Láti parapọ pẹlú àwọn abánisèdè mi, n’go kọ gbogbo àwọn “kádàrá kékèké” l’énìí l’édè wa tó l’éwà, Yorùbá.
—Teju Cole (March 1, 2012)
1
N’ílùú Èkó, Peter fún arábirin kan l’óyun l’áìbèèrè. Pèlú pèlú, ó fúun l’óògùn láti b’oyún náà jé l’áìbèèrè. Èjè sì n’sun l’ára arábìnrin náà.
2
Ní Ọbádòré, onílé kan, Comfort, àti ọmọ rè arábìrin, Nwaka, fi irin lu Jenifer, aládùgbó wọn tí wọn fé lé dànù, ní ìlùkilù. Wọn féè lùú pa.
3
Wón fi Rejoice, 21, s’ójà ní Àbújá. Ìyàlénu ni fún ògá rè pé fún ‘ra rè l’ó jí N700,000 n’ínú ọjà náà. Kódà, Rejoice ti d’ẹléwòn báyìí.
4
A kì í gbọn tó “èmi-l’óni-í.” Ògbéni Nwachukwu tí wón gbà l’ólódẹ l’Óshòdì sọ’ra rè d’ọlópàá. Gbèhìn-gbèhìn, ọlópàá ló múu.
5
Wòólì kan láti Nigeria, Chikwui, ti d’ẹléwòn ní orílè èdè Malawi, l’éhìn t’ó gba owó l’ówó àwọn aládùúrà, láì ríran gégé bí ó ti s’èlérí.
6
Ìwádìí titun kan fi’hàn wípé l’áàrín àwọn òsìsẹ ìjọba ìlú Èkó, ọgórùún ti s’aláìsí, síbè-síbè wọn sì n’gbowó isé l’ósosù.
7
Ògbéni Ajogbeje ò gbó “má fi okoo mi dá ònà.” Nítorí isu on’ísu tó fé jÍ, ó yìn’bọn pa àgbè kan, Ògbéni Ajana, l’ókoo rè ní Ìkéré Èkìtì.
8
L’óòtó ni Edet Mbang je ènìyàn, sùgbón kò pa ènìyàn. Nítorí náà, léhìn ọdún méèdógún l’éwòn, Ilé Ẹjọ Gíga Nigeria ti sọ d’òmìnira.
9
Nítorí ìbínú àti ìkóríra tí ì ràn wòn nípa èkó ìwé, àwọn Boko Haram sun ilé èkó mérin ní iná ní ìlú Maiduguri.
______________
Teju Cole who works as an art historian is the author of bestselling novel Open City. His small fates can be found on twitter.
[…] 4, 2012 at 9:40 Kádàrá Kékèké […]
Ìgbàkigbà tí ènìyàn bá s̨’alábàápàáde Alàgbà Cole, s̨e ni ǫ̀rǫ
rę̀ máa’ń gún ènìyàn ní kę́sę́, tí èrò ènìyàn bę́ę̀ ásì yá gágá si. Olúǫmǫ ni
arákùnrinwa, Cole; mo sì ki kúu akíkanjú. Àmǫ́ǫ́, ní ‘tèmi o, ‘Kókó Ìròyìn’ péye,
ní àkólé, ó sì dára ju ‘Kádàrá Kékèké’ lǫ.
The Essence of the News, ‘Kókó Ìròyìn’, seems to me a more
apt term, one which pays homage to Mr. Cole’s working process, that
condensation, quilting if you like, of news from the city and which also captures
the spirit of the French tradition, Fait
Divers.
Perhaps, what’s most important is that each tweet sums the fate of its protagonist(s).
I am a student of Yoruba and I hope I can benefit from the
knowledge of those who have a better command of the language. One of my
teachers recently told me, in an assessment, that my speech was far ahead of my
writing which is distinguished by its atrocious grammar.
More
people writing in the language online should help my own writing, too. It
would also be interesting to read what people think of ‘Kádàrá Kékèké’ and
other matters that relate to the language.
If one wants to domesticate the concept, Fait Divers, totally can one use, ‘Kòmóòkun
Ìròyìn’? Is that idiomatic?
I can make a case for ‘Kókó Ìròyìn’ based on my
understanding of some past instruction that I’ve had in the language. Following the Ęgbę́-Onímǫ̀-Èdè-Yorùbá,
the guiding principles for an exercise in naming a concept such as Fait Divers ought to be:
1. Suitable Yoruba terms should be sought—existing or
coined; there is more to say on the matter coining terms in Yoruba, but I’ll
come to that shortly—before loanwords from other languages are considered
2. Emphasis should rightly be placed on making concepts
explicit rather than on mere translation
3. Brevity
Mr. Cole has done well by the first and the third principles,
but not so well by the second, I think. It seems that a course of translating, first,
from French into English and then into Yoruba was followed.
Fait Divers can be rendered, alternatively and roughly, as ‘news
items.’
Now, to turn to the matter of coinage, the Ęgbę́ in its own
work generally followed five strategies: composition, semantic extension, dialect
borrowing, special coinage and the use of loanwords. Kádàrá Kékèké, a
noun-adjective composition, seems to have been formed in a process that differs
from the kind of nominalizations which result in noun-noun constructions, such
as ‘Kókó Ìròyìn.’
I salute all who participated in the Twitter campaign. I
encourage them to use that which they have won or that day may come when that
feature would be deprecated.
[…] time since this LitMag began, we are publishing literature-in-translation again. The first time was on March 4, 2012, with Kadara Kekeke – Teju Cole’s Small Fates written by himself in a language of his birth, Yoruba. It is […]