gave researchers like Dr. Atkinson and Russell Gray the impetus to conclude, through a thorough analysis of the sounds of the various languages spoken around the world, that they share one origin. In their analysis, they detected an ancient signal that points to western Africa (sub-Sahara Africa) as the place where modern human language originated.

It is pertinent to note that as a language user leaves a particular language community to another, the language in his possession changes its forms; sometimes sounds, codes and meaning. Yet, one prominent feature remains that the same language does not lose every possible features that traces its root to its original source. By this view, this paper may be persuaded to conclude that any language whose features are found in the languages of the major ancient civilizations around the globe is the mother language. The reason is simple; language is not separated from history. The conclusion drawn by researchers above fits well with the evidence from fossil skulls and DNA which insist that modern humans originated in Africa. The detection of such an ancient signal in language is surprising because – as was noted above – words change so rapidly. In the succeeding heading we shall observe the earliest language tree (the Indo-European family) so far reconstructed, including English, to far back as 9,000 years at most.

History works hand-in-hand with language to shape itself. The reason for this interconnectivity, perhaps, is because history is created through events which make excessive use of language as a veritable tool. On that note then, it should follow suit that as language is traced to Africa, history should be likewise. J.A. Bailey, an English researcher from London, holds to the following view:

The earliest known migrations out of Africa were to the North and East into India, the Far East, the Near East, and South Pacific. Around 125,000 BC a group of Africans moved northward towards the Nile. (African Bible Messages, Feb. 2014).

It is indicative from the assertion of Bailey above that the spread of language outside Africa is, at least, as old as125, 000 BC. The same was the date that modern humans dispersed from Africa to found the western world. Some experts say it is at least 100,000 years old. From the observations of Dr. Atkinson, a biologist who had started applying sophisticated statistical methods into a well developed historical linguistics through the construction of genetic trees based on DNA sequences, the period is a distant that echoes from this far back in time. Although, linguists are pessimistic about the period, Dr. Atkinson may be correct looking at the time estimated by radio carbon dating on the fossil discovered at the Chad Basin by the French Professor of Paleontology, Michael Brunet. The fossil was estimated to have lasted more than seven million years. 

Dr. Quentin Atkinson, a biologist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, chose a different dimension by looking not at words but at the phonemes (the consonants, vowels and tones) that are the simplest elements of language.  Dr. Atkinson, showed his expertise at applying mathematical methods to languages, a striking pattern which he succeeded in the analysis of about 500 languages spoken throughout the world. He believed that some of the click-using languages of Africa have more than 100 phonemes, while English has about 45 phonemes. In an article published in 2011 in the journal, Science, Dr. Atkinson drew the conclusion that this pattern of decreasing diversity with distance, similar to the well-established decrease in genetic diversity with distance from Africa, implies that the origin of modern human language is in the region of southwestern Africa,

In 2003, Dr. Atkinson and Russell Gray, another biologist at the University of Auckland, reconstructed the tree of Indo-European languages with a DNA tree-drawing method called Bayesian phylogeny. The tree indicated that Indo-European was much older than historical linguists had estimated and hence favored the theory that the language family had diversified with the spread of agriculture sometime around 10,000 years ago, not with a military invasion by stepped people some 6,000 years ago as the history of ancient Sumer suggests about the spread of tongues in Babel. Dr. Atkinson, finding fits with other evidences about the origins of language, gave a suggestion which favored the assertion of many historical linguists. The Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert belong to one of the earliest branches of the genetic tree based on human mitochondrial DNA. Their languages belong to a family known as Khoisan and include many click sounds, which seem to be a very ancient feature of language. This historical people live in southern Africa where Dr. Atkinson’s calculations point to as the place of the origin of language. Atkinson maintained that, whether Khoisan is closest to some ancestral form of language “is not something my method can speak to”.

(1.2) The Spread of the Human Tongues

Most valid to the efficacy of this research work is the recent finding by Dr. Atkinson and Russell Gray that the number of phonemes in a language increases with the number of people who speak it. It invariably means that phoneme diversity would increase as a population grew, but would fall again when a small group split off and migrated away from the parent group. Such a continual budding process, which is the way the first modern humans expanded around the world, is known to produce what biologists call a serial founder effect. Each time a smaller group moves away, there is a reduction in its genetic diversity.  The reduction in phonemic diversity over increasing distances from Africa, as seen by Dr. Atkinson, parallels the reduction in genetic diversity already recorded by biologists. For either kind of reduction in diversity to occur, the population budding process must be rapid, or diversity will build up again. This implies that the human expansion out of Africa was very rapid at each stage. The acquisition of modern language, or the technology it made possible, may have prompted the expansion as Dr. Atkinson claimed.

What is so remarkable about this work is that it shows that language does not change all that fast, instead it retains a signal of its ancestry over tens of thousands of years. Dr. Pagel saw language as central to human expansion across the globe. “Language”, he said, “was our secret weapon, and as soon as we got language we became a really dangerous species.” Merritt Ruhlen saved us several stress through his research work entitled The Origin of Language: Tracing the Evolution of the Mother-Tongue, 1994. He took the task of drawing apparent difference between the borrowed items of language and the features that characterized borrowing. He showed his support for the phonemic ideology for the trace of the origin of the human tongue when he said that, “borrowing of a large number of basic words among numerous languages never occurs in a language except as proof of migration of bearers of the seed language across that (affected) area”. In this regard, we shall demonstrate in this part the borrowing of numerous Igbo basic words by languages as far-flung as Egypt, Sumer, English, Hebrew, ancient Canaanite etc. We shall back this assertion up with the demonstration of cultural borrowings in the same direction. An explicit example given by Ruhlen to demonstrate the existence of one common mother of European languages actually provides further proof of this claim thus:

We are able to reach back into pre-historical times and reconstruct portions of languages that existed at that time by extrapolating backward on the basis of contemporary languages and (the) knowledge of how languages change over time… similar words in different languages are usually the result of divergent evolution from a single earlier form in a single earlier language. (Thus) … if we compare the word for ‘mouse’ in various European languages,  we will be struck by the similarity of the form (sound) in many of them: English ‘mouse’, Swedish mus, German Maus, Dutch muis, Latin mus, Greek mus, Russian mys, Polish mysz, Serbo-Croatian mis. It is a safe bet that all these languages (and others we could mention) did not independently invent such similar forms for the name of this animal. Our firm conclusion, then, is that all these similar forms for ‘mouse’ have evolved from a single earlier language. In this case the hypothetical earlier language – about which nothing is known except the indirect evidence of its daughter families and languages – is called Proto-Indo-European. (p. 17-18)

Merritt was right in his prognosis that further research into “the identification of such language groups, at increasingly deeper time depths can lead to a number of astonishing discoveries about the origin and dispersal of modern humans.” We may suggest that all these various forms of the word for ‘mouse’ (as demonstrated in the above excerpt) are derived from the Igbo word, amusu. The Igbo have two words for two species of rats, oke. The smaller specie, known in English as ‘mouse’, is specifically addressed with the term amusu or amosu. These are those small rats that live in holes in houses and bite into cloths and personal belongings. Due to its destructive actions, it had been directly called simply amosu. This same reference had, in the course of the millennia, lent their name to the description of a kind of evil spirit that inflicts diseases by biting its victim or his belongings.

Our observations based on the Ethno-semantic analysis of the relationship between European, Asian and the languages of the Niger-Congo family here in Africa, using the Igbo example as we have done in this work, we can comfortably assert that (Proto-Indo-European) the unknown mother of European and West-Asian languages was a language belonging to the Niger- Congo family; not unrelated to the Kwa family of languages. This mother-language is, as demonstrated by Martin Bernal in Black Athena, is known as Indo-Hittite. Bernal was of the opinion that the two major mother languages of the human family are Indo- Hittite (mother of Indo-European and Anatolian) and Afro-Asiatic, mother of Canaanite (Semitic, Cushite, Egyptian, Berber, Chadic [Niger-Congo?], etc.). The demonstration above shows Igbo words of similar sound and meaning in languages cutting across the Indo-Hittite and Afro-Asiatic families. It is indicative through that experiment that Igbo is the link between these two racial families. All these pieces of evidence lead to one conclusion: that Igbo is a major hunk of the missing link in the search for the proto-language of humanity, the original seed of language/Mother-Tongue. This discovery equally places the Igbo at the origin of human civilizations and long before it. Archaeology and oral tradition seem to support, rather than disprove, this linguistic evidence in pointing to an over 500,000 year old Acheulian Igbo habitation excavated in present-day Igbo land by the eminent archaeologist Professor Francis Anozie of the Nsukka archaeological School as noted by Professor Catherine Acholonu of the blessed memory.

The conclusion by the Atkinson research team that language originated in the Western part of sub-Saharan Africa supports our assertion of an Igbo origin of languages because Igbo language is based in the Western part of sub-Saharan Africa. Also the conclusion that this ancient mother tongue left Africa during the earliest out of Africa migration is another credible point to prove that the human history began with Africa. We therefore employ African researcher on language evidence of the human history to give heed to the scientific evidence provided by Dr. Atkinson’s research. This will aid global research interest towards Igbo and other African languages to locate the place of African genesis, as we shall consider in the next section. The observation made by Dr Pegel remains remarkable as it shows that what’s so remarkable about this (Atkinson’s) work is that it shows language doesn’t change that entire fast — it retains a signal of its ancestry over tens of thousands of years.

What we are about to demonstrate in this article is how signals of the Igbo language have been retained in some of the most ancient as well as the most modern languages (and cultures) of the world, proving without any shadow that Igbo language was the mother of languages such as Sanskrit, Egyptian, Sumerian, English and the Semitic languages, or at least that Igbo is the longest surviving child of a global mother language spoken by gods and men alike.

P.O. Okwoli, a renowned Nigerian historian believes alongside many linguists that when words from two or more separate languages share similarities in sound and meaning, it is a sign of borrowing or common origin. Depending on Okwoli’s observation, we shall identify hundreds of words of similar sounds and meanings with those of the Igbo language across several languages of the globe, showing, indeed that signals of the mother language are retained “through tens of thousands of years” as remarked by Pegel. It may be concluded, as Catherine Acholonu asserts, that even the God of creation spoke Igbo. If her assertion is true, considering her immeasurable uncovered evidences, then it is apparent that even Adam did speak Igbo. We made this conclusion in the view that the classification of languages into language families is based on the discovering of words in different languages that are similar in sound and meaning as Ruhlen maintains. With the instances as we shall display below, our reader can judge within himself whether our assertion is true or not.

(1.3) Evidence of Igbo in the Efik, Ibibio and Anang

To be explicit about this trace of Igbo in the languages of the world, it will benefit research if we should take the ride gradually out of the Igbo settlement. According to research, these groups (the Efik, Ibibio and Anang) were considered as the first set of Bantu to leave the Igbo settlement in the east. To sustain this claim, Wikipedia record had maintained that the Cross River area was the exit route of the earliest out of Africa migration. These communities proved this claim true through the over hundreds of the Igbo words that are wedded into their tongues, where perhaps they had disseminated it across the sea. Greater of their domestic activities and terms of reference derived their sources from the Igbo language. Very obvious among these terms or activities are things connected to utensils and numbering among the names of the various places and persons.

Efik families	Meaning	Igbo equivalents	Meaning
Fan’a	Force into	Fanye	Force into
Enyen	A person	Onye	A person
Usong	Road	Uzo	Road
Utere	Vulture	Udene/Udele	Vulture
Anwan	Woman	Nwanyi	Woman
Adiagha	Daughter	Ada	Daughter
Afere	Soup	Afere	Plates
Iko	Cup	Iko	Cup
Ikpe	Case in the court	Ikpe	Case in the court
Ikwo	Song	Ukwe	Song
Kwoo	Sing	Kwee	Sing
N’oo	To Drink/drink	N’oo	Drink
Taa	Chew	Taa	Chew
Ekpat	Bag	Ekpa/Akpa (Ekpa, Nkalaha)	Bag
Iba	Two	Iboo/abuo	Two
Ita	Three	Ato	Three
Inang	Four	Ano/ino	Four
Ufok/Ulok	House	Uno/Ulo	House
Asug kood	He/she calls you	A si koo gi	He/she said you should be called (Nkalaha dialect)
Akparawa	Young man	Akparawa	A tall young man (Nkalaha dialect)
Abasi	God	Obasi (Arochukwu)	God
Ime	Birth rebirth	Ume	Birth rebirth
Ata	To chew	Ita/ata	To chew

Obasi was and still is another name for Chukwu to the Aros. From them it went across other dwellers of the heartland region of the Igbo nation. In the same way as the Onitsha refer to Chukwu as Olisa, the heartland Igbo used the name (Olisa) to indicate certain eulogy and veneration in a manner of extolling God for his greatness and provisions. Popular among the Onitsha are names like Olisabuikem (God is my strength) Olisaemeka (God had done much) etc. In the same wise are names associated with Obasi. The former Super Eagles’ player has the name, Chinedu Obasi. There is also such a name as Obasiemeka. Therefore, Obasi was the name of god which was associated with prayers. When the Ibibios were chased out of their original home by the Aros who migrated from the Northern Igbo, they retained this name; but in a disguised form. Instead of Obasi, they have Abasi for the same linguistic meaning.

Other related words in the languages of Igbo and Efik are Gaa and Kaa respectively. They both mean go in the English version. The reason for the difference in the consonants of the words is blamed upon the morphological condition of the consonant /g/ in the language of the latter. It is usually very rare to get Efik word with /g/ as its initial consonant. /g/ is rather realized as the final consonants. In this condition it is realized alongside /n/ to take the English pronunciation for -ing morpheme. Examples include Afang, Anang, Idongesit, Obong etc. Where possibly this consonant, /g/ appears at the initial position of a word, the Efik pronounce it as the consonant /k/. Therefore, instead of gaa or go, the Efik say kaa or ko respectively.

Ibibio and Anang use Ufok to refer the abode of man. Ufok is the reference to the house where one lives. The Igbo equivalent of this word is Uno or Ulo. Either of these words can be used to connote house and the home of a man as Ufok refers to. The relationship of the sounds of these words is not only revealed through their meanings, we find their sounds the same to indicate that they have one common source or origin. This relationship becomes clearer when the Efik are considered. I believe you will accept our assertion when you know that the Efik use Ulok for the same reference. It was possible that the entire communities of the aqua cultural settlers of these regions made use of Ulok in the earlier time, but as time glided the Ibibio and Anang communities had a change of tongues.

When something gets spoilt, ppeople of this language community use the word, Agwaka, to express such unwelcomed condition. The Igbo language has similar expression for things found in such a situation. But in the Igbo form, it is rather  Ngworo or Agworo. The Igbo use this either terms to address spoilt tomatoes or decayed breadfruit and other fruits found in a similar situations. Also, another word  that people of this language community use to express"no" or "not"  is Ideghe. The Igbo equivalent of such terms is odighi.

Could these be the all-encompassing evidence? I think not. There are places found in the Efik families that appeared to have borrowed their names from the Igbo language. More convincing is the military base at Abak Akwa Ibom State  known as Ibeagwa but pronounced Ibawa by the inhabitants of the area. The history of the place has it that the first people to settle in the area had come from the Ibeagwa in the present day Enugu State. To sustain this aspect of their oblivious history the ancient sign post at the military base still has the name correctly written. Akwa Ibom also has places known as Ikot Okoro, Ikot Imo, Obiono and other names that are not included here. What all these show is simply a common historical tie among the concerned people and places. There are also places like Eastern Obolo in Akwa Ibom (in Eket political region) and Western Obolo in River State. These two communities, like the Ibeagwa in Akwa Ibom State, sustained the name of their original home; they migrated from the ancient Nsukka area called Obolo.   

The name of the researcher’s mother is Ebe Nnaji. The name Ebe was derived from the name of the river which had sustained Nkalaha community since the day Onoja Oboni stepped into the place and founded it. The river is richly historical when the reason for settling in the place is brought to minds. It was this lasting values and inextinguishable roles of its substance to the teeming population of the Nkalaha people that her name was decided to be given to people. The researcher’s mother shares in this rich historical relevance. Akwa Ibom also has this name among her indigenous members. Other names found to have Igbo origin are names like Uko, Nnamso, Nnamuko,Udoh etc. all these are Igbo names. Other names are derived through expressions in the manner that the Igbo give their names. Every name in Igbo land is a complete expression. Many are written in their abridged form while others are written as a word. Examples include Chukwu ka Ike (God is ever powerful) written as Chukwuka, Ife eyi nwa (there is no semblance for a child) written as a word. We also have Onyinye Chukwu Ka (God’s gift is the greatest) also written simply as Onyinye. In the same way Ibibio has a name like Mkpo Kang Nke Abasi transliterated as nothing above the power of God). All this information added to their oral traditions and history to give a clear picture of the unequivocal expansion of the men from the eastern part of Nigeria.  

(1.4) Egyptian Words of Igbo Origin.

The most contribution this research work has to African readers is its unmentionable attempts to reconstruct African history by tracing the genesis of the world as well as Africa from various perspectives. As the passage way to the western part of this world, the survivor of the flood had the Sahara planes as their uninterrupted route out of Igbo land, many stopped in Egypt to form a population there. Igbo popularized the language of ancient Egyptian because it was, by the explanation above, the foundational language of the founding fathers. A later crusade was occasioned by the civilizer who also went to Egypt with the prevailing culture in the east. To this end, Egyptian words with Igbo sounds and meanings are numerous. Citable among them are in the table below:

Egypt words	Meaning	Igbo	Meaning
Tuf	To throw away.	Tufuo	To throw away.
Akhu	Fire or light	Oku	Fire or light
Aru	Body or form	Aru	Body
Ba	Heart	Obi	Heart
Egypt	Black soil	Ojikputu (Orlu dialect)	Pitch black
(h)ike	Power or strength	Ike	Power or strength
Xut (pronounced kut)	Sunrise	Kutee (Igbo Nkanu)	To wake or rise
Sa	To shine	Sa/saa	To shine
Satu	Shine down	Satuo (Orlu dialect)	Shine down
Tua	Praise or glorify	Tuo/too	Praise or glorify
Xerkert (pronounced kirkir)	Pieces	Kirikiri	Pieces
Huru	The day dawns	Horo (Orlu dialect)	The day dawns
Musi/mose/msi,	To give birth	Mmusi	To give birth to many children
Miri	Water	Miri	Water

It was amazing to read Diop Anta’s best seller book, African Origin of Civilization (P.184), pointing out that Egyptian word for water is Miri. As mentioned on the table above, fire was called Ahku in Egypt. Akhu is also the sacred vernacular name for the Giza Pyramid. Its native Igbo related name tries to suggest that an Igbo-speaking team of ancient engineers possibly constructed it. Of course, the mystery in the Giza pyramid lies on its reference to Ra “sun-god”. This paper suggests that the architect who may have masterminded the issues of the pyramids in Egypt must have been metaphysics of the sun mystery. If this is true about the pyramids in Egypt, we may associate these mystic views to the highest contributor of the Egyptian metaphysical books collectively entitled the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Ani. Ani wrote virtually all the mystic information about the sun, both as a body and as a venerable concept. The Egyptian Book of the Dead even associates Ra to Ani; he was called Osiri Ani.  It is indicative from this point that Ani is duly Igbo. Ani was described in the Egyptian records thus:

The papyrus of Ani is undated, and no facts are given in it concerning the life of Ani, whereby it would be possible to fix its exact place in the series of the illustrated papyri of the Theban period to which it belongs. His full titles are:--

suten in maa an hesb hetep neter en neteru nebu (Royal scribe veritable, scribe and accountant of the divine offerings of all the gods.)

mer tenti en nebu Abtu an hetep neter en (The governor of the granary of the lords of Abydos, scribe of the divine offerings  of) nebu Uast. (the lords of Thebes);

… He is said to be "beloved of the lord of the North and South" and to “love him”. The name of the king thus referred to cannot be stated. That Ani's rank of “royal scribe” [2] was not titular only is shown by the addition of the word “veritable,” and his office of scribe and accountant of all the gods was probably one of the highest which a scribe could hold.[3] His other offices of “governor of the granary of the lords of Abydos,” and “scribe of the sacred property of the lords of Thebes,” further prove his rank and importance, for Abydos and Thebes were the most ancient and sacred cities of Egypt. (Book of the Dead, 120).

The Egyptian word ‘gods’ is NTR or Neter. It means “Guardian or Watch person”. This word was originally derived from the semantic corroboration of the acts of the gods. The role of the gods is primarily the service of a guardian. The Igbo have the equivalent of this word in the connotation of the same actions, role or duty/function. Its Igbo equivalent is Onetara/neta. The meaning is the same; “He who guards and watches” or “to watch” over a thing on behalf of someone else. The Igbo idea is more explicit, for it shows that these lesser gods are answerable to a Higher Being, the Almighty God. The highest and oldest of the known gods of Egypt was Ptah. He was the father of all the other gods. His name, Ptah, means in Egyptian, “He who fashions things by carving and opening up”. 

The Igbo form of this word is Okpu-atu; meaning “He who moulds/fashions things by carving and opening up”. Igbo word tuo/atu means both the same thing, “to carve and to open a hole”. Researches reveal that Ptah’s rule over Egypt began as early as 21,000 BC. If his name and the collective name for the gods of Egypt, Neter, were Igbo in origin, it implies that an ancient civilization of Igbo extraction existed in West Africa, where the gods ruled, (not particularly men) by a time far beyond 22,000 BC. Then, it is apparent that Egypt was an originally Igbo-speaking civilization and that early Egyptians were Igbo. These linguistic pieces of evidence suggest that the earliest Egyptian civilization (at the time when the gods ruled Egypt) before the advent of Pharaohnic rule; in 3,100 BC. You could imagine that Ptah’s son was called Ra, meaning ‘Sun/Daylight’. Its Igbo equivalent in Afa (the cult language of Igbo native priests) is still Ra which means ‘Sun/Daylight’.

The grandson of Ra was called Osiris by the Greeks and Asar by the Egyptians. Osiris was associated with the number “seven”. This same view is given recognition by the Igbo among whom Asaa means “seven”. Osiris is associated with horrific cosmic energy (seven). In the Igbo geometry, the number “seven” is associated with the highest cosmic energy. From Nnaji’s detailed explanation of this meaning of the mystic number (seven) in the Igbo cosmology, we shall cite a little to broaden our understanding of the term.

The Igbo have various esoteric ideas associated with the figure seven. Seven is usually the climax of some mystic activities that are connected to energy and forces. Some folktales recognized this mystery of seven.

Seven means the climax of power. It marks the completion of a revolutionary cycle in different mystic schools. It identifies the realm (position) where the highest power lies and a height almost unattainable. One of the ancient Igbo proverbs says thus, aria ugwu asa, erie nri asa, when one climbs seven hills (seven mystic heights), he eats seven food (attains higher state of consciousness). From ancient time, the Igbo associated the terminal height or mystic realms with the number seven. To become a member of Ndi Ichie in Agulu, the undertakers are made to chew seven seeds of Ose Nshi (Alligator pepper) to be launched into the spirit of the ancestors.        Except the seeds are up to seven, he would not see aught.  (Aspects, 149, 152)

Egypt’s most ancient god is called Amun/Amen/Ammun. He is a god residing under the earth; an abode known to ancient Egypt as Aemnta. The name of this god implies “Hidden inside the bowels of Earth”. According to Martin Bernal the word Amen is derived from imn which is pronounced Amana. These two words have Igbo origins. Igbo equivalent of imn is ime ana, and means “inside the earth”, while amana is equally an Igbo word referring to the Earth religion, further supporting an originally Igbo-based Egyptian religion and civilization. It means original, main, integral or son of the soil.  

Egyptian borrowings from Igbo are in two groups: words borrowed from Orlu/Okigwe dialectal family are far older in chronological time than those borrowed from the Anambra dialectal family or Nsukka. The reason for their chronological order might be because Orlu/Okigwe are held by Igbo historians to belong to the autochthonous (non-migrant descendants of Homo erectus) group. This implies that the earliest roots of Egyptian civilization, when the gods and not men ruled Egypt, began among the autochthons of Igbo land, but did not end there. Latter-day migrant Igbo priest-kings continued to exert influences in Pharaohnic Egyptian civilization as shall be clarified in other papers.

(1.5) Hebrew Word of Igbo Origin

It will be very abstruse to believe easily that there could be evidences of Igbo words in the Hebrew tongue. But this is not supposed to be too exotic since the Hebrew’s were civilized by the Egyptians whom we have found above with several instances of Igbo words. In the second chapter of the book, Earth-to-Earth: Comparative Study of World Ancient Civilization: The Igbo Perspective, Nnaji intoned that the Hebrew did not have original tongue. Of course, instances of words belonging to other languages such as Egypt and Sumer should veritably sustain this claim. A little part of these borrowing Nnaji notified in the Sumer civilization discussed in the third chapter of the book mentioned above. We can assert here that the borrowing might have come from the heavy influences of these two languages which also had the presence of the Igbo language. Cursorily, we can identify few words that look similar in related sound and similar meaning to Igbo from the Hebrew. It is evident that the few words below have Igbo origin:

Hebrew words	Implied Meaning	Igbo equivalents	Impied Meaning
Amar	Command	(h)amara or mara	Command
Hayah	Let there be	Haa ya	Let it be/let there be
Hayah uwr	Let there be light	Haa ya owuru	Allow it to lit
Hayawu	Name of the creating deity	Anyanwu	Sun (Igbo also take the sun as the creation deity).
Genesis	Go to the beginning	Ge n’isisi	Go to the beginning

See more words @ Instances of Hebrews Words Taken from Igbo Lanaguage

The Christian Bible recorded that hyssop (‘to cleanse’) is a Hebrew word. Our research found that the word was derived from the Sumerian word zupu (to clean). Both words can be traced back to the Igbo language. The Igbo equivalent is hisapu and sapu “to clean off” or “wash clean”. Canaanite and Hebrew words along with Sumerian ones, derive from Igbo, with several place names in Hebrew – including names of rivers and mountains. These all fall under the Semitic group of languages, leading us to conclude that Semitic languages are of Igbo extraction and that Igbo is the mother of Semitic. Cosmic words like Greek cosmos and Gaia are both derived from Canaanite qsm and gweye respectively. These two words have the same meanings in Hebrew and in Igbo, Canaanite qsm and Igbo kwasama (Owerri dialect) both mean “to arrange outwards”; Canaanite gweye and Igbo ngwo iyi both mean “ravine of water”. Greek Gaia, derived from gweye, is the name of the ancient planet which, according to Sumerian prehistoric sources, existed several millions of years ago, and was the mother planet of all the planets in the solar system. If the Igbo language should go this far back, it becomes exponential that Igbo as a language has lasted to the days of Adam or even before him.

(1.6) India Words of Igbo Origin

From the idea disseminated by Sertima, Ivan Van in his research work entitled African Presence in Ancient America: They came Before Columbus, it is evident that the ancient Indian land was inhabited by African migrants who settled in the area several decades before the adventurous entrance to the area by the British Christopher Columbus. These early settlers probably were Igbo or if they were not, then they should have had instances of the Igbo vocabularies before emigration in the area. The India ancient city of Kashmiri is waterlogged most of the year. Its name appears to have Igbo connotations for miri means ‘water’ in Igbo and would tend to suggest a name such as “Kushite Water People”. This proved the assertion made by J.A. Bailey true when he intoned that, “The earliest known migrations out of Africa were to the North and East into India.”

Evidence of an Igbo-speaking nation of migrant peoples who laid the foundation of Indian civilization abounds in the Indian lexicon.

Indian Words	Implied meaning	Igbo Equivalent	Meaning
Kr	To create/ to make	Kere	Created
Dev	God/divine	Eva	Divinity/incantation (Nkalaha dialect)
Om/aum	I am	Oom (O bu m)	It is me
Manu	First man	(M)madu	Human
Kash/kwash	First people/god-men	Akwanshi	First people/god-men

Sindh (the largest and longest river in India and main source of life, agriculture, trade and sheer survival, from which originated the words India, Hindu) appears to have derived its name from the Igbo word Isi ndu ‘Source of Life’ (pronounced Isi ndhu in Orlu/Okigwe dialects). An ancient pyramid complex in Kashi, the holiest city of India, had the name Bindhu Madhu, which translates into Igbo as Obi Ndhu Mmadu (Orlu dialect) ‘Mankind’s Sacred Dwelling Place of Immortality’. Kashi was India’s “City of Light”; the Igbo equivalent of this word is Oku Eshi – “Place of gods of Light”.

(1.7) Evidence of Igbo in the Ancient Sumer

If there is any language that should wield greater strength in retaining the Igbo language, I think Sumer should be at the forefront of number of languages. My reason is very simple, since those that survived through the ark were the original owners of the Sumer civilization, they should be able to retain the original language spoken in the pre deluge. For instance, Enmerkar was a popular king in Sumer whose name reflected Igbo origin. It refers to the same name as the Igbo Emeka. Both have the same reference to Gods deeds and grace.

In language groupings, the Sumerian language is classified among Semitic languages. Based on our findings, every aspect of the Sumerian language and culture was borrowed from the Hamites. With two full-length books and one thousand pages of hard core research information later, we are even more convinced of that assertion. In fact, we have gathered more than enough clues indicating that the word ‘Semitic’ is a Misnomer and that Semites were a branch of the Hamitic stock, whose origins began precisely in the West Africa rain forest region of Nigeria. As we have cited the case with ancient Egyptian, some of the names of the earliest gods of Sumer were derived from the Igbo language. Some of these gods, according to Sumerian cuneiform records lived on earth before the creation of human beings. One of such gods was called ZU. His name means in the language of the gods: “He Who Knows”. It refers to the god-man of creativity for which the Awka were known. The word Zu has an equivalent in sound and meaning in Igbo, namely uzu, which means “Wise and Knowledgeable” especially the wisdom of craft, for the Awka were naturally technocrats.

Another Sumerian god with an Igbo name was the Stone God called Ullikimmi. Its Igbo equivalent is Illi nkume. It refers to the paternal god kept by the eastern Nkanu; particularly Nkalaha. It stands and serves the purpose of the nearness of their gone fathers. In other words, it stands for the ancestral shrine. Also an early Storm god of Sumer, who fought a protracted war with the Stone god, was called Kummiya. The Igbo equivalent is written thus, Nkume Iyi. Nkume Iyi is the pebble used by rainmakers to make rain. The pebble serves three purposes in the traditional Igbo applications. It is used to control the cloud for rainfall. It is also used to sustain sunshine for a longer time. The third purpose is to command and control storm. According to Zachariah Sitchin, Ulli Kummi means “He who contends with Kummi”, which in Igbo would translate into Olu Kummi “He who fights Kummi”. Again we see that these gods were Igbo-speaking, leading us to conclude that Egyptian and Sumerian mythological origins are traceable to one and the same place – Igbo land.

A Babylonian tablet in the British Museum (No. 74329) catalogued which contained an unknown myth, tried to narrate certain aspects of the story of Cain’s lineage. In the tablet, Cain was called Ka’in. It further highlighted that Cain’s descendants were called Amakandu, meaning “People Who in Sorrow Roam”. After the death of Kain, his family buried him in a place called Nudun, which means an “Excavated Resting Place” (Biblical ‘Nod’), also called Dunnu. The last settlement of this group of people was called Shupat, meaning “Judgment”. All these vernacular Sumerian words are Igbo words. In Igbo (Owerri dialect), Ama ka nduu means “To roam is better than to settle”. Igbo equivalent of Nudun “Excavated Resting Place” is Onu Nduu, and has the exact same meaning with Nudun. In Igbo, Onu refers to the “mouth point of an excavated hole”, while nduu means “to rest/to sit” in Owerri dialect. There is even a clan in Anambra State in Igbo land called Dunukofia. The name means “To settle is better than to roam”.

Sumerian texts say that the first city built by the gods on earth was called Eridu. There they placed the members of Adam’s family.  Adam’s great grandson was named Yared, meaning “He of Eridu”. Its Igbo equivalent, with the same meaning, is ya (E)ridu meaning, him/her Eridu. Sumerian word ommia means “expert”. Igbo omaya means “he knows it well (expert)”.  Sumerian word Tug means dress. Igbo tuiga means ‘dress up’ (Orlu dialect). Like the Igbo Sumerians also wore wrappers for total wrap-round cover-up, which were called Tug-tu-she, which in Igbo (Orlu dialect) would be pronounced tuiga tushie “cover-all dressing”.

Considering that Abraham’s origins were in Sumer (Ur of the Chaldeans is another name for Sumer), we are inclined to think that Sumer, and not Shem, might have been the actual origin of the word ‘Semitic’. Sumer was a place unknown, however. Its origin stems from copies of olden texts assembled in the Nineveh library of Assurbanipal, many of which list kings who call themselves “king of Akkad and king of Sumer”. This gave early researchers on these olden texts the impetus to call the people “Sumerians” and their land “Sumer”. In other words, the Sumerian civilization may not have existed anywhere. It might be a fable intentionally documented to give western history certain origin. The texts actually speak of “Shumerian” and not Sumerian, while the Biblical Genesis says that Babylon, Akkad and Erech were in the land of Shin’ar.

Our insistence on the Igbo origin of language, culture and civilization is not based on spoken language alone, but also on written language. More compelling fact was that, among the archaeological discoveries, the discovery of an Early Middle and Late Stone Age workshop in the Homo Erectus habitation in Ugwuele, Isuikwuato, Abia State in Igbo land in the early seventies by a team of archaeologists from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. This does not only add tons of weight to an Igbo origin “Out of Africa” migrations of Early Man, but to also an Igbo origin of human language and culture; while the Igbo Ukwu inscriptions backed up by the mythologies and written records of the Egyptians, Sumerians, Dravidians, Hebrews and Kwa peoples of Nigeria lend credence to a Post-Deluge Kwa-Igbo origin of civilization.

The Sumerian word Babel means “Gate to El’s House”. The Igbo equivalent is Baa be Ele, “Entrance to Ele’s House”. Ele is the most ancient god of the Igbo autochthons. We know from Biblical sources that the Babel incident that brought about the separation of languages from the one original mother tongue happened at Babel. The fact that in Sumer and in Igbo land, El was associated with the heights and also in Hebrew shows a common origin of both the god and the peoples that worship it. The ancient base of El in Igbo land, according to mythology was the same place where the Homo Erectus habitation was found by archaeologists, namely Ugwu-Ele. Ugwu-ele means “Hill/Heights of Ele”! The Biblical term Beth-el means “House of El” or “Lord’s House”. Its Igbo original was Be-Ele/Obi Ele “House of El”. An air of confusion lies between the attempts toward deciphering the original venue of Babel through these similarities. But one thing is indicative that the scribe the ancient Igbo had were the Umudiala. The same were the ancestors of Abia State, Imo State and other emigrants that left the area.

Sumerian term Amurru “Westerners” is derived from Igbo Umu oru “People of the West”. West here implies West of the River Niger, for the Igbo distinguish between Oru and Igbo (Oru na Igbo) with Oru implying “those who live West of the Niger River, i.e. the Benin and the Yoruba”, and Igbo implying those who live east of the Niger, i.e. the core Igbo and the Delta Igbo. From this term is also derived the etymology of the word Hebrew, whose literal meaning in Aramaic and in Igbo (Igbo Oru) is “Those who live on the Western Side of the River”. Igbo Oru actually means “The Igbo Who Live West of the Niger”. This implies that originally the peoples of the Eastern and Western Niger were at least of the same political entity, before the rivalries of their gods separated them ideologically. All these linguistic piles of evidence are powerful testimonies that Sumerians and Hebrews, Benins and Yorubas were originally speaking an Igbo mother language, still spoken in Igbo land to this day, but not among the other nation states that were originally part of the mother-entity.         

While the Amurru (Umuoru) “Westerners”, followers of Marduk and Nabu (his son) poured into Mesopotamia and provided the rulers that made up the first dynasty of Marduk’s Babylon, other tribes and nations-to-be engaged in massive population movements that forever changed the Near-East, Asia (Eshi) and Europe. They brought about the emergence of Assyria to Babylon’s north, the Hittite kingdom to the northwest, the Hurrian Mitanni to the west, the Indo-Aryan kingdoms that spread from the Caucasus on Babylon’s north-east, and those of the desert peoples to the south and of the Sea land people to the southeast. They migrated to the Indus Valley to repopulate and reinvigorate it. The Vedic tales of gods and heroes that Aryans, later brought with them were the Sumerian myths retold. The notions of Time and its measurement and cycles were of Sumerian origin mingled into the Aryan migrations. They brought mysteriously abrupt changes in China without any gradual development and transformed China from a nation of primitive villages to one of walled cities whose rulers possessed bronze weapons and chariots and the knowledge of writing.

(1.8) Possible Related English Words of likely Correspondence with Igbo

Most European languages, including English, belong to the Indo-European family of languages. Common historical experiences have brought about borrowing across several European borders, such that most international words are found in almost all European languages. There are various Igbo words that formed the foundations of European words, which shall be treated in due course. A few examples will suffice here: English word ‘say’ etymologically developed from Old English secgan, Germanic sagen, Old Latin insquam (I say), all of which find their roots in Igbo si (say), sikene/sakene (say!), nsi (I say), asikwam (I say, [emphatic]); English ‘cock’is derived from Old Norse kokkr, Old French coq, Medieval Latin coccus and Igbo okuko. There are many more of such words with Igbo roots across several European languages, both Eastern and Western Europe:

English Language	Implied meaning	Igbo Equivalent	Meaning
Go	To leave/walk away	Gaa	To leave/walk away
Adam	First man/fallen man	Adaam	I have fallen
Say	Talk/answer	Saa	Talk/answer
Cock	Domestic bird	Okuko	Domestic bird
King	Anchor of power	Ikenga	Anchor of force or power
Animal	Four-footed beings	Anumanu	Four-footed being
Marine	Water	Miri	Water
Choir	Group of singers	Ukwe	Song/group of singers
Chief	Ordained leader	Ichie efu	Non-initiate ordained leader
Order	Rule	Ora dere	cosmically established/god ordained
Make/made	To to	Mee/mere	To do

Summary and Conclusion

What we have just demonstrated is to show that, according to Merritt above, the similarities in the languages of the ancient civilization around the globe may have sourced a fraction (if not almost all) of their population from the East or near East. Of all my research as a language analyst, this paper has discovered only the English language with borrowings from over three languages. Language is an indelible identity that hardly loses its presence in the cultural affinity of any people. It does not lose its presence completely, it does not matter the number of generations it may last. It proves Dr. Pegel true that, “language doesn’t change that entire fast — it retains a signal of its ancestry over tens of thousands of years”.

As a unique feature, language that is capable of being the mother of all tongues must not borrow from the offspring languages without having a term that stands and represents the borrowed terms independently. Such a mother tongue should not have any borrowed tongue(s), must not have any borrowed terms as its standard code, it does not matter the level of innovation caused by modernity or any contemporary feature. We have, in the cause of this study, tested the languages of many ancient civilized worlds and found them loaded with several inventions borrowed from other languages. We equally tested the Igbo language and found that borrowing was rather based on the internal motif of the speaker at any given time as he strives to escape certain critical opinions that would define his level of incompetence. Of course, we find prominent among Igbo speakers, such borrowings as Agbero, Oyibo etc. when they lack the exact name of the term in reference. The Igbo do not have anything like such in the lexicon and it had never been borrowed. The Igbo words for the above terms are Eburu and Bekee. The first refers to the lowest grade of labourers. To be specific, Eburu is used to refer to the low-ranked labourers whose role is to carry loads. It is in this lexeme one finds such labourers as Onye eburu Nsi (a person who drains toilet pits) and other forms of Eburu. The latter, Bekee, is used to address people who are fair in complexion or people dressed in the attire of the western culture.

The Igbo repudiation to the one unique feature that is common to every language in the universe is one clear conception of its original position as the mother of the global tongues. It does not accept borrowings from any other language. And as the language of rules, tradition and culture, the Igbo rather choose representation of terms by familiar terms within its language community than submitting to wear the cloth sewn by another language culture. If Igbo had not been originally conditioned thus, then the rule must have been broken in the colonial era. The Elizabethan lifestyle brought several innovations and inventions which ought to have been wedded into the Igbo language culture, but this attempt did not succeed. For instance, colonialism brought about such things as bicycle, motor cycle, car, train, air craft and ship as instruments of transportation. It brought about western education carried out in schools, churches and mineral resources all of which should have a place in the Igbo language, but the language became duly repulsive to them. Rather than imbibe those foreign colours, Igbo improvised terms for them from the local colour. We have such word samples as follow.

English	Igbo	Sources of Improvisation
Bicycle	Inyinya Igwe	Mode of paddling
Motorcycle	Ogba tum tum	The sound
Car	Ugbo Ala	Means of transportation
Train	Ugbo Oloko	The horn
Plane	Ugbo Elu	Means of transportation
Kerosene	Manu Oku	The uses
Petrol (fuel, gas etc.)	Miri Mmo	Mode of evaporation
School	Ulo Akwukwo	Education that is book based
Church	Ulo Uka	A house of discussion
Rice	Os(h)ikapa	Increase in size when cooked
Beans	Agwa	Colouration

It is clear from the little analysis shown above that rather than become influenced by foreign culture, the Igbo language had held to its aboriginal relevance by sustaining its language culture unswervingly. Where a direct name did not occur, the Igbo language realizes such terms in phrasal forms as exemplified above. On rare cases, an aspect of the new words is retained while it serves as a complement to the main term drawn from the local colour. A good example is Electric (Oku latrik) etc. No language in the world exists without one form of influence from another language, but the Igbo. All the instances sampled above and other related views unstated here gave us the impetus to insist that the language of the world aborigine was Igbo.     

References

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Atkinson, Quentin. “Phonemic Diversity Supports a Serial Founder Effect Model of Language     Expansion from Africa”, in Science, 15 April 2011: p. 346-349.

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Meyer, Marvin: The Nag Hammadi Scriptures. The International Edition, 2007.

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Ruhlen, Merritt. The Origin of Language: Tracing the Evolution of the Mother-Tongue. 1994.

Sitchin, Zecharia. The Wars of Gods and Men. Avon Books, 1985.