Translations at Bonny and the Niger New Testament

At this period, the inability of Bishop Crowther and other missionaries to locate the part of Igboland where Isuama was spoken forced them to abandon translating into the dialect. In the words of Hair (1967: 94),

Isuama was supposed to be the dialect spoken by all the Ibos is Sierra Leone, whatever their individual origin, but Crowther began to realize that it was more a mixed than a central dialect, and that whereas a mixed dialect was inevitable in the small Ibo community in Freetown, and was possible because whole stretches of cultural vocabulary relating to traditional practices had been abandoned, it was not easily acceptable in Iboland.

Thus, the Niger missions gave up the attempt at using one dialect for the Igbo country.

While the Upper Niger mission situated at Bonny translated into the Bonny dialect, the Lower Niger mission at Onitsha translated into the Onitsha dialect. However, Isuama studies did not stop at this point, for in 1883, Crowther and Schön jointly reviewed and updated Crowther’s Vocabulary of the Ibo language. It was Crowther’s death in 1891 that marked the end of Isuama Igbo studies (Oraka 1983: 27).

Despite the relative progress made in translating Christian texts into Igbo, church services were done mainly in English. Ekechi (1972: 228) attributes this to the missionaries’

“uncertainty about the proper Igbo to be used”. This could also be attributed to the fact that the missionaries were used to preaching in English and still struggled with Igbo terms for Christian concepts. The 1882 Education Ordinance enacted by the British government for her West African colonies was another challenge for the missionaries’ studies and use of Igbo⁴⁴, for the Ordinance “made English the language of instruction in schools and government grants conditional on the teaching of English language” (Adegbija 2004: 27).

Therefore, there was some pressure to use English as the language of instructions in the mission schools. This situation was resisted a bit with the arrival of Archdeacon Henry

44 Nwadike (1983: 14) identifies this 1882 Ordinance as a major factor that led to the crumbling of Isuama Igbo Studies.

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Johnson. Henry Johnson was born in Sierra Leone of re-settled slaves. He taught at Fourah Bay College before going to Palestine to study Arabic. His linguistic studies at the Niger missions earned him an honorary MA of the University of Cambridge (Ajayi 1965: 164).

Interestingly, Johnson himself could not speak Igbo very well nor could he preach without an interpreter (Ekechi 1972: 275). Yet after a visit to Onitsha, he reports that

we shall bear in mind the fact that the Christianity of Onitsha will grow weak and sickly, and that it will be devoid of all inherent vitality, if English language be allowed to supersede the native tongue. By all means let the English language be taught at Onitsha, but only as an extra accomplishment.

(Johnson 1877: 18)

Elsewhere, he emphasizes his resolve to forestall the domination of Igbo by English:

My great ambition is to see every station conducting services in the vernacular of the country. People can’t feel if they do not understand what we say. For the same reason that the Church of England at the Reformation knocked off reading Prayers in Latin is why we in this country should adopt, not a foreign language, but the tongue ‘understanded of the people’⁴⁵.

He, assisted by Isaac Mba, translated several texts into Igbo, including the gospels of Mark and Matthew in 1889. Isaac Mba was a native catechist with very good linguistic skills.

Henry Johnson is reported to have used a unique system of orthography to mark various supra-segmentals in his translations. Apparently, these were aspects not covered in the Lepsius orthography being used at the time. Incidentally, this did not get the full support of Henry Hughes Dobinson, the new Secretary of the Niger Mission. Dobinson rejected part of this unique orthography. As reported in Ogharaerumi (1986: 212), Dobinson later wrote that some aspects of the orthography “are, I think, quite necessary, all the others may be dispensed with”⁴⁶.

45 Johnson to Hamilton, March 20^, 1884, CMS G3/A3/0 (quoted in Ekechi 1972: 229)

46 Dobinson to Wm. Wright, (BFBS Editorial Supt.) Oct 27, 1892. Ex BFBS Corres. Box 29 p. 353.

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Johnson’s misunderstanding with Dobinson heightened, which brought an end to his contributions to translations into Igbo. He alleged that Dobinson criticized his translations too adversely and then requested that the manuscripts of his translations be sent back to him. At that time, Dobinson had also employed Mba as his Igbo teacher. Consequently, Johnson maintains that, “[p]erhaps as you have taken Mr. Isaac Mba as your Ibo teacher, you will probably make a far better translation than I ever did: if so I am happy to think that your being deprived of mine will be of no less of any material importance to you”⁴⁷. Dobinson did not acquiesce to this request, insisting that “I was, and still am under the impression that translations made by agents of our Society are the property of the Society and not of the persons who made them”⁴⁸. Disappointed and frustrated, Johnson did not continue with linguistic works after leaving the Niger (Hair 1967: 229).

Henry Hughes Dobinson was an Oxford graduate who joined the Niger missions during the great purge. However, he later regretted the mass dismissal of the African agents and privileging of European leadership in the missions. Ajayi (1965: 270) reports that Dobinson

“showed more appreciation of the local customs he previously despised and pleaded for more educated Africans to work on the Niger, as they did most of the work, even if Europeans supervised”. To some extent he practiced what he preached. For instance, when Isaac Mba was dismissed during the great purge, Dobinson retained him as his private Igbo teacher and translator and even tried to re-employ him, but Mba had then accepted a government job elsewhere (Ekechi 1972: 230). Dobinson persisted and offered Mba free use of the mission house, which Mba reciprocated by dictating his translations of two books of the gospels to Dobinson (Ekechi 1972: 230). However, his treatment of Henry Johnson which led to Johnson’s withdrawal from the missions reflects the spirit of the great purge.

Dobinson is usually credited with translating the NT into the Onitsha dialect (c.f. Azikiwe 1961: 337), but records show that the work was done by African agents and his role was mainly supervisory. These African agents include Thomas David Anyaegbunam and Julius Spencer. Anyaegbunam was a CMS catechist and a native of Onitsha (Bosah 1984: 68). He was converted into Christianity when there was no British colony and, being a

47 Johnson to Dobinson, November 21, 1890, CMS G3/A3/0 (quoted in Ekechi 1972: 229)

48 Dobinson to Johnson, December 29, 1890, CMS G3/A3/0 (quoted in Ekechi 1972: 229)

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generation Christian convert, had “known direct contact with Igbo culture without the filtering influence of a Christian mindset” (Fulford 2002: 477). He was involved in most of the translations done this period, even after the death of Dobinson. On his part, Spencer was born in Sierra Leone of recaptive Africans. His father was Yoruba and his mother Igbo.

He trained as a pastor and school teacher at Fourah Bay College before being ordained priest in 1896. Spencer was assigned to the Niger Mission in 1886 and met Thomas John Dennis while on furlough in 1893. That was where he taught Dennis (discussed shortly) Igbo before the latter was posted to work among the Igbo (Ekechi 1978: 6). Dobinson is said to have “provided the needed guidance and consultant help in revising the translations” made by Anyaegbunam and Spencer before they were taken to England for printing (Ogharaerumi 1986: 213).

Meanwhile, in the same decade, Dandeson Crowther and his team were engaged in translations into the Bonny dialect. A translation committee was formed under the supervision of Dandeson Crowther, and between 1886 and 1893, they printed “translations of two catechisms, the Prayer Book, a Gospel and several Epistles, into the local [Bonny]

dialect of Ibo” (Hair 1967: 87).

Apparently in his capacity as the acting Secretary of the Niger missions, Dobinson oversaw all the translations made at the Bonny and Onitsha missions. In 1897, he reports that

[w]e are quite out of the Igbo Gospels now and my present aim is to revise the Four Gospels in Igbo during this year so as to enable the New Edition to be printed in 1898. In preference to Upper Igbo it would read ’Niger Ibo’ and for Lower Ibo, ’Isuama Ibo’. The distinction is clear. Niger Ibo being that spoken on the banks of the Niger River where the C.M.S. are at work, and Isuama Ibo being the term given to the interior dialect which is used at Bonny. I am sure that Archdeacon Crowther would approve of this proposed change⁴⁹.

49 Dobinson to Wright, Jan 30, 1897, BFBS 35 p. 245 (quoted in Ogharaerumi 1986: 214).

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Here, it is seen that Dobinson was revising translations made at the Bonny mission as well as those made at the Niger mission. Secondly, one also observes a unilateral decision on how translations from both missions would read. Ogharaerumi (1986: 215) suggests that there is no evidence to show that Archdeacon Crowther was contacted about the choice of the term “Isuama” for the Bonny dialect, because he would have likely objected to the choice as “Isuama” “properly belongs to the dialect of Central Igboland, spoken in and around Owerri”.

Incidentally, Henry Dobinson did not live to see the completion of the translation of the NT into Igbo, for he died in 1897, and his tasks were taken over by Thomas John Dennis, an English missionary who joined the Niger Missions in 1894. Dennis was born at Langley in Sussex, England in 1869. He attended the CMS Preparatory Institute at Clapham in 1889 and the CMS Training College at Islington, London from 1890 to 1893. He studied Greek and Hebrew while at Islington. He obtained a BA (Hons) from Durham University in 1897 and was later awarded an MA degree from Oxford in 1917 in recognition of his translation work in the Niger missions (Ekechi 1978: 2). Dennis served as Acting Vice Principal at Sierra Leone, where he was taught Igbo by Julius Spencer, and while at Onitsha, he employed the services of G. N. Anyaegbunam and Ephraim Agha (Ogharaerumi 1986: 216 – 7).

Under the supervision of Dennis, Anyaegbunam completed the translation of the NT into the Onitsha dialect of Igbo in 1898. In a letter to his father, Dennis reports that Anyaegbunam “has finished the New Testament alone and we are now revising from the Epistle to the Hebrews onwards so that it may be ready for printing”⁵⁰. This translation was published in 1900 after which Dennis and his team embarked on the work of translating the OT into the same dialect of Igbo. He reports that “I am rapidly getting all the Old Testament in hand as some 6 natives are hard at work upon it, but all will need a large amount of revising"⁵¹. This shows that Dennis worked with at least five Igbo native speakers on the project, in addition to Anyaegbunam. The team made a lot of progress in the translation of the OT into Igbo up till 1904 when emerging events resulted in the

50 Dennis to Father, March 1, 1898, CMS ACC 89/FI.

51 Dennis to Father, March 15, 1901, CMS ACC 89/FI (quoted in Ogharaerumi 1986: 220)

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halting of translations into different dialects and the creation of a supposed unifying

“Union” Igbo.