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AUGUST/SEPTEMBER The Linguist 21
'Monkey' troubles
Translation, especially into my native language,
continues to delight and challenge me in ways I don't
expect. The first question was whether to translate
'monkey' as ọ bọ, which is the generic Yorùbá word for all
apes. It would seem proper, but not literary. Ọ bọ is an
inelegant and usually derogatory term. Having that in
the title didn't seem to do it justice, as would Ìnàkí,
which is usually used for 'gorilla'. Ìnàkí seemed to fit
perfectly here as an apt descriptor of a great ape with
humanoid predilections. Once or twice in my translation,
ọ bọ is used by a human character to refer to the
monkey, for literary effect, if only to draw the reader's
attention to the difference in our own attitudes towards
the animal.
The spellings of Japanese names and words in the
story were retained (from place names such as
Shinagawa and Gunma to cultural terms including soba
(noodles) and kapipi), because Japanese lends itself to
Yorùbá pronunciations and phonology. I was delighted
to add diacritics to some of them, including Shinagáwà
and sóbà, as a way to guide the reader to my own
estimation of the Yoruboid pronunciation.
Some names were retained without changes, like
Bruckner, because it was someone's name and
recognising it was important to the plot. It was an
interesting challenge to decide when to localise a
term and when to keep it in its original form. In most
cases, the role of the name in the plot, the intention of
the author and the impact on the reader are the
important considerations.
How much of this would have been easier to deal with
had I been translating directly from Japanese? I'll never
know unless I learn the language. But I have been told
that Yorùbá and Japanese cultures have a number of
similarities, at least in their attitude towards elders. When
the monkey bows down to greet his human friend, it isn't
hard to see that interaction happening between two
Yorùbá interlocutors.
Perhaps it is the presence of the animal that makes
this particular story more universal and easy to translate
into Yorùbá than, say, one about a retired actor
having intimate conversations with his woman driver,
or a story about a man's interactions with a Beatles
album. Each of the stories in Murakami's First Person
Singular and Men Without Women delights and
surprises. But I have not found myself gifting copies of
any book to friends, aside from the one that contains
'Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey'.
Notes
1 Tú bọsú n, K (2019) 'African Literature Through the
Language Lens: The Yorùbá example'. In Asian and African
Studies Blog at the British Library; tinyurl.com/BlogsBL
2 See Tú bọ̀ sú n, K (2022) 'Poetic Evolution'. In The Linguist,
61,1; Tú bọ̀ sú n, K (2019) 'Why Write Yorùbá on the Internet?'
In SOAS Blog; tinyurl.com/SoasYoruba
3 olongoafrica.com/ijewo-inaki-shinagawa-kan
TELLING STORIES
Yẹ́ misí Aríbisálà's
beautiful illustrations for
the translated tale Ìjẹ́ wọ́
Ìnàkí Shìnágawà Kan
IMAGES
©
YẸ́
MISÍ
ARÍ
BISÁ
LA;
EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG/WIKI/YEMISI_ARIBISALA
