A new way to type Igbo!

Igbotique is revolutionizing the way we communicate in Igbo. We are making digital communication as friction-less as possible. Learn the following keyboard shortcuts so that you can quickly type out unique characters in Igbo language along with tone marks.

Character	Key stroke
ọ	o.
ụ	u.
ị	i.
ṅ	n.
à	a + [`]
ā	a + [-]
á	a + [']

On your mobile device you can also take advantage of the new soft keyboard for Igbo language.

Vowel Harmony

We observe 8 vowels in the Igbo language, and they can be divided into two classes. For purposes of this site we will call them hard and soft vowels. Typically all the vowels within a word will be in the same class. When ever you try to spell a word for Ada to pronounce you will be warned if this is not the case.

Tones

Every syllable in an igbo word has a tone. This tone has semantic value. Tones in igbo language are not like musical notes. Tones are more about RELATIVE pitches between syllables. Given a syllable in a word, the next syllable can either be the same tone, it can be a downstepped tone (mid), or it can be a low tone.

Tone Marking

For the purposes of spelling, we recognize 3 tone marks. The tones can be either high, low, or mid.
Within a word, if a tone is high, the following tone can either be equally high, it can be stepped down partially (mid), or it can be stepped down all the way (low). If a tone is low, it can either be followed by something equally low or by a high tone.
Each vowel typically indicates a syllable. For the purposes indicating syllables, in addition to the 8 aforementioned vowels, there are 2 additional "syllabics":  m  and  n. When used as a syllabic (for example in the word "ḿbà"), they must have a tone mark.

Generally for Ada to correctly prounounce your word, each vowel must have a tone mark, but there are certain vowel glides that are recognized as a single syllable and only need one tone mark. For example the "ie" in "èfífiè" and the "ia" in "áfiá".