Learn Igbo: I Can Read, Write, Teach | Igbo Daily Drops ( S3 E172) Week 35

In 1909, a mission register records a twelve-year-old girl as "cannot write".

On her slate is a sign her teacher can read, and is sworn never to admit he can.

In this episode of Igbo Daily Drops, you'll learn 3 phrases for the skills of

learning: I know how to write, I know how to read, and I can teach you. You'll

also learn when Igbo says Ama m (I know how) and when it says Enwere m ike (I can).

Set in Arochukwu seven years after the British expedition, this episode documents

nsibidi, the sign-writing system of the Cross River region. It was used on cloth,

calabashes, walls and the ground, and it was guarded by the Ekpe society. Women

taught it, and a girl's indigo-stained fingers hold it. It is intangible cultural

heritage and an endangered language's long memory, told through one slate. It also

invites cultural understanding within a wider African heritage renaissance.

This is a fictional story informed by the historical record. Akụnna, Mr Ekpo and

the register are invented; the nsibidi sign, the 1905 classroom challenge and the

woman teacher are documented.

Research in this episode draws on J. K. Macgregor, "Some Notes on Nsibidi",

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 1909. A pupil corrected him in

class, and a woman, whose mother had run a school for the script, offered to

teach him. It also draws on G. Ugo Nwokeji (Cambridge, 2010) on Ekpe and the

Nsibiri script.

📖 Today's proverb: Aka nri kwọọ aka ekpe, aka ekpe akwọọ aka nri — Let the right

hand wash the left, and the left hand wash the right.

🗣️ Sentences practised today:

1. A ma m ede ihe — I know how to write.

2. A ma m ịgụ akwụkwọ — I know how to read.

3. E nwere m ike ịkụziri gị — I can teach you.

📥 Free Speaking Workbook: learnigbonow.com

🏛️ By every measure UNESCO uses to assess a language's vitality —

intergenerational transmission, community attitudes, government support — Igbo is

vulnerable. This podcast documents Igbo intangible cultural heritage — oral

traditions, social practices, rituals, and knowledge systems — while teaching

conversational Igbo to diaspora learners worldwide. Every episode is part of the

Igbo Daily Drops Living Archive.

Hosted by Yvonne Chioma Mbanefo — Heritage Futurist and Daughter of the soil.

▶️ Watch the visual version on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LearnIgbo/podcasts

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🌐 learnigbonow.com

Every sentence you learn is a drop. Every drop feeds Oké Osimiri Mmụta Igbo —

the Ocean of Igbo Knowledge.

This has been Igbo Daily Drops with Yvonne Mbanefo.

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Be one of them. Every sentence you learn is a drop. 
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