Igbo-English English-Igbo Dictionary and Phrasebook (Hippocrene Dictionary & Phrasebook)

Rating:
Summary: Igbo Dictionary
Review: I am 50% Nigerian Igbo, and was born in Imo State. I grew up in America, and had lost my native language. This book has helped me regain the language I thought was gone forever. I think everyone interested in the Igbo Language should read it.

Rating:
Summary: There is room for improvement
Review: This book is a welcome addition to a very scanty body of work about the Igbo language. The grammar and pronunciation are very well explained, there are good illustrative examples, and the phrasebook is extensive and useful. There is also interesting material about the Igbo history and culture.

However, the included dictionary gives no guidance about the tones used in pronouncing the words it defines. Words are NOT marked for tone in the dictionary. Since tone is phonemic in Igbo (as in Chinese, for instance) this is a very serious limitation and it prevents the reader from building up a vocabulary by browsing the dictionary and plugging new words into sentences introduced in the phrasebook and grammar sections. If there was a lot of other material available for learning Igbo one wouldn't need to use the dictionary this way, but there really isn't.

Hopefully in a future edition the authors will rectify this sin of omission.