Endocentric Compounds Denoting Time

In this section, I analyse compounds used to denote concepts about time. Six compounds from the research corpus belong to this category, namely esi-eke and ụbọchị izu ike both used for sabbath, izu ụbọchị asaa and izu ụka used for week, mgbe oyi used for winter, and mgbe okpomọkụ used for summer. The first two compounds were created and used in the IBTs to represent a conceptualization of weekly cycle that is different from the traditional Igbo’s conceptualization. The next two were created to represent an idea of day of rest different from the traditional Igbo’s. On their part, the last two compounds were created to represent seasons that are not experienced in the Igbo culture area. Thus, the concepts were foreign to Igbo speakers and representing them in Igbo entailed elaborating the lexicon of the language.

a. Izu Ụbọchị Asaa and Izu Ụka (Week)

The Cambridge Dictionary defines week as “a period of seven days, especially either from Monday to Sunday or from Sunday to Saturday”. Incidentally, this 7-day cycle was foreign to the Igbo who have a 4-day cycle called izu. An Igbo izu is a period of four days chronologically named orie, afọ, nkwọ and eke. In Igboland, every market is associated with one of these four days, hence the days are sometimes called market days, and a cycle is called izu ahịa “market week”. The compound izu ahịa distinguishes the market cycle from the Christian 7-day cycle (expatiated below).

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Faced with the challenge of representing a 7-day cycle to a people familiar with a 4-day cycle, the UIB used the compound izu ụbọchị asaa “7-day izu”, while the ILB, ICB and IRE used izu ụka “church izu” for week. Izu is the head component in both compounds while ụbọchị asaa “7 days” and ụka “church” modify the head. The word ụka requires further expatiation. Literally, ụka means “talk”. According to Goodchild (2003: 154), at Onitsha, Christians were called ndị ụka, meaning discussers. The compound ndị ụka was formed from ndị “people” and ụka “talk”. This was apparently derogatory, for it suggests that the Christians only gathered to talk as opposed to non-Christians who went to the farm to work. Apparently because of its derogatory connotations, it was agreed at the Igbo language conference of 1905 that the term be dropped and onye otu Kristi “a member of Christ’s group” used for Christian in the Bible translation (see Section 5.3.1.2A). However, despite the abandonment of ndị ụka in the Bible translations, it continued to be used in common speech. It must be stated that the current use of ụka for church does not have any negative connotations. The word is also used in combination with other words to represent some Christian concepts, which include izu ụka “church week” and ụbọchị ụka “Sunday”

(literally “church day”).

The use of izu ụbọchị asaa and izu ụka in the IBTs for week features various forms of elaboration. Firstly, both terms enriched Igbo lexicon. Secondly, the terms made izu a superordinate term, with izu ụbọchị asaa and izu ụka as its hyponyms. Thirdly, in order to differentiate the 4-day cycle from the 7-day cycle, a new compound izu ahịa was formed by Igbo speakers for the 4-day cycle, i.e., the lexical elaboration in the IBTs informed the creation of a new compound to differentiate the two cycles. For the Igbo 4-day cycle, izu is joined with ahịa apparently because each of the 4 days is used to name an Igbo market. The definition of izu in Echeruo’s (1998: 74) further illustrates the elaboration of izu that resulted from the introduction of a 7-day cycle to the Igbo:

izu n [HL] ¹week of four days (Eke, Orie, Afö, and Nkwö); ²week (of seven days) – izu üka = seven-day week (beginning with Sunday).

Four observations could be made from Echeruo’s (1998) definition. One, izu has two meanings in Igbo – week of four days and week of seven days – which confirms that it is

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now a superordinate term with two hyponyms. Two, the fact that the week of four days is presented first, and that the prepositional phrase “of four days” post-modifying “week” is not put in brackets suggest that this meaning is the given or original meaning. For the second meaning, Echeruo (1998) presents the post-modifying phrase “of seven days” in brackets, which suggests that this usage is optional. Three, izu ụka is presented in full and it is clarified that this weekly cycle begins with Sunday. As mentioned above, the association of ụka with Christianity has also been extended to Sunday, which is called ụbọchị ụka

“church day”. So, izu ụka not only refers to “church week” but also marks ụbọchị ụka as the beginning of the cycle. Four, izu ụbọchị asaa is not mentioned in the definition. It is also not mentioned in Igwe (1999: 265) which also identifies izu ụka as “week of seven days reckoned on church calendar”. This indicates that izu ụbọchị asaa did not spread beyond its use in the UIB. Thus, izu ụbọchị asaa is a nonce term for week but izu ụka is used in three IBTs. Izu ụka has entries in Igbo dictionaries which indicates that it has been integrated into the language.

b. Esi-Eke and Ụbọchị Izu Ike (Sabbath)

The Cambridge Dictionary defines sabbath as “the day of the week kept by some religious groups for rest and worship. The Sabbath is Sunday for most Christians, Saturday for Jews, and Friday for Muslims”. As noted in the preceding section, the Igbo week is a period of four days namely orie, afọ, nkwọ and eke. In the traditional Igbo izu, eke day is the day of rest. I observed that among the Oko people of Delta State, especially among non-Christians, the eke day is observed as a day of rest. The people do not go to the farm on this day. They also do not observe Sunday as a day of rest as they engage in their normal daily activities on Sundays, except when Sunday falls on an eke day. So, the Bible translators were faced with the challenge of representing the day of rest of a 7-day cycle to a people who were familiar with a day of rest of a 4-day cycle. To achieve this, the IIB created the compound esi

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eke by joining ezi⁷⁵ “good” with eke “day of rest of the Igbo 4-day izu”. Thus, ezi eke means

“good eke”. According to Crowther (1882: 30), eke is

The first day of the Ibo week. The Ibos reckon four days in their week. Eke, Oye, Afo, Nkwo. In the interior of the Ibo country, Eke is the general day of rest; the natives engage in no warfare or any kind of contest in it.; enemies would shake hands together in it, although they might kill each other the next day. Perhaps it is for these reasons that Mr. Taylor⁷⁶ gives Eke as a translation for the Sabbath in the Prayer-book.

J. C. Taylor did not use eke for sabbath only in the Prayer Book, but also in his translation of the IIB.

Like in the compounds analysed in Section 4.1.1.4, in esi eke, the head word eke is modified by an Igbo word for “good”. This further illustrates the Bible translators desire to improve the perception of the Christian concepts by describing them as good. It is also a linguistic marker of sacredness, especially sacredness associated with the Christian religion. This style of distinguishing Christian concepts from non-Christian concepts is one of the earliest attempts at creating a distinct Christian register.

However, ezi eke did not spread beyond Taylor’s usages in the Bible and Prayer Book.

According to Echeruo (2005: 44), “Taylor’s translation, had it survived the Christian purists would have given us Eke, as the meta-term for Sunday: ‘ezi Eke’”. In other words, the Christian purists apparently wanted to avoid representing Christian concepts with terms for traditional Igbo concepts. Thus, all the subsequent IBTs use ụbọchị izu ike instead. This compound is composed of ụbọchị “day” and izu ike “to rest”. Ụbọchị izu ike apparently existed in Igbo prior to its use in the Bible translations to refer to any day a person chooses not to engage in any serious activity. Its use in the IBTs is a case of register extension. It gives the secular term a Christian religious signification. It also gives the term specificity as it now refers to a specific day of rest in the Christian religion as against any day a person

75 Ezi is the Standard Igbo spelling of the word.

76 J. C. Taylor translated the Book of Common Prayers and portions of the New Testament into Igbo.

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chooses to rest. The infinitive phrase izu ike, post-modifying the head ụbọchị, suggests a second category for ụbọchị, which is ịrụ ọrụ - to work. So, the compound ụbọchị-izu-ike effectively distinguishes this day from other days.

c. Mgbe Oyi (Winter) and Mgbe Okpomọkụ (Summer)

Summer and winter are two of the four seasons (the other two being spring and autumn/fall) experienced in the North and South Temperate zones. Incidentally, the Bible features only these two seasons and not the four seasons apparently because, according to Esposito (2015: 18), Biblical Israel experiences only two seasons. Nigeria is in the tropical region and experiences two seasons, namely rainy and dry seasons. These are expressed in Igbo as udummili and ọkọchị respectively. Thus, translating summer and winter presented a peculiar challenge to the Igbo Bible translators. In the first place, the Bible presents two seasons just as seen in the Igbo culture area. However, as noted in Chapter 3, all the IBTs were done from English based source texts all of which use summer and winter, terms associated with the four seasons of Western Europe. Secondly, summer and winter do not correspond with the two seasons found in the Igbo culture area, e.g., the Igbo udummili is not as cold as winter and has more heavy rainfall than is experienced in winter. Thus, the UIB and IRE translated summer and winter as mgbe okpomọkụ and mgbe oyi respectively.

Both compounds have mgbe “period” as the head element. Okpomọkụ is formed by attaching a derivational prefix o to kpo, a form of BE, and then joining this new form okpo and ọkụ “fire” with an infix m. Literally, okpomọkụ means heat and mgbe okpomọkụ heat period. On its part, oyi means “cold” and mgbe oyi means “cold period”. Unlike udummili and ọkọchị, rainy and dry season respectively, that reflect the presence or absence of rain, mgbe okpomọkụ and mgbe oyi reflect the absence and presence of heat. Again, these two compounds apparently existed in Igbo prior to the IBTs for any period of heat or cold. Their use in the Bible translations on the one hand gives them specificity in that they refer to specific periods of heat and cold. On the other hand, the use gives them a religious signification, thereby extending the Igbo Christian register.

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Interestingly, the UIB and IRE are not consistent in their use of these lexical items to refer to summer and winter. For example, udummili and ọkọchị are used in Genesis 8: 22:

17. Rue ubọchi nile nke uwa, ọghigha-nkpuru na owuwe-ihe-ubi, na oyi na okpom-ọku, na udumiri na ọkọchi, na ehihie na abali, agaghi-ebì⁷⁷.

While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease

However, in Psalm 74: 17, mgbe okpomọkụ and mgbe oyi are used:

18. Gi onwe-gi emewo ka ókè-ala nile nke uwa guzo ọtọ: Mb͕e okpom-ọku na mb͕e oyi, Gi onwe-gi akpuwo ha.

Thou hast set all the borders of the earth: thou hast made summer and winter.

Furthermore, in Psalm 32: 4, ụgụrụ is used for summer:

19. N'ihi na ehihie na abalị aka-Gi di aro ̣ n'arum: Umem b͕anwere n'ihe-ikpọ-nku nke uguru

For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer.

In the passage from Genesis above, the Igbo expressions for rainy and dry seasons are used for summer and winter. This may be because the Igbo words for cold period and heat period have already been used to represent “cold and heat”. Consequently, using the same terms to represent “summer and winter” would be repetitious. Thus, the IBTs use the Igbo words for rainy and dry season to represent “summer and winter” in the passage. In Psalm 32: 4, the translators use ụgụrụ “harmattan” for summer. Harmattan is defined by the Collins English Dictionary as “a dry dusty wind from the Sahara blowing towards the W African coast, esp from November to March”. The harmattan period, viewed as part of the

77 The UIB and IRE use the same terms in the cited Bible passages, which makes it unnecessary to repeat the text from the IRE.

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dry season, is a period of dry temperature and intense heat. Ụgụrụ is used here apparently because the Igbo resonate with it as the term for extreme drought.

In all, mgbe okpomọkụ and mgbe oyi did not seem to spread beyond their use in the Bible apparently because, on the one hand, the Igbo do not experience summer and winter and, on the other hand, the Igbo terms for rainy and dry seasons are in use in the language.

Consequently, the need to use the elaborated terms in common speech does not arise, except, perhaps, when discussing the seasons in the temperate zones. It is observed that Igbo speakers resort to direct borrowing of the English terms in their discussions.