Learning to Fly Again

Igbo..

Afuru m gi na anya -I love you (technically)

Afuru m gi na anya m - I saw you with my eyes

That 1 letter at the end makes a huge difference.

Actually it doesn’t. Sorry to be an Igbo grammar nazi but your grammar is wrong.

In Igbo when referring to body parts, there is NO NEED to indicate that the body part is yours unless there is a possible confusion with another person’s body part because it is ALWAYS assumed that a body part mentioned (unless indicated otherwise) belongs to the SPEAKER.

Therefore, to say “afuru m gi na anya m” is incorrect grammar.

The correct statement is “afuru m gi na anya” for both implications (i.e. I love you and I see/saw you with my eye).

Furthermore, to say “afuru m gi na anya” MEANS I love you is also incorrect.

Afuru m gi na anya means EXACTLY what it sounds I like - I see you in my eye.

However, “I see you in my eye” is an IDIOMATIC expression in Igbo that is understood as the speaker indicating that they love the addressed party.

In fact, the closest approximation in Igbo to the English phrase “I Love You” in sentence structure and literal meaning is “I na-asom” - (literal meaning: You Please Me … Used to express that the speaker Likes or Loves something. in this case I suppose the addition of “greatly” would be in order to demonstrate that the feeling is elevated to the level of love)

In usage compare this to the Japanese “Dai Suki” (literal meaning, Great Like - i.e. I like you greatly or on a really high level a.k.a. Love).

Sorry, but we need to stop the spread of Bad Igbo Grammar this century.

Source: elumeda