By
Obododimma Oha
The first time that I saw an Arabic Script, in my ignorance, I thought it was a gathering of all the signatures in this world, maybe for a competition. My thinking was even further confirmed when I noticed that, in the linear writing, the journey was from right to left, not from left to right as in the case of many languages! So, the way they had been presenting spirits and the spiritworld in Igbo folktales was real! Some spirits have ten heads! Some spirits walk upside-down,while some walk backwards! So, these were true! Imagine writing backwards! What prevents the signatures gathered on the page from mounting checkpoints, frisking and shooting people?
That is to confess that Arabic frightens me, but there is nothing I can do about it. It is an international language and is often used in explaining and marketing products. For instance, I encounter Arabic again in literatures accompanying goods meant to be sold around me. I have to read the literature to understand the product better. This is even imperative where the language appears to be part of the life and original habitat of the product. I just have to understand what the literature is saying.
I also encounter Arabic in the production and sharing of knowledge in the world, not minding that it has been colonised by Islam as the language of revelation, just as Catholicism colonized Latin. Dominus vobiscum. Reciting what many do not understand or listening to what you do not understand and feeling good. Was Latin meant to impress or to frighten? Nonsense. Anyway, no quarrel. It is the language God or Allah used and so all other languages are depriviliged. Or they belong to Satan. No problem.
But the reverence makes way for power. Only few have to understand God. God should be further made inaccessible .Only few should understand him and relay the message to others. That is the heart of the matter!
But making God inaccessible is not enough. What about spreading his word and getting many? And so inaccessibility has to be relaxed a bit. Translation, which helps in spreading the word, is no longer a transgression. The multiple signatures that mount road blocs here and there can even become agents that spread the belief. So, you see, we just have to change the narrative on language. Latin and Arabic can remain to police the inner circle, but the new narrative would supervise the borders.
But this is about languages and many signatures,or languages as many signatures. So, don't get me wrong. God chooses and speaks only one language and signs many signatures. He is going to confuse those who use signatures to check identity on earth. And when he speaks only one language, he certainly needs a translator, apart from being partial and partisan as a politician. And so why can’t he just give the original information –maybe about the cure for Corona virus –in that other language,so that we don’t have to bother calling a translator or interpreter? Does he like creating multiple problems and recursive ones?
Whenever I see multiple signatures now, I remember that Arabic is not like any other language, but requires travelling from the right to the left on the page. And whenever I hear Arabic, I look out for a blank page for the many signatures to follow.
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