Igbo
The tonal language of southeastern Nigeria
Igbo is a Niger-Congo language spoken by roughly 30 million people, concentrated in southeastern Nigeria and carried worldwide by one of the country's largest diaspora communities. It has a long print tradition, several regional dialects, and a standardized written form used in schools, media, and literature.
Writing system
What counts as correct
Igbo uses underdotted letters — ị, ọ, ụ — plus ṅ for a nasal sound, all of which represent distinct vowel and consonant sounds that plain Latin letters can't. Like Yorùbá, Igbo is also tonal, and tone plays a real role in distinguishing words and grammatical meaning, even though everyday writing marks it less consistently than the underdots.
Why it matters
Precision, not approximation
An Igbo translation that quietly drops "ị" for "i" or "ọ" for "o" reads as careless at best and confusing at worst. Itumo checks for every underdot and diacritic on both sides of a translation, so a message in Igbo looks like it was written by someone who actually speaks it.
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Translate Igbo with Itumo
Pair Igbo with any of Itumo's other languages — including direct African-to-African translation.
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