FROM IGBO TO FRENCH: THE UNTRANSLATABLES

Résumé

Igbo language is one of the three major indegenous languages of Nigeria. It is the native language of the Igbo people who are mainly concentrated in the South East of Nigeria. The French Language, on the other hand, is a romance language spoken in Europe, and in the other four continents of the world. It is the mother tongue of only a few countries, but it is one of the most spoken languages of the world. In today’s world, where mutual understanding plays a major part due to globalisation, the need for translation cannot be overemphacized. However, translation uses languages as tools, and language has a lot of cultural undertones. These cultural attributes of language constitute real problems in translation as words to translate them can never be found except in the settings where they exist, neither can the words and expressions be understood by people outside the fold. This paper seeks to use practical examples of such untranslatables to demonstrate the problems they pose to translators. Newmark’s classification of culture (1988) has been used as a theoritical framework to sieve out these untranslatables emanating from culture. The paper went further to suggest certain techniques to solve the problem of untranslatability.