Follow Us on Google
Following our essay last week, https://www.sunnewsonline.com/for-your-urgent-attention-generals-ebitu-ukiwe-azubuike-ihejirika-et-al/, readers asked of other translations. For instance, is okanmuta an appropriate translation of professor in Igbo?
We think it is not. Oka/supreme nmuta/learner/learning does not correctly suggest what a professor does or is. A professor is not a [formal] learner. A professor is a post-school scholar. He professes, that is, he establishes or founds new ideas, categories and canvasses/professes for those. So, a professor is not a professor because he has learned what is extant, a professor is because he has professed, that is, added to extant knowledge, made revelations. In other words, a proper translation of professor into Igbo would be oka/supreme nchoputa/revealer. Okamuta, or supreme student or learner, is the appropriate translation for a PhD holder and not a professor. A PhD holder has come to the end/height/oka of [formal] learning. Nmuta is in the acquisition of extant, not in the prospecting or professing of, new knowledge.
The reader also asked of university being translated as mahadum. We guess that is not a one-to-one translation, but it is a beautifully, creative one and thus appropriate. It conveys something of ma/understanding ha/the dum/all. The university is a station where all knowledge is being inquired into, stored and transmitted.
Since we are on translations, we might as well take the one of igba nkwu. Igba nkwu, loosely, bringing in wine, is translated as wine-carrying. Is this correct? We guess not. Our forefathers who coined the phrase were the Shakespeare of their age. They were also playing with words. Igba has double or more meanings, depending on context. In one context igba means drum or to dance. So, the verbal or musical echo that was imbedded in igba nkwu by our forefathers are a key part of the ceremony, the idea of giving in marriage. That is, it is not just as dry as carrying wine, it is also, and more importantly so, about joy, dancing drumming and merriment. And any translation that misses that comes dry. It would be like swallowing garri without soup. Plausible but uninspired.
The fact of this same wordplay is repeated in Imo area, say Nkwerre. In Nkwerre, it is ime onu aku [nwanyi]. Now ime means to do. But it has a shared root meaning of mme-mme, that is, to celebrate. For instance, ime ego is not making money. It is spending/celebrating the abundance of wealth. Thus the urban Igbo proverb, adara abu ogalanya abu ana eme ya eme, is on point. Loosely, We are rich not by assertion but by demonstrations, by heroic theatre, if you liked.
The point at issue is that, in both ime onu aku and igba nkwu, our forefathers insisted in so naming the marriage ceremonies as to verbally echo and insist on it being a ceremonial of joy and bonding together. Any translation that misses that misses the game. It is a fouled goal.
A sense of this is given by this translation difficulties quote: The Hebrew word adam has three meanings that nest inside one another. It is the personal name of the first man, a word for mankind in general, and a pun on the word for soil, adamah, out of which Adam is created. (https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/279344/robert-alter-bible)
So, translations are implausible tasks. But with patience and dedication, we can get closer and closer to the mind of the original authors. All else is in humour. Ahiazuwa.
