Stylistic analyses of Igbo proverbs and riddles

Abstract

Igbo proverbs and riddles are replete with stylistic features: tonal
and lexical contrasts, repetitions, sound symbolisms, tonal
rhymes, assonance, and consonance. This stylistic analysis of
selected Igbo proverbs and riddles investigates these features.
The main objective is to illustrate the aesthetic sound, tonal and
lexical combinations characterizing these sub-genres. The data
were collected from diverse sources over a period of three
months (December, 2017 - February, 2018). The proverbs were
got mainly during village meetings and traditional ceremonies
like marriage and title taking. The riddles and some proverbs
were provided by the researchers who are Igbo native speakers,
as these sub-genres are within the public domain, while some
were from published collections of these Igbo sub-genres. We
found that tones play a crucial role as there are tonal contrasts in
the data - aji HH ‘hair’, aji HL ‘woolly garment’. For lexical
contrasts, we see elu HS ‘up’, ala LL ‘down’; tonal rhyming
example as in omume LHH ‘doing’, obube LHH ‘crying’. The
repetition of the sound [a] in aka aja aja HH HH SS ‘soiled
hands’ accounts for assonance while the repetition of the sound
[ŋw] ‘nw’ in nwune nwune HH HH, nwune nwune LL LL
exemplifies consonance. Furthermore, these rich traditional subgenres
are fast eroding from Igbo social discourses because
‘modern’ Igbo people scarcely use nor transmit them to their
children since the advent of technology, like television and handset phones. Renewed and elaborate social use of these subgenres
is necessary to develop and preserve them for posterity.