Mmuo: Soul or Spirit, a Problem of Imposition of Language

Abstract

A people’s philosophy emanates from their worldview. Sometimes, some worldviews are similar or even related, but there are no two worldviews that are the same or that share exactly the same ideas. Worldviews are expressed through languages and the differences in worldviews are visible in the differences in the various world languages but often more visible during translation of literatures from one language to another. This difficulty cuts across different areas of various worldviews such as the days of the week, where many African worldviews have just four (4) days, but the Gregorian calendar, which could be called western calendar has seven (7) days. Therefore, the imposition of the Gregorian calendar on the African calendar will definitely leave gaps for comprehension. The same thing holds sway about used words; sometimes, words used in Africa do not get perfect literally translations into English language and this should not be strange, realizing that there are experiences of people that are dependent on their environments. But this work will be restricted to showcasing these difficulties through the ambiguity in translating the word ‘mmuo’ into English; should it be translated as soul or spirit? This research work seeks to bring to bare the ambiguity of translation and the problem of lack of equivalent or exact matching words; ending up in the imposing of meaning to words that are not the same. It will adopt the analytical philosophical method and will use the Igbo background in its study. It intends to help one another in appreciating people and their cultures, without the conscious or unconscious efforts to extinguish some cultures from the world.