Author: Godsgrace C. Nzewi
Questions in Igbo language can take various forms. You may ask a question by using some specific question words in what you say, by changing the tones of what you say, or by doing both.
When written down, all Igbo questions must end with a question mark (“?”) to help distinguish them from non-question sentences.
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Ụdaolu (vowel tones): On this page, the letters “l,” “m,” or “h” when **in a square bracket “[ ]” indicates the vowel tone present in the word immeditately before it. “l” indicates a low tone, “m” means a mid tone, and “h” shows a high tone. A common music equivalence for the three vowel tones are “doo” (low tone), “ree” (mid tone), “mee” (high tone).
For example, elu *[h m] *****{music: mee ree} is for the Igbo word “elu” (meaning “up”). The tag [h m] says that the tone of the vowel “e” is high and that of “u” is low.
The standard way for representing vowel tones is by adding tone marks (akara ụdaolu) on each vowel like so: élū.
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