I have seen people slapping themselves, knocking their heads to find Igbo words for:

Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Computer
WhatsApp

When they are unable to do so, they will say that Igbo Language is incomplete.

I read in dismay, some people translating Facebook as Ihuakwụkwọ

and I'll wonder, ọọ afịfịa ka ndị a sere? Lol. Please excuse me of that.

When you tell someone "gaa n'ihuakwụkwọ" the point you are making is that the person should go to a cover page of a book it doesn't mean go to Facebook.

I have some persons translating Computer as

"Igweomekammadụ" then what is robot?

Igbo language is complete. Very very complete to the original users. Everything that exist in their culture, environment has name. But dynamism of culture, borrowing, civilization, innovations are what give ways to this confusion and wrong

assumption by some of our woke people that Igbo isn't complete. They want everything in English, in Japanese to have Igbo name and want everything in Igbo to have English name.

Someone has asked me: "Maazị what is the English name of ụsụrụgada?"

My response to him:

"ụsụrụgada bụ egwu ndị mmụọ".

He insisted on ụsụrụgada until I told him that the English man should learn it and call it what we call it the same way we learn their language and call things what they call them.

You cannot see any new technological invention and

assume Igbo is incomplete because such does not exist in Igbo Language; but alien.

Now let me draw our minds to what is called localization in translation. You translate a technical term from the source language into your target language, retaining the sound but ensure the

items follow the phonothatic rules of the target language. Some called this method Igbonization. It can also be called domestication in translation. You bring a foreign item home, you write it using your own linguistic rules but the sound will appear the same as the original

source text. It does not affect your language growth, rather it is a form of borrowing that helps your audience to grasp the information you are passing across. Remember, you are not translating for yourself, you are translating for others to read. If you try and coin some

unconventional terms yourself, no one will understand you, and your translation will be faulted.

Now let us use the cited examples on the onset to buttress this point I am making.

There is no way Facebook can be Ihuakwụkwọ. It is an unacceptable transliteration. Now see:

Facebook= Fesibuku, Fezibuuku, Fesibuku.

Twitter= Tuwita

WhatsApp= Wasapụ

Instagram/IG= Instagaramụ/Aịjị

Yorùbá too translate Facebook using this method. The reason is, these are apps already known by people, if you dare give them other names outside what the

inventors gave them, ị na-achọzi okwu or rather talking about different things in entirely. They are proper nouns. Imagine when you are translating "London" or "America" and you are looking for Igbo words for London and America, you will grow old and find nothing. You can

domesticate them as "Lọndọn" or "Amerịka"or "Amịrịka".

Computer is Kọmputa

So stop beating yourself and assume that Igbo is incomplete because you have no words for strange things our language was built without.

Daalụ nụ!
@ogbonnaya_mark