TRAVAILS OF A LEXICOGRAPHER

Willie Eleje-Abili highlights some of the difficulties of putting together a dictionary

Sometime between 2012 and 2014, I wrote a dictionary titled ‘Ozibihe’ (Heathen Master), ‘Ozibihe Comprehensive Dictionary of English Translation to Ehugbo Dialect and Encyclopeadia’. The lexicography was a fall-out of my ‘Scriptural Paraphrases and Illustrations in Ehugbo Dialect’ (SPIED), a voice recording in three volumes, which began in 2005. SPIED demonstrated that Ehugbo dialect is profoundly ecclesiastic in timeless wisdom, traditions and evolving science. It also revealed that Donald, the first trump got elected on November 9, ie 11|9, and 9|11, ie September 11, the twin towers came down. SPIED was applied to trace my kindred through Chad, from the tribe of Issachar in Israel to Nde-Egu barns of yaw. In the articles published in THISDAY of April 14, 2017, titled “Awakening the Giant: My Dream for Ebonyi State”, advanced SPIED was applied to explain the head and tail of statecraft. On the third heavens as SPIED, is a cobweb of scriptural precepts based on the King James Version of Holy Bible and on the assumptions that: what is referred to is different from what is meant, that all the world were of one language and of one speech and that every language is onomatopoeia of the other. As a by-product of SPIED, Ozibihe Dictionary was audacious and was therefore faced with appalling odds. To begin with, the dictionary invariably turned out an exposition in onomatopoeia and figurative language; the acknowledgements were lacking in discretion in its nepotism and the glossary was anything but comprehensive because, for reasons that can never be justified, it was hastily put together. It then took on a stereotype of disrepute. Having grown up in the then countryside township of Enugu, typical of elitist Igbo middle class of the 1970s and 80s, with neither experience in native socialisation nor schooling in the learning and tongue of nde-Ehugbo, Ozibihe was an unlikely lexicographer of a pioneer dictionary of Ehugbo dialect. It therefore suffered from prejudicial probity. Moreover, with 28 eight alphabets, two more than the Anglo-Saxon, Ehugbo dialect is intractable in its versatility, capability of approximating rime, flexible syllabic emphasis and colloquial sentence. I was writing Ozibihe with my left, SPIED with my right, and means of livelihood which stayed in-between would be indifferent. The dictionary was as Dr Samuel Johnson, the first English Lexicographer put it, “…written with no assistance from the learned and with little patronage from the greats, not in the soft obscurities of retirement or under the shelter of academic bowers but amidst inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow….” For an abiding urgency to vindicate my dexterity, I delved into literary translations of Igbo meta-language titled ‘Mkpanaka Okowa Okwu-Igbo, A Handy EnglishIgbo Leaner’s Dictionary’. First published in 2014 by the University of Lagos Press and Bookshops Ltd, the book has since recorded testimonials of institutional regard from the UNESCO-Institute for African Culture and International Understanding and the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council. While I remain passionate about lexicography, but cannot claim that my motive is altruistic or pecuniary, it has exposed me to topical issues around the language. I discovered that, Igbo is among 10 other African languages recently declared dead by the UNESCO. What this means is that the language is no longer current, currency of which should imply a loss of general acceptability or objectionable or that the language has been over-taken by events. It were therefore in the nature of things, that some of my extra curricula activities began to fall around re-inventing public consciousness on the lingual predicaments, with my NGO, Igbo Language Renaissance Initiative (ILRI), as the platform of traction at exorbitant personal cost exposure. Since then a number of press radio and television interviews have been granted but whether those are generating curiosity or interest remains to be seen, for after countless linger, in the waiting room of governors, rendezvous with the illustrious and modest achievements and age, the dictionary is yet an orphan. But why devote so much personal energy and sacrifice to an apparently novel and trivial past time like lexicography? I believe that the English Dictionary provided a basis to standardise the language and professional lexicon, which would otherwise leave jurisprudence largely open to interpretation and compromise rule of law. In the case of itinerant Igbo in diaspora, an Igbo dictionary should cause a sense of nostalgia and help the kids to know themselves. It is usually the last wish of every talented author to see his work widely read and then shall he know that his work is done for bestowal of posthumous appreciation on a demised man is one of the vanities of life. My travails are aptly captured by Dr. Johnson in his letter to Lord Chesterfield of February 1755, snubbing the belated efforts of help from his would be patron, “My Lord,

I have been lately informed, by the proprietor of The World, that two papers, in which my Dictionary is recommended to the public, were written by your lordship. To be so distinguished is an honour which, being very little accustomed to favours from the great, I know not well how to receive, or in what terms to acknowledge.

“When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the enchantment of your address, and could not forbear to wish that I might boast myself Le vainqueur du vainqueur de la terre;—that I might obtain that regard for which I saw the world contending; but I found my attendance so little encouraged, that neither pride nor modesty would suffer me to continue it. When I had once addressed your Lordship in public, I had exhausted all the art of pleasing which a retired and uncourtly scholar can possess. I had done all that I could; and no man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little. Seven years, my lord, have now passed, since I waited in your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during which time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it, at last, to the verge of publication, without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favour. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a patron before. The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with Love, and found him a native of the rocks. Is not a patron my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it: till I am solitary, and cannot impart it, till I am known, and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the public should consider me as owing that to a patron, which providence has enabled me to do for myself. Having carried on my work thus far with so little obligation to any favourer of learning, I shall not be disappointed though I should conclude it, if less be possible, with less; for I have been long wakened from that dream of hope, in which I once boasted myself with so much exultation.”