The Peace Weaving Wisdom of Enuani Proverbs: A Sociolinguistic Inquiry

Abstract

The paper aims to underscore the wisdom of Enuani proverbs and the capability of their application to broker peace in both interpersonal relationships and national life. Proverbs are central to people’s beliefs, customs, norms, values and general worldview.  Enuani is one of the major dialects of the Igbo language spoken by the people of the Aniocha/Oshimili of Anioma in Delta State of Nigeria. It is spoken by the communities that are located within this region including the Ndi Onicha-Ado. Although a dialect of the Igbo of the Southeast, it has loaned words from Edo. It is distinguished by accent and mutually intelligible to the group of Anioma people in the state. Like their Igbo counterpart, the Enuani people relish proverbial expressions. The study adopted a qualitative research approach. Purposively selected from the author’s repertoire of Enuani proverbs as a speaker of the dialect and from the stock of proverbs commonly used among the people, 15 proverbs were analyzed from a sociolinguistic standpoint. The study is significant because scholarly works on Enuani are very scanty, especially on its rich proverbial heritage. It found that Enuani proverbs reflect values of cooperation for peaceful co-existence, cordiality and good conduct. It is recommended that the study of Enuani proverbs be introduced into primary and secondary schools curricula to inculcate the moral ideals of the proverbs in young Nigerians and ensure interpersonal and national peace as a result.