PATHETIC- service renderings in Igbo language

I can’t help the steam of annoyance and shame I feel when certain services which are supposedly meant to be offered in Igbo language turn out to be nothing but worse than a paraphrase.

Why would people who claim to be Igbo do such injustice to their language and be comfortable with such services being put up for the consumption, no, usage of the ones who need them?

 

These people are as bad in translation as they are in reading what others had translated. They don’t even listen to see how fitting their chosen words are in the context they were used.

 

For instance, I once subscribed to being serviced in Igbo language on the Etisalat network, whenever I made calls from my home zone the voice service went “nke a bų όkų zone ulo obibi” which is supposed to be  translated  as “this is a home zone call”. Note that what she called όkų (fire) should be òkù (call).

This is a clear case of inability to read well and failure to listen to one’s self even when another had translated the message.

 

Another annoying case is the Zain Igbo service where one feckless voice started with “O buru na ichoro ka azaa gi na Igbo pia three”

Meaning “ If you’d like to be serviced in Igbo press three” I ask is the Igbo word for ‘three’ no more ‘ato’?

She went on to use the same and exact words used in English customer care service in what she calls ‘Igbo service’.

Words like: Promo, browsing with gprs, sim replacement, blackberry services, recharge issues, prepaid roaming, family and friends, me to you, voice mail, customer care agent, reward loyalty.

I was angry and ashamed for her. Would that be said to be servicing the Igbo community? Why would there not be proper monitoring or even consultation with one or two people who know Igbo language before that shoddy service was put into the system?

Would it not be better to have no Igbo option than to have one that is absolutely below mediocre?

When I failed to pick a service option, the same voice said “anyi ga emezi call gi terminate maka I mero selection obula”

‘Call’ ‘terminate’ and ‘selection’ are they not words for which even a primary school pupil would easily know their Igbo equivalents as: ‘ozi,’ ‘mechie’ and ‘nhoro’?

If Ndigbo lose their language due to laziness, laxity and aparthy, what would then be their identity?

Naija North, The Middle East, Christians, Muslims.

If this issue does not generate dust and emotionally charged comments what else would, but can we put on our objective glasses and as we do that, put on our reasoning caps or turbans?
Why are the Muslims dwelling away from the north, living in peace and without the fear of victimization while Christians living in the north are harassed, assaulted, derided, lose properties, get maimed and killed in droves?
What is it about Muslims that they don’t accord respect to human life as long as that life is not dedicated to Islam?
Why do people deprive their youth of education and enlightenment in a region where education is most inexpensive in the country, just so they might be used to prey on non Muslims? Why do we have a string of unending killings in the north alone, which sometimes breeds reprisal killing elsewhere?
Why have the purported sponsors and actors of these “riots” never been justifiably handled by the law?
This is not just a Nigerian thing, not ethnic sentiments or politics. Those are mere distractions. How about Muslims persecuting Christians in the Middle East?
In this year 2010 there was a drive bye shoot out on Christians returning from Church in Egypt,
Just the other day in Iran, a Church premises was besieged by a group of (you know who) holding the worshippers hostage.
From all these one would wonder why Muslims claim to be peaceable, demand to be given more positive treatment in Christian lands whilst they stifle, persecute, strangle, unjustly and vehemently deal with the tiny, marginalized and almost non existent number of Christians in the Middle East?
In Nigeria we often see senseless attacks on Christians – young, old, sick, frail, hapless people victimized for being Christians. Even youth corp members. The issue will always be distracted to be Ethnic and political- fallacious cover ups.
Where is the sense of equity, fairness, equality and egalitarianism Muslims so much seek for in Europe and America?

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