The writers of the Ibibio Bible "nwed Abasi ke ikó Ibibio ayo mfîn" have done a good job. I feel highly elated that I can now read the Bible in my own mother tongue "Ibibio" Instead of Efik language which has been in circulation for ages. Notwithstanding, the Efik Bible is still highly valuable to us since most of us still have access to it than Ibibio bible which was launched few months ago.

On this note, I call on the Akwa Ibom state government and other well meaning individuals and corporate bodies to step in, to promote and enforce the learning of Ibibio language. This is in order to promote and instill the culture of reading the language with ease, as many speakers of the language including myself are still struggling with reading the written form of the language.

That being said, I'm not a language expert or a linguist, but I understand as a writer that the spoken and written form of a language are not usually the same. The latter may likely pose a challenge to even the native speakers once the elements used in the written form are strange. This is largely because the owners of the language may not be used to reading the written form of the language or are completely ignorant of its elements. This is the case of the Ibibio language.

The Ibibio language in its written form is alien to many speakers. This is because many of the speakers weren't introduced to learning how to read and write the language the same way it was for English. Infact, many people are familiar with written Efik language, a close dialect, than Ibibio language, largely because the former has been used in church worship and taught in schools long before written Ibibio was introduced.

As a result, majority of the speakers are not familiar with the vowel sounds and consonant clusters as used in the written form of Ibibio language. This poses a great challenge in reading the language fluently without struggle. And if you agree with me, it can be embarrassing reading one's native language with so much struggle as if it were a foreign language.

Taking a cue from the just written and printed version of the Ibibio bible, so many linguistic modifications or words used aren't familiar at all, hence make reading difficult. For instance the use of "Yisos" for "Jesus" , "Yoon" for "John" and "fidibai" for "Philippians" are just but a few linguistic modifications used which are not familiar words to majority of the educated populace who are used to "Jesus, John and Philippians" NOT "Yisos, Yoon and Fidibai"

I can understand that the Ibibio language experts and linguists have tried in their bid to introduce these elements so as to give the language its unique qualities and features; however they and the government should also make these elements popular and familiar to the people by making learning of the language compulsory in schools and even social and political gatherings. By so doing, many people will eventually find "written ibibio" easy to read and understand. It will no longer be a thing for linguistic and language experts only.

Nice one

Ilaumoh:
Nice one

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Thank u