| 37465 |
abstract |
Proverbs, described by Achebe as the oil which helps swallow the words, have always
been important in Igboland. They are highly valued as a mark of wisdom, learnt as
a step to leadership and used in every conversation. Today, proverbs have gone online,
and emails and forums show the vitality of this oral genre, especially since many
Igbos, acutely aware of the danger facing their language because of the hegemony of
English, have been scrambling to collect and put into writing a maximum of details
concerning their language and culture, proverbs in particular. To succeed in this
endeavour, they called other Igbo speakers at home and abroad to play their part and
open interactive websites to facilitate data collection. We will survey some of these
websites (online journals, libraries and dictionaries, forums and social networks),
consider their users’ profile and use of proverbs, and the ways in which these combined
efforts facilitate the sharing of Igbo ancestral wisdom. |