Endocentric Compounds Denoting Persons

The compounds analysed here refer to persons. Interestingly, these referents could be said to have existing cultural equivalents in Igbo for which Igbo has existing terms. Perhaps the only concept in this category that may not have an existing equivalent in Igbo is angel.

However, despite the existence of Igbo terms to designate the concepts, the Bible translations use different terms formed via compounding to designate the concepts.

Furthermore, the compounds used in the translations might have existed in the language prior to the translations. However, their use in the Bible translations involve elaboration in that they are used to designate concepts in a different religion and register. Such register extension (c.f. Tamanji 2004) also distinguishes these terms from the terms used to designate similar concepts in the Igbo traditional religious practices. Examples include onye ama “witness”, onye amụma “prophet”, onye ozi “apostle”, onye nketa “heir”, mmụọ ozi

“angel” and mmụọ ọma “angel”. These compounds could be grouped into two categories – those that refer to human persons and those that refer to non-corporeal persons. The compounds in the first category were formed by combining onye “person” with another noun that indicates the attributes or functions of the referent, while the compounds in the second group were formed by combining mmụọ “spirit” with another noun that identifies the attributes of the referent.

150 a. Onye Ama (Witness)

The Cambridge Dictionary defines witness as 1) a person who sees an event happening, especially a crime or an accident, and 2) someone who is asked to be present at a particular event and sign their name in order to prove that things have been done correctly. The Igbo words for this concept are akaebe and osialị. However, the UIB and IRE represent witness as onye ama. The compound onye ama was formed by combining onye “person” with ama, defined in Echeruo (1998: 22) as:

ama n [LL] 1 information; intelligence; 2 informant – onye-ama = spy;

informant

So, ama is a special type of information, more of intelligence than just any type of information. Thus, the compound onye ama means “an informant”, i.e., a person that gives intelligence. The use of the compound in the UIB and IRE involves the semantic extension of the compound to embrace a person that sees something happen and who could be called to testify about it. This semantic extension is probably motivated by the usage of witness in the KJB. For, apart from referring to people that are present when an event takes place, witness also has an element of foreshadowing, as this text from John 1: 15 illustrates:

John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me.

(Emphasis added)

John’s witness is his speaking about Jesus before Jesus appeared on the scene. Also in the Book of Acts 1: 8, Jesus tells his disciples,

But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

Here, bearing witness of Jesus’ activities also involves preaching about his second coming.

The Igbo words akaebe and osialị do not connote foreshadowing, but ama does. For

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example, among the Oko people of Delta State, there is a bird called nnụnụ mgba ama “the bird that gives ama”. It is believed that rain would fall when this bird chirps in a certain way. The bird is thus seen as one that foreshadows rainfall. In Season 6 of Nwaanyị Nnewi, a 2015 Igbo movie⁶⁸, a character addresses his sister as nnụnụ ọgba ama because she snitched on him by reporting to their father that he beat her in their father’s absence.

Furthermore, Oko elders use the same image when warning an errant child against some possible danger:

11. Nke m bụ ịgbalị yị ama mmili tupu o zoe

My duty is to warn you about the impending rain before it falls

The image of rainfall here connotes a possible negative event that might confound the addressee. Thus, the choice of ama in the UIB and IRE for witness is apparently informed by the use of witness in the KJB to also connote foreshadowing. This semantic extension of ama is made popular among the Igbo by the Jehovah’s Witnesses whose practice of preaching from door to door made their name in Igbo – Ndị Ama Jehovah – known even in the remotest of Igbo communities. Incidentally, this usage of onye ama for witness seems to be restricted to the Christian context as Igbo speakers seem to prefer akaebe and osialị to onye ama. In other words, the semantic extension of onye ama in the IBTs had contributed towards the expansion of the Igbo Christian register.

b. Onye Amụma (Prophet)

The concept of prophet is defined in the Cambridge Dictionary as “a person who is believed to have some special power that allows them to say what a god wishes to tell people, especially about things that will happen in the future”. A functional equivalent of prophet in the Igbo traditional religious practices is dibịa, defined in part in Echeruo (1998: 38) as

68 The movie can be watched here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IAV9CGWf_k

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“diviner or spiritualist; one who can intercede (through divination or sacrifice) with the spirit world on behalf of clients; fortune-teller”. However, none of the IBTs uses represents prophet as dibịa. Rather, they all use the compound onye amụma. Like onye ama, onye amụma is also formed by combining the Igbo noun for person onye with another semantically extended Igbo word. Amụma is a rather complex word in present-day Igbo.

Echeruo (1998: 22) gives this entry for the word:

n [HHH] prophecy; warning – onye-amüma = prophet However, Igwe (1999: 63) gives this as the first entry for amụma:

n. Staggering due to great emotional excitement; frenzy; ecstasy; prophecy (from ma⁸) igbu amụma to stagger onye amụma prophet; frenzied person Igwe’s (1999) entry stresses that, in addition to also meaning prophesy, amụma has a lot to do with the body jerking due to great emotional excitement. More importantly, his clarification that the word derived its meaning as prophet from the root ma⁸ is very revealing:

ma⁸. V.t./intr. shake, shake up, shake forcefully; agitate; wobble; sift (by shaking forcefully (e.g. sand, gravel, bread-fruit, etc.) usually in water). (Igwe 1999: 380)

Igwe (1999) then lists eleven different contexts where the root ma is used in Igbo to describe different forms of shaking, none of which suggests any form of prophesy or divine prediction. This missing link between “shaking vigorously” and “divine prediction”

indicates that the latter was derived during Bible translations, as the use of amụma for prophesy and onye amụma for prophets is almost exclusively within the Christian faith. In other words, the use of onye amụma to mean prophet is an outcome of the semantic elaboration of the compound in the IBTs.

The Bible provides two possible links between amụma and prophesy. Firstly, Igwe’s (1999:

63) “frenzied person” includes persons suffering from epileptic seizures comparable to the

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boy described in Matthew 17:14–18, Mark 9:14–29 and Luke 9:38–42 whom Jesus cures.

So, it could be that the term for a person suffering from epileptic seizures is extended to include the curer of such seizures, who happens to be a prophet. Secondly, the way Biblical prophets prophesy is also reminiscent of a person staggering due to great emotional excitement, as illustrated in 1 Sam. 10: 5:

After that thou shalt come to the hill of God, where is the garrison of the Philistines: and it shall come to pass, when thou art come thither to the city, that thou shalt meet a company of prophets coming down from the high place with a psaltery, and a tabret, and a pipe, and a harp, before them; and they shall prophesy:

Commenting on this Bible passage in Prophets: Soul Catchers⁶⁹, a 1994 documentary on Biblical prophets, Prof. Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, a professor of Old Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary, observes that prophets “worked by building themselves into a frenzy. They used musical instruments; they danced…The goal was to become in an ecstatic state in which one would have access to the presence of God". This building of self into a frenzy is a fitting example of being under the spell of amụma. Thus, it could be said that onye amụma is used to denote prophets because prophets generally act like people under some spell and in a frenzy, like Igwe’s (1999) “frenzied person”. This semantic elaboration of onye amụma in the IBTs has spread into the Igbo language and is used to refer to Christian prophets. Very importantly too, it differentiates Christian prophets from traditional Igbo diviners.

c. Onye Ozi (Apostle)

The Apostles is defined in the Cambridge Dictionary as “the group of early Christians who travelled to different places telling people about Jesus Christ”. This concept was foreign to

69 The documentary can be watched here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuUZYMCgcyM

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the Igbo prior to their encounter with Christianity. Apart from the IIB, all the IBTs represent apostle with the compound onye ozi, a compound formed by joining onye

“person” with ozi “message”. So, onye ozi literally means messenger. Like onye ama and onye amụma, the compound onye ozi already existed in the language prior to its use in the IBTs. However, its use in the IBTs for apostle is an instance of register extension, i.e., using a secular term to represent a Christian concept, thereby giving the secular term a religious signification. With the spread of Christianity among Igbo speakers, both the secular and religious meanings of the term also spread.

d. Onye Nketa (Heir)

Heir is defined in the Cambridge Dictionary as

a) a person who will legally receive money, property, or a title from another person, especially an older member of the same family, when that other person dies;

b) someone who now has responsibility for dealing with a problem or situation that existed or was created earlier; and

c) someone who continues to do the work of someone important who has died, or someone who has the same position as the previous person who held that position Echeruo (1998: 219) defines heir as ọkpala, literally a person’s son, or specifically firstborn son. Echeruo’s (1998) definition is restricted to heirship in a nucleus family whereby a man’s firstborn son takes over headship of the household at the death of the man, i.e., a man’s firstborn son is the man’s heir. There seems to be no Igbo word that embraces the concept of heirship in the nucleus family and in other institutions. Every institution seems to have a name for an heir to a position within the institution. For instance, among Oko people of Delta State, the oldest man in each clan is the Onowu or Okakwu, who has special religious and cultural duties. The second oldest man takes the Uzi title. So, the Uzi is

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automatically the heir to the Onowu or Okakwu seat in the event of the death of the oldest man.

Interestingly, the concept of heir is represented as onye nketa by the UIBN, UIB, IRE and INWT. Morphologically, nketa is formed by prefixing the syllabic nasal /n/ to the verb root ke “share” and the directional extensional suffix –ta. This extensional suffix indicates the direction of the action of the root. So, while ke means share (vb), keta means “get or receive a share” and nketa means “the act of getting a share (of something)”. The share to be received is not necessarily one that is inherited. It could be earned, inherited, or even stolen. When nketa is the second component in a compound where the first word in the compound is the head, the head word usually refers to the item that is received. For example, akwa nketa (akwa meaning “cloth”) and ego nketa (ego meaning “money”) are the portions of clothing and money a person receives as their share from a bigger portion. So, the use of the compound onye nketa in the IBTs entails some formal and semantic elaboration of nketa. For one, onye nketa introduces a new form whereby the head element of the compound is not what is received but who receives the item in question.

Consequently, onye nketa is inherently ambiguous because, in addition to its intended meaning of “heir”, it could also be interpreted as “a person received as one’s share”.

Perhaps the ambiguity in onye nketa informed its low spread among Igbo speakers. As demonstrated in Section 7.2.2.4, the elaboration of onye nketa in the IBTs has not gained popular usage among Igbo speakers as they use other terms to designate heirship and rarely use onye nketa. Secondly, instances where onye nketa is used outside the IBTs are all translations from English and not texts originally written in Igbo. These translated texts feature two usages of onye nketa, namely 1) instances where the compound is used with the object received not stated, and 2) instances where the compound is used with the object received stated after the compound. The first scenario is seen in some Bible commentaries and in online English-Igbo dictionaries. For instance, the Sunday School text of the Apostolic Faith Church, West and Central Africa titled “Our Liberty in Christ”⁷⁰ takes

70 The English text and its translation into Igbo could be got here http://www.apostolicfaithweca.org/content/our-liberty-christ

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its Bible reading from Galatians 4: 1-31. In the commentary, the Igbo version uses onye nketa for heir and ndị nketa for heirs (ndị being the plural form of onye). Two online English-Igbo dictionaries⁷¹ also list onye nketa as the Igbo word for inheritor. An instance of the second usage is seen in the Igbo translation of Guide to the Scripture⁷², a text of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS). In this text, heir is translated as onye nketa-oke, oke meaning share. Thus, the compound means “a receiver of a share”. The addition of “oke” is significant because it clarifies the ambiguity in onye nketa, i.e., it clarifies that the person (onye) is not what is received as inheritance but the person who receives the inheritance. In other words, the LDS further elaborates the lexical innovation of the IBTs by adding an extra word to the compound.

Some observations could be made regarding the use of onye nketa outside the IBTs. Firstly, the texts that use the compound are translations and not texts originally written in Igbo.

The fact that it is not used in original Igbo texts suggests that the compound has not been integrated into the language. This is supported by findings in Chapter 7 where Igbo speakers indicate that they use other terms to represent heir more than they use onye nketa. Thus, it could be inferred that the use of the compound in the translation arose because it was necessary to supply a term for heir. Since no other word in Igbo embraces heirship in different contexts, the translators used the lexical innovation of the IBTs.

Secondly, the usages seem to be restricted to the Christian religious context. The Sunday School text of the Apostolic Faith Church, for example, is a commentary on a Bible passage on heirship. So, the translators of the Sunday School text into Igbo retained the same term used in the Bible text, which is onye nketa. What is more, the LDS entry is also based on the denomination’s interpretation of “heirship” in the Bible. It could then be concluded that the lexical innovation of the IBTs did not spread beyond the Christian context. Rather, it has contributed towards expanding the Igbo Christian register. However, its inherent ambiguity has necessitated further elaboration of the compound by adding oke to make the meaning clear.

71 The relevant entries in both dictionaries could be viewed here http://www.igboenglish.com/igbo-nigerian-words-k.php and here https://igbo.english-dictionary.help/english-to-igbo-meaning-inherit

72 The English entry for heir could be found here https://www.lds.org/scriptures/gs/heir?lang=eng while its translation into Igbo could be found here https://www.lds.org/scriptures/gs/heir?lang=ibo

157 e. Mmụọ Ozi and Mmụọ Ọma (Angel)

Two compounds are analysed in this section because they were both used for angel in the IBTs. The Cambridge Dictionary defines angel as “a spiritual being in some religions who is believed to be a messenger of God, usually represented as having a human form with wings”. For this Christian concept, the NIB, UIBN, UIB, ILB, IRE and INWT use mmụọ ozi

“spirit messenger” while the ICB uses mmụọ ọma “good spirit”. The first compound mmụọ ozi could be juxtaposed with onye ozi “apostle” in that both compounds have ozi as one of their second component. The difference between them is that onye ozi suggests that the messenger is human while mmụọ ozi suggests that the messenger is a spirit. Thus, the IBTs differentiate between two Christian concepts with similar functions by clarifying that one is human while the other is a spirit.

As expatiated in Chapter 5, the compounds mmụọ ozi and mmụọ ọma created new hyponyms for mmụọ, i.e., their creation and use in the IBTs added new categories of spirits, thereby expanding the conceptualization of spirits in Igbo. Secondly, the ICB’s choice of mmụọ ọma as against mmụọ ozi seems to be an attempt to capture the contrast between angel and demons, the second referring to messengers of the Devil, represented in the IBTs as mmụọ ọjọọ “evil spirit”. While mmụọ ozi identifies angel as a messenger, it does not clearly show that mmụọ ozi is the contrast of mmụọ ọjọọ. However, mmụọ ọma immediately shows the contrast by indicating that angels are good spirits while demons are evil spirits.