Translating African Proper Names in Literary Texts

Moruwawon, Babatunde Samuel

doi:10.22425/jul.2010.11.2.207

J. Univers. Lang. 2010; 11(2):207-226

pISSN: 1598-6381

DOI: https://doi.org/10.22425/jul.2010.11.2.207

Article

Translating African Proper Names in Literary Texts

Babatunde Samuel Moruwawon ¹

Author Information & Copyright ▼

¹University of Ado Ekiti

Copyright ⓒ 2016, Sejong University Language Research Institue. This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Published Online: Jan 01, 2017

Abstract

This paper analyses proper names in Yoruba culture and the translation of African names in three African literary texts, emphasizing the non-arbitrary nature of African names using a historical and textual approach. Ethical considerations for translating these texts into another language call for translation strategies that are likely to carry across the subversion of these cross-cultural texts. The paper concludes that the study of African proper names allows a foreign reader to have an insight into the African world-view and the socio-cultural values of African names.

Keywords: yoruba culture; African names; translation; proper names

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