Onomastics and translation:

Sociolinguistic ISSN: 1750-8649 (print)

Studies ISSN: 1750-8657 (online)

Affiliation University of Calabar, Nigeria email: [email protected]; [email protected] email: [email protected] SOLS VOL 13.2-4 2019 273–294 © 2020, EQUINOX PUBLISHING

https://doi.org/10.1558/sols.37821

Article

Onomastics and translation: The case of Bette-English translation of

death-related names

Samson Nzuanke and Zana Akpagu Abstract ‘Líwhù’ (meaning ‘death’) as a morpheme in some Bette (Obudu) names has cultural, religious and social relevance. Generally used as variations of allusions to death, it encapsulates the Bette person’s very essence as a being deeply rooted in the existence of spirits and other supernatural forces. This belief is part of a Bette person’s daily life. This article seeks to translate Bette (Obudu) death-related or ‘Líwhù’ names into English with a view to providing acceptable alternative labels in English. Data were collected at random from a sampled population of 40 Obudu indigenes whose names bear a ‘Líwhù’ affix. Of these, nine recurrent ‘Líwhù’ names were retained and organized in five categories, depending on the cultural, religious or social roles they play in the life or lives of the bearer(s). In this study, we translated, analysed and explained the data from three main perspectives, that is, the linguistic, interpretative and semiotic approaches. The paper intends to add to the earlier voices of Asadu and Nzuanke (2014), which stated that most African proper names are translatable because, as symbols or signs, they have meanings that are founded on their particular psycho-spiritual functions in such societies. KEYWORDS: ANTHROPONYMS, FUNCTIONS, SEMIOTICS, SENSE, PSYCHO-

SPIRITUALITY, BETTE (OBUDU)-ENGLISH TRANSLATION

mailto:[email protected]



274 SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDIES

1 Introduction What are names? Or, like Bright (2003) asks, ‘what is a name?’ While the answer to this question may be as simple as ‘it is a word or group of words used in identi-fying someone or something’, many proper names, especially in the Western world, are considered as belonging to a functional rather than a lexical category (Colman, 2014:80). This is because a personal name, for instance, only gets ‘content’ by the addition of lexical secondary categories, with such secondary features as ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’ to distinguish a name of one gender from another; or the secondary ‘locative’ feature to distinguish a place name from other names (Colman, 2014:80). Evidently, Colman’s (2014:80) view about names tends to support Bright’s (2003:671) perception that names only represent a social convention for brief reference to a specific entity like ‘Brianna’, which may refer to a daughter ‘who is legally designated as Brianna Gabriel’. For her part, Himes (2016) holds that while a personal or first name goes beyond reflecting the wishes, hopes, aspirations and desires of parents, a surname reflects the tradition, heritage and lineage of the name-bearer or giver. This view tends to challenge the approach adopted by Bright (2003) and Colman (2014) in their definition of, and assignment of functions to Western names. At face value, Himes’s (2016) conclusions (which seem to draw essentially from her Lacanian approach) look like a revolution in onomastics, but a deeper enquiry into her approach shows that it negates the principles of uniformity and/or homogeneity that characterize naming in different African communities. These principles are generally founded on a shared history and ancestry. In other words, names in African contexts are culturally tied to a collective one-true self, which a people with a shared history and ancestry hold in common in terms of ‘historical experiences and shared cultural codes which provide us, as “one people”, with stable, unchanging and continuous frames of reference and meanings’ (Hall, 1990:223). Clearly, Himes’s (2016) position does not tie in with the above opinion, as indicated in her interview with Anderson (2018) where Himes highlighted the wishes, hopes, aspirations and desires of a parent in naming one of her patients: ‘My mother named me Marilyn because she wanted me to be as beautiful as Marilyn Monroe…’ Going by Himes’s (2016) approach, therefore, it would be difficult to assume that the meaning ascribed to the name ‘Marilyn’ as given by the parent mentioned above (perhaps a British Londoner) to her child in one part of London could have the same meaning that another British parent (a Londoner) may ascribe to the name ‘Marilyn’ given to his/her own girl child in another part

ONOMASTICS AND TRANSLATION 275

of London. Would it then be safe to assume, in this circumstance, that all British (London) parents share identical wishes, hopes, aspirations and desires when naming their respective children? Unfortunately, in trying to assign meanings to first names, Himes (2016:66) apparently creates more confusion by relying on Lacanian analysis to deduce heterogeneous meanings of perhaps the same names, which, in each of the Canadian aboriginal cases used as examples, ‘would always come through a vision, a dream, or through the spirit of the person to be named…’. This means that no two persons within the same family or community with a shared history and ancestry would have identical names with universally acceptable meanings within that same family or community since the vision, dreams and spirit of every individual are particular to the individual. But in Africa, and especially in many North African and sub-Saharan African societies, which are still hugely steeped in local belief systems, a name will have a more profound cultural, social and/or political significance (Coates, 2005) because it is the product of a particular psycho-spiritual context and/or function within a family, a community or a society vis-à-vis the referent. Amongst Africans generally, names carry a message from the family to the rest of the community or society. They are never given in a void where they may express nothingness. So, it is also in Obudu, Cross River State, South-east Nigeria, where the Bette ethnic group is found (see Map below). The Bette are reported to have migrated from a supposedly easterly Bantu homeland around the 18th century (Ogar, 2003). Naming in Obudu or Bette cosmology is replete with notions of necrophobia like Àgwéyè (‘He/It didn’t kill him’) and Àgwūpúyè (‘He/It didn’t kill all’). This is mainly borne out of the Bette people’s perception of death or líwhù as an experience that has always left in them a sour taste of eerie, vengeful defeat and a painful sense of loss and self-resignation. This attitude is clearly expressed and reflected in the names some Obudu or Bette males are given. Obudu is one of the five local government areas that make up the Cross River North Senatorial Zone. Others are Bekwarra, Obanliku, Ogoja and Yala local government areas. Obudu is located at the foot of the Cameroon mountains (Ashipu, 2015), bordered by Bekwarra and Ogoja local government areas to the west, by Obanliku to the east, by Adikpo and Tsar (in Benue State) to the north and by Boki local government area to the south. As of the last population census in 2006, Obudu had 85,000 inhabitants (NBS, 2006). Though the Bette language is understood and spoken generally in Obudu and parts of Obanliku and Boki local government areas, the language is mainly spoken in the five Bette-speaking wards of Obudu, that is, Obudu Urban 1, Obudu


Urban 2, Ipong, Begiading and Angiaba/Begiaka. The five non-Bette-speaking wards of Obudu are: Utugwang North, Utugwang Central, Utugwang South, Ukpe and Alege/Ubang.

Map of the study area. Source: Department of Geography and Environmental

Science, University of Calabar, Nigeria. Bette is a Southern Bantoid language of the sub-Bendi family of Cross River Languages of the New Benue-Congo, and a member of the Niger-Congo Phylum (Ashipu, 2015; Ibli and Amechi, 2015). According to Emenanjo (1985, 1990 and 1999), Bette is a minority, underdeveloped language in terms of literary and linguistic scholarship. Nevertheless, the number of Bette speakers has continued to grow from a mere 36,800 speakers in Obudu and Obanliku in 1963, to 100,000 speakers (as at 2006), spanning across Obudu, and parts of Obanliku and Boki LGAs of Cross River State, Nigeria (Ethnologue, 2018).


For this study, we gathered primary data from 40 respondents of Obudu origin who were observed and selected around Obudu and Calabar Metropolis of Cross River State, Nigeria, because of the líwhù affix in their names. We will translate these Bette líwhù or death-related names into the English language with a view to generating unique derivatives in English that could be used as acceptable labels to name or identify referents within the Obudu socio-cultural context of sub-Saharan Africa. This, it is hoped, will add to other voices intended to challenge the claim made by some Western scholars that proper names are not translatable because they are mere symbols or signs with no meaning beyond the concepts they represent. 2 Conceptual review Though much of the literature on onomastics, like the works of Dolnik (1995, 1998), Zouhar (2004), Gaher (2006), Blanár (2009) and Colman (2014), looks at proper names as mere denotative symbols or mental abstractions with no ascribable meanings except the mental picture(s) of the referent(s) for purposes of identification and categorization of the person(s), place(s) and/or other object(s), the works of Pavlonic (1987), Wamitila (1999) and Croft (2009) seem to go beyond this apparently limited perception by adding that proper names may also, directly or indirectly, connect the person or persons so named to a specific locality, community, family or nationality. This view is confirmed by both Mensah (2015:116) when he explains that ‘names are important indices for the reconfiguration of identity and ethnicity’, and Himes (2016:65–66), who sees surnames and some first names as a reflection of tradition, heritage and lineage. There are several works that study the characteristics of death-prevention in sub-Saharan Africa. These include Obeng’s (1998) study of Akan death-prevention names wherein he explains the meanings of all the death-prevention names he presented under different categories, but failed to translate them to provide acceptable labels in the English language as an indication of their translatability to identify specific referents. Similar studies on [child] death-prevention names include those on Abiku names amongst the Yoruba (Odebode and Onadipe, 2011); on Ékà Ábàsì names amongst the Efik/Ibibio (Mensah and Offong, 2013; Mensah, 2015); and on uῆῆil úila or ‘flying children’ names amongst the Eegimaa-speaking Jóola people and their neighbours, the Baïnounk and Manjaku, found not only in the Gambia but also in Basse Casamance in Senegal and Northern Guinea Bissau (Sagna and Bassène, 2016). All these studies follow the same pattern as the work of Obeng (1998), which involves listing and explaining death-prevention names according


to the circumstances under which they were given to their bearers. None of them sought to translate the names with a view to finding acceptable English derivatives which could stand as labels to refer to or be used in identifying specific referents. Only Asadu and Nzuanke (2014) in their translation of chi names from Igbo to English came close to the focus of this study by providing translations of chi names and sifting generated derivatives that were suggested as possible acceptable labels for identifying referents. Unfortunately, only an insignificant part of the work considered death-related names from the perspective of God as the controller of life or the essence of existence. On the whole, no other work has so far been carried out on the translation of Bette death-related or líwhù names. That is what this study seeks to achieve. 3 Theoretical framework In this study, we apply the semiotic, linguistic and interpretative theories of translation. Semiotics was developed by Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914), known as the ‘Father of pragmatism’, and Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913) to bring out meaning from acts and objects that feature in texts with a cultural bias. Such acts and objects could just be ‘labels’ whose intended meanings in a given cultural communication setting may simply be to differentiate the object(s) so labelled from others/another with separate labels. In semiotics, therefore, though it may be necessary to listen to and read or study a text to know its function, one would require a lot more to understand the message of the text because every text has both the surface and deep structures that generate both denotative and connotative meanings. According to Short (2007) and Chandler (2002), Peircean semiotics proposes the triadic (three part) model of the sign which separates the meaning of a sign into the following three distinct components: (a) the representamen, which is the medium, or ‘sign vehicle’, through which

the sign is represented. It could be a picture, a painting or written or spoken words ;

(b) the interpretant, or what the sign could mean; (c) the object, or what the sign refers to . These three components put together produce what Peirce calls semiosis. For example, an exclamation mark can be broken down into these components. The representamen is the exclamation mark itself, the interpretant is the idea of


excitement, anger, agitation or an elevated tone or volume of speech that may characterize that feeling, and the object is the actual excitement or elevated tone or volume of speech to which it refers in action. One may sometimes be tempted to think that the interpretant and the object are the same, yet there is a slight difference between the two. While the interpretant refers to the idea or notion of something, the object, for its part, refers to the physical or practical manifestation of the thing itself. In the course of our study, Peircean semiotics will be complemented by a linguistic approach; that is, the direct (literal or word-for-word) and oblique (transposition, modulation, equivalence and adaptation) translation procedures developed by Vinay and Darbelnet (1977:48–51); and the interpretative approach of the Paris School which consists in: (a) Listening: where the interpreter analyses the linguistic signal of what he

hears to get the meaning; (b) deverbalization: where the interpreter deliberately leaves the linguistic

meaning and retains the sense, i.e. the deverbalized message; and (c) reproduction of sense based on understanding, knowledge and expression:

where the message is reproduced without sticking to the exact source text linguistic signals in terms of words or parts of speech in the target language (de Campos, 2010: 119).

This theory generates meaning from non-verbal communication situations (like names or labels) in a translation situation. 4 Líwhù or death in Bette (Obudu) cosmology According to Ogar (2003:172–174), there are two types of death in Obudu; these are the natural or normal death called Líwhù-diding (i.e. ordinary death) and the unnatural or abnormal death called kíwhù (i.e. mysterious death). The ordinary death or Líwhù-diding defines death that results from aging, age-related illnesses or some other illnesses whose origin and cause are clearly known to all. For its part, the mysterious death, or kíwhù, defines other deaths whose origin and cause defy analysis and understanding. Examples from this kíwhù category include deaths from motor accidents, falling from tree tops or other heights, gun shots or explosion, arson, drowning, deliberate drinking of poison, hanging and mysterious bites by snakes, dogs, insects and stings by scorpions. Kíwhù is often instantaneous and immediate (Ogar, 2003:172). For Adie (2015:244), kíwhù generally affects youths at the prime of their life (between the ages of 15 and 40) when they are full of promise for their community.


Obudu custom maintains that as soon as a particular death falls within the kíwhù category, the body of the deceased, irrespective of his or her social class, renown or importance, must be immediately taken out of the family compound and buried by the roadside. Where the death occurred somewhere else, the body of the deceased cannot be allowed to enter the compound. It will be taken to the roadside, near the compound, where it is buried immediately. No ceremony or mourning is entertained for a kíwhù (Ogar, 2003:173; Adie, 2015:249). Ogar (2003:172) further notes that Obudu legend holds that kíwhù can sometimes be a hereditary spell or one that is cast upon an individual for violating certain customary laws or eating the meat of an animal that had been used for a sacrifice or ritual. It is perhaps because of the negative mystery that surrounds kíwhù that nobody in Obudu would want to associate with it by using it as an affix to any Bette name. For its part, líwhù or ordinary death, used as an affix in some names, explains an individual’s, a family’s or a community’s encounter or experience with the ethereal order. Such names are a product of the fear, confusion and conflict that líwhù or ordinary death has implanted in the psycho-spiritual base of the average Bette individual, family or community. This is generally expressed in the names some Bette people give to their male offspring. Note should be taken that because of the essentially patriarchal nature of the Obudu community, it is generally assumed within Obudu circles that the male is better prepared to bear the burden of any agony, including the burden of death and everything related to it (Ogar, 2003:161; Adie, 2015:241). So, how can such Bette death-related or líwhù names be translated in the English language? 5 Data analysis, translation and discussion Though líwhù names may sometimes be epipgrammatic statements as in Líwhùlihwéeh (‘Death overcame him’) or Líwhùlíhwòbè (‘Death overcame them’) or even Ànyõhlíwhù (‘He awaits death’) or declarations as in Nálíwhùligwù (‘This is how death kills!’), they are equally apostrophes (i.e. the figure of speech in which one addresses an absent person or thing as if it was present) as in Líwhùndèbèbéshi (‘Death, have mercy on them’). In Peircean semiotics, such labels may be referred to as representamens. 5.1 Líwhù names that express defeat and despair

Name Diminutive form Gloss a. Líwhùlihwéeh b. Líwhùlíhwòbè

Lihwéeh Lihwòbè

a. Death overcame him . b. Death overcame them .


The representamens, Líwhùlihwéeh and Líwhùlíhwòbè, are both Bette epigrammatic statements because of their brevity and the effect they produce by their apparent contradiction since the referent who is supposed to have been overcome by death, was given the label or name so that he could survive death. To understand them better, it will be necessary to segment each of the statements into distinct morphemes for translation and analysis as follows: (1) Líwhù li hwé eh Death 3SG overcame pron Death it overcame 3SG ‘Death (null) overcame him ’

)2( Líwhù li hwo be Death 3SG overcame pron Death it overcame 3PL ‘Death (null) overcame them ’

Bette is a double subject language with Bantu characteristics of some Cross River languages. That is why li found between the subject Líwhù and the verb hwé functions as an anaphoric reference to Líwhù. Therefore, while Líwhù is the emphasized subject, li is the unemphasized subject. It should be explained here, that there is an apparent structural closeness between the Bette and English languages in terms of subject + verb + object order. This is in spite of the double subject li which emphasizes the subject Líwhù. Therefore, as noted by Vinay and Darbelnet (1977:48), where two languages (in our case, Bette and English) share such structural affinity, it will be more convenient to apply the literal translation procedure as we did above in respect of Líwhùlíhwéeh and Líwhùlíhwòbè. The morpheme li in the Bette representamens, Líwhùlíhwéeh and Líwhùlíhwòbè, plays an essentially indispensible role (even beyond emphasis as noted above) in the structural pattern and semantics of the labels. If li is removed from Líwhùlíhwéeh and Líwhùlíhwòbè, the remaining Líwhù hwéeh and Líwhù hwòbè will become meaningless gibberish in Bette and therefore untranslatable. Yet, in the English translation, the pronoun ‘it’ (that is li as an anaphoric reference to líwhù in Bette) is redundant and makes the translation clumsy. A good translation will, therefore, eliminate the clumsiness by taking out the redundant English pronoun ‘it’ because the perception and expression of reality in English are not necessarily the same as in Bette. The interpretant in both cases is a cry of despair in the face of a helpless situation where the name-giver seems to capitulate to the overriding powers of the ethereal order which, amongst the Obudu people, is generally linked to witchcraft or kúukè, a practice that is shrouded in mystery and secrecy. How witchcraft or


kúukè was developed to become an essential part of the Obudu people’s existence may never be known to non-members of the witchcraft society; but its most important end result, death (in this case, kíwhù and/or líwhù), has, from time immemorial, remained a fearsome mystery to the Obudu people because almost all deaths (except the death of the aged) amongst them are directly or indirectly linked to witchcraft or kúukè. Indeed, the fear of kíwhù and líwhù has so affected the psycho-spiritual base of the average Obudu individual that s/he only expresses her/his feelings, worries and fears about the ethereal order through certain death-related names in such a manner as to avoid any direct confrontation. Thus, in the representamens, Líwhùlíhwéeh (‘Death overcame him’) and Líwhùlíhwòbè (‘Death overcame them’), the name-giver is soliciting sympathy or consolation or even support, perhaps because of an affliction by the mysterious, fearsome and unchallengeable ethereal order on a family member. The addressee, who is certainly within the name-giver’s world, may be within their immediate community, which would have witnessed that affliction on the name-giver’s family by the ethereal order. Our gloss above employs the verb ‘to overcome’ to express the action of a superior force (the ethereal order) under whose weight, influence and power the object or the weaker force (i.e. man/woman), capitulates or surrenders completely. The interpretant suggests that the latter is subjugated, completely overwhelmed and put down by the superior force. Thus, the English adverbial particle ‘down’ that tends to capture the image of defeat and helplessness seems to express identical messages in Líwhùlíhwéeh and Líwhùlíhwòbè. We adopt the same message ‘down’ for both labels because Líwhùlíhwéeh and Líwhùlíhwòbè express the same notion of overcoming and putting someone down. Therefore, the English label for both Líwhùlíhwéeh and Líwhùlíhwòbè will be ‘down’ as summarized below:

Name Interpretant a. Líwhùlíhwéeh b. Líwhùlíhwòbè

Down Down

5.2 Líwhù names denoting resignation

Name Diminutive form Gloss a. Ágiohálíwhù b. Ànyôhlíwhù c. Ákpékùlíwhù

Àgio Ànyôh Àkpékù

He listens to death . He awaits death . He keeps it for death .


The Bette Líwhù representamens in this category (Ágiohálíwhù, Ànyôhlíwhù and Ákpékùlíwhù) are also epigrams because they are brief statements that give effect to the meanings they convey either by contrast or by a seeming contradiction. These notions will be made clearer by segmenting each of the labels into distinct lexemes and analyzing them morphosyntactically, thus:

)3( À gio há líwhù 3SG listen prep death ‘He listens to death ’

)4( À nyôh líwhù 3SG await death ‘He awaits death’

)5( À kpé kù líwhù 3SG keep prep death He keep for death ‘He is keeping [it] for death ’

In (3) and (4) above, that is Àgiohálíwhù and Anyôhlíwhù, we find the normal subject + verb + preposition + object and subject + verb + object sentence structures, respectively, as may also be found in English. Nevertheless, we also note the unusual grammatical feature of merged word classes which do not seem to exist in English, but are common in Bette, like in (5) (Ákpékùlíwhù) where the direct object pronoun ‘it’ is not overtly marked; it is implicit as an incidental collocation to the verb ‘to keep’ in the sense of saving something for someone, in this case, the ethereal order. In the same vein, tense and other grammatical categories are implicitly marked in the structure of the names. These elements neither alter the Bette sentence structure or syntax of subject + verb + object nor do they offset the close structural similarity between the Bette and English languages. Therefore, as seen above, the translation of the three Bette epigrammatic labels into English were done in accordance with the direct translation prescription of Vinay and Darbelnet (1977:48) for short and direct texts. As noted earlier, the sentence structural pattern of subject + verb + object in (3) and (4) is virtually the same in Bette as it is in English. In (5) the pattern is more or less the same, except for the non-existent direct object pronoun ‘it’ that is only implicit in Bette. The three representamens are declarations to the ethereal order. The interpretant indicates resignation to the dominant posture and seeming eternal presence of death in the lives of the referents and their immediate communities; it


is evidently a slavish submission to the will of the ethereal forces. In Àgiohálíwhù (He listens to death), the idea of submission is predicated upon the supposition that since the referent ‘listens to death’, he will always be at the beck and call of the ethereal order, and so will always do as the latter wishes. Therefore, the interpretant in the verb phrase ‘gio há’ (‘to listen to’) is that of the ethereal order having the ears of the referent with the leverage to dictate to the latter whatever it wants to be done in the latter’s life. It is a message of complete control by the ethereal order, on the one hand, and blind obedience by the referent, on the other. Against this backdrop, the evident underlying message in Àgiohálíwhù (‘He listens to death’) will therefore be that of obedience. In Ànyôhlíwhù (‘He awaits death’), the referent is conditioned to accept his fate, to remain calm in expectation of death. The referent may thus be said to be living on borrowed time as he will ‘go’ whenever the ethereal order comes calling. The interpretant presupposes a capacity for sublime patience in the referent who, though aware of his situation, accepts and lives with it, consciously refusing to challenge it or the ethereal order in a quest for a better deal. He simply waits patiently for his appointment with death! Similarly, in Ákpékùlíwhù (‘He is keeping it for death’), the sense of submission by the referent who ‘keeps his life in trust’ for the ethereal order presupposes that the former is responsible for taking care or custody of his life on behalf of the ethereal order. The interpretant may indicate that he is not in charge of his own life; he is simply a named passing custodian or caretaker of his very own life for the ethereal order. Thus, the underlying message in Ákpékùlíwhù (‘He is keeping it for death’) is that of the referent being a custodian. The three labels under this category have been accordingly captured thus:

Name Interpretant

a. Àgiohálíwhù b. Ànyôhlíwhù c. Ákpékùlíwhù

Obedience Patience Custody

As seen in data (3), (4) and (5) above, the respective translations of Àgiohálíwhù (Obedience), Ànyôhlíwhù (Patience) and Ákpékùlíwhù (Custody) as derived from our analyses are based mainly on the predominant interpretants in the aforementioned Bette labels. Though ‘Obedience’ and ‘Custody’ may sound new, they are certainly as appropriate as ‘Patience’, which already exists as an English label on the Nigerian, African and Western naming scenes.


5.3 Líwhù names as a statement or report to the unknown

Name Diminutive form Gloss a. Nálíwhùligwù b. Líwhùligwéeh

Náligwu Lígwéeh

That is how death kills . Death killed him .

The representamens, Nálíwhùligwù and Líwhùligwéeh, are statements apparently reporting to the unknown about the nature of the ethereal order’s actions. Perhaps these perceptions will become clearer if Nálíwhùligwù and Líwhùligwéeh are segmented into distinct morphemes and analysed against the background of the larger semiotic contextual frame provided by the Bette source text culture. The different forms of each of the two labels are: (6) Ná líwhù li gwù Clft death 3SG kill That is how death it kill ‘That is how death (null) kills ’ (7) Líwhù li gwé eh Death 3SG kill pron sg Death it kill him ‘Death (null) killed him ’

In (6) Nálíwhùligwù, ná is a cleft marker that is void of a referential pronoun. It introduces the n-clausal expression in which the higher clause is the focused part of the expression and the subordinate clause is relativized. Ná is in fact the contraction of the phrase, ìtá’anà ná…, which, as a statement, can be translated literally as ‘it is like this that…’. For its part, (7) Líwhùligwéeh, which begins with a noun subject, continues with a double subject pronoun, a transitive verb gwé and ends with a direct object eh. From the breakdown of the different constituents in Nálíwhùligwù and Líwhùligwéeh, it can be seen that the subject + verb + object pattern of the Bette language structure is maintained in English, except for the imbedded double subject pronoun lí that comes between the subject Líwhù and the verb gwú in Nálíwhùligwù; and between the subject Líwhù and the verb gwé in Líwhùligwéeh. The double subject lí, as an unemphasized subject, is a Bantu feature of some Cross River languages, including Bette, and functions as an anaphoric reference and emphasis to Líwhù. If included in the translated English text, the morpheme ‘it’ (that is lí of ligwu and ligweh in the Bette labels) will be redundant.


Will changing the style by placing the cleft marker after the noun subject, ‘death’, make the translation and the message different? Our suggestion of an alternative here is in consonance with the ‘Variational Approach’ (Hewson and Martin, 1991:42–45) whereby in translating, the translator should bring out ‘the sets of all possible formulations that can be associated with any given identifiable situation and conciliate and synthesize the merits of these contradictory options’. Let us see if this alternative formulation will bring out the message contained in the source language text:

Death that + is + how it kills

subject cleft marker pronoun verb

The movement of elements seems to have created a shift in the semantic structure, from a statement to an apostrophe, wherein ‘death’ becomes the addressee. This shift has completely altered the message contained in Nálíwhùligwù. This should be avoided in translation. The message should be kept in its original form against the backdrop of the understanding that while Bette accommodates emphasized and unemphasized subjects within the same structure (as noted in Líwhú and lí, above, respectively), the English language does not. As has been done above, the translation, therefore, eliminated the clumsiness by taking out the redundant English pronoun ‘it’ which is a null element that contributes no meaning to the translation. For the avoidance of doubt, and based on the recommendations of Hewson and Martin (1991:42–45), we conciliated and synthesized the merits of the two translation options above. We thus retained the first translation in English of the Bette label, Nálíwhùligwù, as: ‘That is how death kills’. For its part, the label Líwhùligwéeh, as decomposed and explained above, seems to belong to the category of Bette structures that have a similar structural pattern (subject + verb + object) with the English language. We shall extend the analysis of the label Líwhùligwéeh as follows: Líwhù li gwé eh Death 3SG kill pron sg Death it kill him ‘Death (null) killed (past tense) him !’

As noted in the literal translation of the label Nálíwhùligwù, the use of the same procedure as recommended by Vinay and Darbelnet (1977:48) in the translation of the label Líwhùligwéeh into English produced the same clumsy structure with


an awkward pronoun ‘it’ placed between the subject ‘death’ and the verb ‘to kill’ (in the past tense). Here, we see the use of the past tense gwé of the verb gwú (to kill). It is unnecessary to experiment with a permutation of elements in the translation of this expression as we did with Nálíwhùligwù because the result will be no different. We therefore proceeded to eliminate the clumsiness by taking out the redundant English pronoun ‘it’ as we did for Nálíwhùligwù because the translated ‘it’ from the Bette lí is a null element that contributes no meaning to the translation. The Bette label Líwhùligwéeh as translated in English produced a simple subject + verb + object structure, thus: ‘Death killed him’. As seen above, tenses and other grammatical categories are often implicitly marked in the Bette structures. The interpretants in Nálíwhùligwù and Líwhùligwéeh seem to be unequivocal reports or complaints about how the ethereal order deals with human lives, an attitude that tends to surpass the understanding of the name-giver. They may equally emphasize the name-giver’s overwhelming surprise or shock at how the ethereal order functions in or what it does to the life of a human. The interpretant in the cleft marker Ná (translated as ‘that is how…’), presupposes that in Nálíwhùligwù, there is a seemingly untoward and unrepentant manner or method in which the unseen ethereal order snuffs life out of human beings. Even if this manner or method may not be acceptable to the complaining name-giver, it does not change the pattern employed by the ethereal order in taking human lives. The interpretant in Nálíwhùligwù is, therefore, that of an established method or manner of taking human lives. For Líwhùligwéeh (‘Death killed him!’), the interpretant is a gasp of grief, a grievance against the ethereal order that may have defied or even ignored all entreaties for a change of attitude towards human beings. The brevity and tone in Líwhùligwéeh (‘Death killed him!’) provide evidence of surprise, shock and horror. Hence, the outburst of suppressed anger in ‘Death killed him!’ that underpins, on the one hand, the name-giver’s disappointment in the ethereal order, and, on the other, his lamentation about humanity’s incapacity to stand up to that force which seems to enjoy afflicting and depressing it with pangs of death for its own amusement. Thus, Líwhùligwéeh (‘Death killed him!’) is an expression of grievance against a killjoy, which is the ethereal order. These two labels have been accordingly captured thus:

Name Interpretant

a. Nálíwhùligwù b. Líwhùligwéeh

Method Grievance


The interpretants, ‘Method’ and ‘Grievance’, from the Bette representamens Nálíwhùligwù and Líwhùligwéeh, respectively, are based mainly on the realities as experienced in the Bette source text cultural setting. Of course, ‘Method’ and ‘Grievance’ as names are certainly new labels which can, no doubt, be used for any referent on the local and foreign naming scenes. 5.4 Líwhù name appealing to the ethereal order for mercy

Name Diminutive form Gloss Líwhùndèbèbéshí Líwhùndèbè Death look at them with pity .

The Bette representamen, Líwhùndèbèbéshí, is an apostrophe (i.e. the figure of speech in which one addresses an absent person or thing as if it was present) to the ethereal order, that unseen psycho-spiritual force whose presence is only felt when it snuffs out life or threatens to do so. To get the interpretant of Líwhùndèbèbéshí, we shall segment the representamen into distinct morphemes for analysis and translation as follows: (8) Líwhù ndè bè béshí Death look 3PL pity ‘Death look(at) them (with) pity ’

Structurally, the label fits more or less into the logic of the syntax of most other Bette labels discussed in this study. Here, Líwhù as the subject is in fact the addressee in what seems to be a dialogue between the name-giver and the ethereal order. Here again, the English syntactic order of subject + verb + object is more or less replicated and respected in Bette. Due to this structural affinity between Bette and English, the translation above is literal, as recommended by Vinay and Darbelnet (1977:48). The word-for-word translation of the Bette representamen, Líwhùndèbèbéshí, into English produced a meaningless sentence (‘Death look them pity’). There was an obvious loss of meaning and message there. In other words, the literal translation method recommended by Vinay and Darbelnet (1977:48) failed to produce the desired result. Nevertheless, it opened our eyes to the fact that the apparent structural affinity noticed above between Bette and English may be incidental or even occasional. It will, therefore, not be out of place to attempt another translation of the same Bette representamen, Líwhùndèbèbéshí, using the interpretative theory of sense of the Paris School, led by Seleskovitch (1976).


In translating Líwhùndèbèbéshí with the interpretative method, it will be necessary to deverbalize it and extract the supposed sense. What then is deverbalization? It is an internal thought process aimed at getting an idea out of a word and associating this word with a mental picture that makes sense in a given context. It is from this mental representation that we ‘get’ the sense which is reproduced or reformulated, maybe in association with other words, to generate the message being communicated in context. Therefore, Líwhùndèbèbéshí, taken as a linguistic signal, seems to either swallow or merge many words and ideas that may only be expressed adequately in the English language if the representamen is deverbalized to get its sense as should be construed in English. In deverbalizing Líwhùndèbèbéshí, we may ‘see’ the supposed sense in English clearly even though the elements that should bring out that sense are not attested to in Bette. For instance:

Líwhù ndè bè béshi

subject verb + non-attested prep object + non-attested prep + noun

Death look + at them with +pity The non-attested prepositions ‘at’ and ‘with’ are implicit and not overtly marked in Bette. Their introduction into the target language component reproduced the message based on the target language understanding, knowledge and expression. Therefore, at the level of the verb phrase, the English language understanding, knowledge and expression required a preposition that would collocate with the verb ‘to look’ in the sense of a particular direction. Here, only the preposition ‘at’ (rather than ‘for’, ‘after’, ‘out’, ‘to’, ‘up’, ‘into’ or ‘within’) fitted in for us to have, ‘look at’. Similarly, at the prepositional phrase (béshí), based on the target language understanding, knowledge and expression, only the preposition ‘with’ would collocate with the abstract noun ‘pity’, to have ‘with pity’. That is, ‘Death, look at them with pity’. The interpretant from the translated representamen ‘Death, look at them with pity’ presupposes the handing over of some persons (maybe family members) to the ethereal order (perhaps out of desperation), with an appeal for compassion. Indeed, a closer look at the translation ‘Death, look at them with pity’ tends to portray the picture of the speaker pointing in the direction of some persons and drawing the attention of the ethereal order to their presence and his despair. This may have been as a consequence of having suffered similar experiences of loss of lives at the hands of the ethereal order. It seems to provide evidence of submission by the speaker or name-giver to the whims of the ethereal order.


The speaker’s invitation for the ethereal order to ‘look at them with pity’ is very unambiguous. Líwhùndèbèbéshí (‘Death, look at them with pity’) is clearly a cry of despair to the ethereal order. It is the interpretant of this cry for compassion that has been retained accordingly below.

Name Interpretant

Líwhùndèbèbéshí Compassion

The interpretant, ‘Compassion’, from the Bette representamen Líwhùndèbèbéshí, is based mainly on the realities expressed in the Bette source text cultural setting. ‘Mercy’, too, could have been used as a label, except for the fact that it is a label that is commonly used in English for females, a situation that is abnormal for a Líwhù name that is generally meant for men in Obudu. 5.5 Líwhù name expressing suppressed gratitude to the ethereal order

Name Diminutive form Gloss Líwhùlítiàng Lítiàng Death spares you .

The Bette representamen, Líwhùlítiàng, is an epigram whose essence will be captured if it is decomposed into separate morphemes for analysis and translation as follows: (9) Líwhù lí tià ng Death 3SG spare pron Death it spare you ‘Death (null) spares you ’

The structure in Líwhùlítiàng is common in the yet-to-be harmonized Bette orthography and grammar with its double subject, wherein the unemphasized subject, lí, is an anaphoric reference to Líwhù, which is the emphasized subject. This is consistent with the Bette oral form whose structure shares some affinity with the English language structure in terms of subject + verb + object order. Though the translation, as recommended by Vinay and Darbelnet (1977:48), quite characteristically follows the sequence of the Bette sentence structure (subject + verb +object), the literal translation of the Bette pronoun, lí, as an indispensable morpheme in the Bette structure which accommodates emphasized and unemphasized subjects within the same structure (as noted with Líwhú and lí, respectively), produced a pronoun ‘it’ whose double subject function is alien to


the English structure. This situation was taken care of by eliminating the English pronoun ‘it’, which is a null element that contributes no meaning to the translation. The interpretant from the translated representamen ‘Death spares you’ may be drawn from the belief held amongst the Obudu people, that even the dastardliest of ethereal forces could sometimes be clement. Ordinarily, such a name would be intended to hoodwink the ethereal order into a compromise for the survival of family members. But a name which expresses suppressed gratitude to the ethereal order may only be aimed at placating the latter where, perhaps, it was angry with family members. It is the interpretant, ‘clement’, which defines the kindness and mercy that the name-giver may have enjoyed from the ethereal order, that has been retained as label here.

Name Interpretant Líwhùlítiàng Clement

This label ‘Clement’ already exists in the English and French languages. Though its etymology may not be African, there is nothing in this context that forbids us from adopting it here, especially as it is appropriate in context. 6 Conclusion This study sought to investigate within the socio-cultural context of sub-Saharan Africa the veracity or not of the claim by some Western scholars that proper names are not translatable because they are mere symbols or signs with no meaning beyond the concepts they represent. From a random population of 40 native Obudu people whose names have a líwhù affix, nine recurrent líwhù names were selected for analysis. We discovered that líwhù names in Bette are generally epigrams, statements, declarations and apostrophes with a clear grammatical ‘subject + verb + object’ order that makes them translatable. While some are reports, appeals or cries of defeat, others are expressions of gratitude or resignation to fate, all addressed to either an unknown force or the ethereal order for their loved ones to be given another opportunity to live. These names and their respective translations include: Líwhùlíhwéeh and Líwhùlíhwòbè, both translated as ‘Down’; Àgiohálíwhù, as ‘Obedience’; Ànyôhlíwhù, as ‘Patience’; Ákpékùlíwhù, as ‘Custody’; Nálíwhùligwù, as ‘Method’; Líwhùligwéeh, as ‘Grievance’; Líwhùndèbèbéshí, as ‘Compassion’; and Líwhùlítiàng, as ‘Clement’. Though some of our translated names may not be in the mould of such known English labels as ‘Philip’, ‘Simon’ and ‘Solomon’, they are similar to those English names that denote the profession of the name-giver (Tailor, etc.), his origin (John of York, etc.) and nature (Tall, Brown, etc.).


The real origins of our translated Líwhù names will not be lost because, like ‘Confidence’, ‘Knowledge’, ‘Favour’ and ‘Excellence’, which were derived from the translation of native African names, their etymologies will be traceable one day to their Obudu roots just as ‘Ruben’, ‘Jacob’, ‘Paul’ etc., are, today, traceable to Hebrew (Ukpong, 2007:242–261). Acknowledgments We wish to express our sincere gratitude to the anonymous reviewers of this work. Their very insightful criticisms and detailed comments and suggestions helped greatly in reorienting this research. We are equally very grateful to Dr. Eyo Mensah and Dr. Kirsty Rowan, Guest editors of this Special issue of Sociolinguistic Studies, for their very challenging remarks which gave us the direction we needed to conclude this research. We take full responsibility for any errors that may be found in this work. About the authors Samson Nzuanke, PhD, is a professional Translator/Conference Interpreter and Senior Lecturer in the University of Calabar, Nigeria. He taught Translation at the University of Yaounde 1, and Strategic English at CREPS, University of Yaounde 2, Cameroon, for several years. He has had several publications, the latest of which appears in the Journal of Integrative Humanism. Zana Akpagu is a full Professor of Modern Languages and Translation Studies and current Vice-Chancellor of the University of Calabar. He has taught in the Universities of Uyo, Benin City and Calabar in Nigeria, and has several publications to his name, including the highly rated Cultures et Civilisations d’Afrique: Une introduction by Kraft Books, Ibadan, Nigeria. References Adie, M. U. (2015) Groundwork of Obudu History (1600–1959). Calabar: University of

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(Received 2nd February 2017; accepted 7th December 2018; revision received 17th December 2018; final revision received 26th April 2019)

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