Speech Variation in Emowha Dialect of Igbo

Abstract

This work focuses on language variation with historical antecedents in Emowha speech community of Igbo language. This research work has the objectives of establishing the lexical and phonological variation and whether the pattern of migration of the villages affected the variation. This study employed the field methods of quantitative approach as theoretical framework. Similarly, the paper adopted primary and secondary sources of data and descriptive and analytical method of data analysis. The research work observed that Emowha dialect of Igbo records more lexical variation than phonological variation: Oduoha and Elibrada villages exhibits more of the variations and the patterns of migration of the villages that make up Emowha speech community has no effect on the variation. Consequently, this study concludes that the speech variations exhibited by Oduoha and Elibrada villages are not significant enough to predict that in the near future the two villages will develop their own dialects.