A PHONOLOGICAL STUDY OF IGBO-ENGLISH DICTIONARIES

Abstract

Dictionary is a language tool which serves as a guide to both learners and native speakers of the language. This paper aims at ascertaining the phonological components of the selected Igbo dictionaries. Four Igbo-English dictionaries are selected for this paper which are; English-Igbo Dictionary by Michael Echeruo (2001), Dictionary of Ònìchà Igbo by Kay Williamson (1972), Igbo-English Dictionary by Egemba, I. (1999), and OGAM/IGBO VCV DICTIONARY by Catherine Acholonu (2007). The paper adopts descriptive approach in its analysis. It is observed that three dictionaries paid attention to tone marking, whereas one did not; all the dictionaries neglected phonetic/phonemic transcription, and three dictionaries paid attention to diacritic marks, whereas one did not. It is concluded that phonological components ought to be part of a dictionary to aid the learners of the language.