Check out Mariam Makeba’s original version, and compare it to the Beninoise Angelique Kidjo’s beautiful remake. You don’t really have to speak Swahili to notice the difference in lyrics. Somebody actually referred to Kidjo’s version as “haunting”. I couldn’t agree more. Funny, Boney M also did the song again, ruining it also with another error in pronunciation when “I love you” was pronounced “Nakupende” instead of “Nakupenda”, among a few other errors. No, they’re not the same. They don’t mean the same nor sound the same. The lyrics and translation of the song is here. Read for comments on translation on the same page. There are some more comments here.

The song “Malaika” was first recorded by Kenyan musician Fadhili William but has been performed by international artists such as The Brothers Four, Helmut Lotti, Hep Stars, Rocco Granata, Miriam Makeba, Harry Belafonte, Pete Seeger, Boney M and Angélique Kidjo.

Is it so hard to get a song right in pronunciation when it is in another language?

That was the first I could remember, and I have gradually come into knowledge that it is a language to be reckoned with, and not just a slang used by touts and marijuana smokers, even though the most prominent icons of the language were mostly people of rebellious gait. That last part, as true as it might sound, have now also been discovered to be false. While in the university, I found that there actually exist a body of people whose first language (or L1 as we call it) is the Nigerian Pidgin. They do not speak English, and they barely speak their own local languages. To them, Pidgin is the mother tongue.

For years however, the only places where we heard Pidgin spoken was on television - by dubious elements, uneducated old men, gate men, prostitutes, pickpockets and, well, musicians. It relegated the status of the language to the pedestrian, and informal. But that was then. Today, the language is becoming mainstream although not yet elevated officially to the full status of a language. The official books must be the only places where the language is not yet so recognized. As far as the streets are concerned, it is a language on its own, as unique as Hausa or Yoruba, perhaps even with a larger number of speakers than the two combined.

Arguments in Nigerian fiction have asked whether any official orthography exists or could be made for the “language” if it must be so called. As at now, there is none. There is not even a dictionary yet even though I’m privy to information about one in the making. Just yesterday, I stumbled on PidginGuide, a sort of Wiki for Pidgin where the users determine the content and size. Along with being free and globally acceptable, the idea has brought into light more possibilities for the codification of Pidgin in the nearest future. One argument against its reliability says that the number of people contributing doesn’t guarantee the quality of the work. This would have been true but the fact that the openness of this project everyone makes it less likely to be unreliable as a means of keeping up with the language’s growth and evolution within the urban population. Where it *might* lack is in keeping up with the rural, uneducated population. For that, we may still have to depend on the bits we get from Naija hip-hop stars.

Will Nigerian Pidgin English survive and become a respected language of its own? It looks more like it everyday. But only time will tell.

The name NIGERIA was coined by Miss Flora Shaw who was at the time a mistress to Nigeria’s administrator Lord Lugard. Ostensibly, the name was coined from the name of the river NIGER, a prominent river around the area. I say ostensibly because other sources, Wikipedia included, credit the source of NIGER as the generic word for black people: NIGGER/NEGROES. Thus, the area called NIGERIA was in actual fact “an area of negroes around a famous river also similarly named.” Miss Shaw named us along the same principles as produced NIGER as well in the French Protectorate neighbouring Nigeria to the north. In truth, the French word for black people is also NEGER. Here’s an article that disagrees, citing other sources of the word NIGER and NIGERIA.

The rambling thoughts that produced the above results from my frantic search stemmed from two incidents from last week. One was my pondering on the absence of large and individual language groups in West Africa that could be recognized as individual entities each with a distinct flag. The French language can effectively be represented by France’s flag, and its variant with the Canadian one. English can be Britain’s flag, or the Stars and Stripes of America if we mean the American type. German language takes the German flag while Japanese takes the Japanese flag etc. While looking at a multilingual website last week, I found out that if we were to represent standard Hausa today with a singular flag, we would run into a big trouble of many borders. The language has, with colonialism, been split along borders of Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Benin, Togo etc., and none of these countries can effectively claim to be the true hometown of the standard form without encountering opposition from the other.

This problem is not peculiar to Hausa alone. Yoruba, spoken by over 20 million people (Microsoft Encarta) is also split along so called national borders and can now not even be said to remain in its pure, undiluted form only in one of those states where its speakers reside. I cannot say for sure that the Yoruba of Dahomey is inferior to that of Oyo. I am not aware of adequate research into the difference in standard, but even if such exists, it would still be a tad awkward if the language could only be represented by the flag of a state artificially foisted on as many different nationalities as it contains.

The name NIGERIA embodies its many contradictions, and woes perhaps. Last week, a caustic article by a respected social commentator on the state of the Nigerian youth scene as being representative of a nation’s identity crises has received a few more caustic rejoinders that expound the manifesto of Nigerian youth’s rebellion as stemming from a youth re-awakening away from the country’s inglorious naming which has been shown to have come by only from similar condescending circumstances that brought our failing state into being in the first place.

Do youths have a right to rename and thus reclaim their country from Ms Shaw’s christening? Like we did with the flag, the national anthem, the driving system and the currency, I believe that not only are we right in taking liberties to change the country’s name in all our social activities of today, it may as well be our most important mission.

What are your views about the name NIGERIA and other colonial christenings all around Africa?

The writer is back from hibernation, with a short story, now published online here.

Here is a personal encounter of a young man with a phlebotomist. I am very enthusiastic about the story for two reasons, and more. The first is that it is my first short story published online. The second reason is for the subject of the story - healthcare. The responses I got for writing an account that is just mostly personal and observatory has encouraged me to read more about the issues it touches.

I hope you all enjoy it, and leave comments.

Behind the Door is published by Story Time Africa.

Sussane Wenger, painter, sculpture and artist of Austrian origin, but who lived almost all her adult life in Osogbo, Nigeria has died in Osogbo on January 12, 2009 at 94.

In the early sixties, when Nigeria was a young country just finding its feet both culturally and politically, a young woman artist of Austrian origin was discovering herself in the spirituality of a people she was just meeting, by chance, in company of her Austrian husband who had come to Western Nigeria as cultural migrants. Sussane Wenger was the woman. The man was Ulli Beier, now about 90, a scholar of culure who discovered the likes of Wole Soyinka, Duro Ladiipo among many other creative young minds of the Nigerian landscape of the 60s and nurtured them to prominence.

No one could claim to know how Sussane became struck with the spirituality of the Osun people, but the general concensus was that she was indeed struck at first contact, and made up her mind there to remain a acolyte of the gods. Sussane Wenger split from her husband (who went back to Europe later), settled in Osogbo and immersed herself in the culture of the orisha. To her followers, she became Adunni-Olorisha, Adunni-Osun, or Adunni-Orisha, an embodiment of the very essense of her patron (or matron?) god(dess), Osun. Today, hundreds of sculptures, paintings and drawings attest to her touch of the Osun woods. She is credited as the sole defender of the sacred forests of Osogbo that were at many times endangered from government, and people’s interest in their fuel and market value. Today, the Osogbo groove is a United Nations Heritage site, thanks to the restless efforts of the “Abami Eda”, strange fellow, of Osogbo.

According to Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, “Let this be clearly stated; Susanne Wenger never attempted nor pretended to be Yoruba. Even in her very last interviews, she took pains to stress this. She was European, Austrian, yet a being of the universal spirit who found the truths of existence not in Europe, nor Austria, but in a place she had never heard of until brought thither in the most ordinary of circumstances. Yet she recognized that space at once, intuitively, unquestioning. Austria lost an artist; Oshogbo gained one, a spiritual seeker and guide, community leader - despite herself - and creative mentor all in one.”
Her legacy now bestrides the sacred shrines and grooves of Osogbo, and her passing will be thoroughly felt. An “Olorisha” to the core, it was no strange coincidence that a mild rain greeted her ascension into the land of her gods. To many, it is only a confirmation from the “Orisha” Osun the godhead herself, welcoming home a faithful servant who served faithfully even sometimes under hostile climes. As Wole Soyinka puts it rather philosophically, what a glorious end, with many lessons to teach us fanatical followers of imported religion. There is much to learn from “the career of a questing stranger who came, saw, and was conquered”

Indeed there is.

It is not news anymore that the President of the United States had to re-take his oath of office in private after bungling a chance to do so perfectly in the public eye on that cold day of January the 20th. Not his fault anyway. The Chief Justice, the chief prompter of that event of oaths led him on a ride to blunders and eventual lingua fracas. In more hostile, skeptical climes, say, a George Bush’s public blunder, such a slip like that would make it to the David Letterman’s tv spectacular “Great Moments in Presidential Speeches”, and at worst would be said to be an omen for what to expect from the incoming president. We, however forgive the new man. The Constitution had foreseen such eventuality anyway, and had made provision for the elected man to take office immediately at noon on Inauguration Day, or immidiately after the death of a serving president.

THE POEM

Some writers and poets have spent all days of the last week pondering the significance of a somewhat dull presentation of the Inauguration Poem by Elizabeth Alexander. In 1993, when the poet Maya Angelou captivated the world with her enchanting rendition of “On this Pulse of a Morning”, not even the brilliance of the president’s speech “There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured with what is right with America” could drown the triumph of that great inaugural rendition of her heart-moving poetry. Cut to 2009. Well, you have to give it to the president - who has cut himself out as a great orator, he would not let anybody else steal the show of oratory. Or is that the case? The significance of poetry is not so trivial to be compared to a presidential inaugural speech, but, what do I know. The experts have spoken. In 2009, we had a poetry performance that did not move us as much as president’s speech did. And maybe that is not too bad.

THE DANCE

Well, you had to give it to the president. He must have been practicing all year for this day. And did he look dashing in that suit with his wife on his arm. I think I even glimpsed him grinding his butt to some fast paced music at another ball. This must surely make Ellen Degeneres a little jealous, seeing that it was on her show that the President first gave us a glimpse into how much of a dance act he was. Now, her dance partner has now made it at last to the world stage.

And so in less than a week, the glitz of the inauguration is paling out to reality on the ground. Guantananmo, Malia’s puppy, and Palestine, among many others. Let’s keep our fingers crossed and see how everything else goes.

GAZA: A strip of land once home to a group of people is now under siege, prompting many to scramble back to their books of prediction, just to be sure that it wasn’t really 2009 that was predicted to be the end of the peaceful world as we know it. The cry of the innocent children being bombed everyday is being sadly drowned by arguments to and fro, and other silly questions as to whether or not Israel also has a right of self defense. Shame on humanity.

AMERICA. Believe it or not, This is the year, the month, when the skinny kid with a funny name, and a long pair of ears, would become president. Frankly, it’s some little wonder that he’s not in the oval office yet. Yes, I know he has to wait till the 20th, but hey, ask a ten year old in Nigeria today who the president of the United States is, and see if he won’t shout “Barack Obama!” Well, the audacity of hope!

GHANA: Dateline January 10th 2009, the new president of Ghana is sworn in. The election is remarkable in many ways. For an African country (and I can’t believe that I’m saying this), they have shown maturity in this election which had an opposition party taking over power without there being bloodshed or unnecessary litigation that is characteristic of their “big brother” Nigeria’s recent elections. Way to go.

It is a new year with promise. I enter it with hope and joy. Greetings to everyone.

South African music legend Miriam Makeba has died in Italy.

Johannesburg - South African singer Miriam Makeba has died aged 76 in Italy, her publicist told a local radio station on Monday. Talk Radio 702 said Makeba died of a heart attack shortly after performing at an event near the town of Caserta. “I’m not yet absolutely certain of the causes of her passing, but she has had arthritis, severe arthritis, for some time,” her publicist told the station.

The legendary singer, affectionately known as Mama Afrika, died overnight after being admitted to hospital near the southern Italian town of Caserta, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP), quoting the Italian Ansa news agency.

Makeba, whose most famous hits included Pata Pata, The Click Song (Qongqothwane in Xhosa) and Mailaka, died after taking part in a concert for Roberto Saviano, a writer threatened with death by the Mafia, the Italian agency said. She sang for half an hour for the author of Gomorrah at Castel Volturno near Naples alongside other singers and artists. “She had been the last one to go on stage, after the performances of other singers,” an AFP photographer said.

“There were calls for an encore and at that moment someone asked if there was a doctor in the house. Miriam Makeba had fainted and was lying on the floor.” Associated Press reported that the emergency room of the Pineta Grande Clinic, a private facility in Castel Volturno, confirmed reports of her death.

Mama Afrika was known for her songs about Africa’s struggles for independence. “People gave me that name. At first I said to myself: ‘Why do they want to give me that responsibility, carrying a whole continent?’ Then I understood that they did that affectionately. So I accepted. I am Mama Afrika,” she told AFP in an interview in 2005.

Miriam Zenzi Makeba was born in Johannesburg on March 4, 1932. According to Wikipedia, her mother was a Swazi sangoma and her father, who died when she was six, was a Xhosa. As a child, she attended a training institute in Pretoria for eight years, where she first started singing. Her professional career kicked off in the 1950s with the Manhattan Brothers, before she formed her own group, The Skylarks. She grabbed international attention in 1959 when she starred in the anti-apartheid documentary Come Back, Africa. After that, she went to London where she met Harry Belafonte. He helped her get entry to the United States, where she released many of her famous songs.

She received a Grammy Award for Best Folk Recording in 1966 with Harry Belafonte for An Evening With Belafonte/Makeba. The album was about black South Africans living under apartheid. When she tried to return to South Africa, she discovered that her passport had been revoked. She testified against apartheid before the United Nations in 1963. She was married to singer Hugh Masekela and Trinidadian civil rights activist and Black Panthers leader Stokely Carmichael. When her only daughter, Bongi Makeba, died in 1985, she moved to Brussels. Anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela persuaded her to return to South Africa in 1990.

‘Very good old lady’

She was always optimistic about post-apartheid South Africa, even though she acknowledged that it came with its own problems. “We have only had 11 years of democracy but we are moving, we are moving forward faster than many countries who have been independent a long, long time before. We all have to do it together, all of us, found ourselves this country regardless we are black, white or whatever,” she said in the interview with AFP.

Asked who the next Makeba would be, she replied: “No, nobody can replace me as I can’t replace anyone else,” said the singer, who added that she wanted to leave a memory of, simply, a “very good old lady”.

In April 2005 when I first visited the East African country called Kenya, I was moved by the citizen of that country’s constant reference to me as that one from the country that could produce the first black Pope in recent times.

You would remember that the Pope John Paul was dying and the Cardinal Arinze of eastern Nigeria was being tipped as the new Pope-in-waiting. They did not care that I was from Western Nigeria, a distance from where Arinze was from. All that mattered was that I was from Nigeria, and we were about to make history.

Of course we know how the story ended. Pope Joseph Ratzinger was elected in the place of the gone Pope and I was asked again how I felt. Indifferent, I said. Perhaps the world was not ready for a black pope. And in any case, the pope was for all. But even far back then in ‘05, one name had begun ringing a hopeful bell. It was that of Barack Obama, the Senator from Illinois with roots in Kenya on his father’s side.

Today on this historic threshold, I join my friends from all over Africa - Kenya particularly, and my brothers in the United States, separated by a big ocean and a traumatic history of slavery and centuries of servitude, poverty and hate. It is truly a day of victory. And although the elected president is not of Kenya but of America, and thus responsible first to his primary electorate and not just his paternal roots in the dark continent, I feel proud for the new change in America.

May the goodness last. We don’t wanna hear any future pun like Obama-bin-Laden

The question posed here include whether machines would ever replace humans as ideal translators of language data. True, we now have perfect and near perfect free online translating machines/softwares that are almost as outstanding as a human polyglot. But in the end, what value do they add when faced with translations of data that are not only nuanced but also cultural? There are texts in my language, Yoruba, which will never make it into English in one piece and still make sense. In short, my language is likely to remain one of the few ones for whom the machine translators were not really intended.

Good news for human translators then perhaps. In the next ten years, it is estimated that human translators of nearly all European languages will either be jobless or else negligible. Translations softwares can now do their jobs nearly as perfect. In a few years, it is suggested that there might not be need for humans anymore in that department. I beg to differ. If anything, what these free online translators have taught us as a lesson is their incompetence when faced with jobs that require “communicative” competence as opposed to mere “linguistic” competence. In short, do they not just translate/transliterate rather than communicate.

Below is the result of a round-trip translation experiment that I concluded on my blog in February of last year.

Languages: English-French-English. Machine: Babel

Source Data: “What is worth doing at all is worth doing well”

First I keyed it into English-French translation. I get the following result, which I suspect might be correct in French:

“Ce qui vaut la peine de faire du tout vaut la peine de faire bien”.

Now, I translate that same result back into English, exactly as it gave me, using the same software, I get the following:

“What is worth the sorrow to make whole is worth the sorrow to make well.”

Conclusion? Humans will remain. Machines will improve, but would never supplant humans. Well, talk of a true lingua fracas!

More on the language translation experiment at Headfirst into the Meddle