Igbo Saying Onye Analysis

Introduction

Interpersonal and international relations are indispensable. The Igbo saying ‘‘onye ije ka onye isi awo ama ihe” that is to say, he who travels is wiser than the gray-haired paints this succinctly. Every human being has a limited knowledge, hence the need for interpersonal interaction which increases one’s knowledge. Every linguistic community expresses its world view and culture through a given language. Since there are thousands of linguistic communities and languages in the world, access to other peoples and their experiences is a perennial need. From very ancient times, humans have resorted to interpretation and translation for intercultural communication. While interpretation addresses the oral medium, translation deals with

The first category has to do with literature in indigenous Nigerian languages such as Nwana’s Omenuko, Fagunwa’s Ogboju Ode ninu igbo irunmole and Achara’s Ala Bingo. The second category has to do with works written in English or Pidgin English, French and other non-Nigerian languages such as Tutuola’s The Palm wine drunkard, Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Fatunde’s La Calebasse cassée. Our third category of Nigerian literature represents translated literature such as Soyinka’s English translation of Fagunwa’s Ogboju Ode ninu igbo irunmole as The Forest of a Thousand Daemons and Ibemesi’s Igbo translation of Kafka’s works as Soro Okwu M… (N’akuko Ndi Ozo.) Most studies on translated Igbo literature focus on Igbo literature written in English as could be seen in the studies of Ugochukwu (2006), Mokobia and

The Igbo who speak the Igbo language are found in South-East Nigeria. Igbo, which belongs to the Kwa group of languages is one of the National languages of Nigeria along with Hausa and Yoruba. It is spoken by approximately 24 million speakers (Wikipedia). Igbo literature and culture have since the 1950’s been exposed to non-English readers through the translations of Achebe’s works in ‘more than 50 languages of the world’ (washintonpost.com). Igbo contemporary literature include translated literature like Moliere’s Filamint na Ndi otu ya translated from French into Igbo by Ezeh and La Fontaine’s ‘Nwanyi mmanu na ite mmanu ya’ translated from French into Igbo by Anyaehie. Translation of Igbo literary thoughts into other languages is also an on-going activity which includes works like Obakhena’s Igbo-English Anthology Olisa Amaka (2001) and Nwanjoku’s The Bingo Kingdom. an English translation of Achara’s Ala Bingo and Nkoro’s Au Royaume de Bingo, a French version of Achara’s Ala