Igbo

Igbo is a language cluster belonging to many people around the Southern Nigeria region. Depending on the technical distinction between “language” and “dialect,” Igbo may be considered to be a collection of some 15 to 30 languages, which are not all mutually intelligible. The precise roots of Igbo are still in debate today, but it has grown to constitute one of the largest languages of West Africa nonetheless.

The large number of variations of Igbo has made standardization attempts difficult and relatively unsuccessful, making the development of a standard written Igbo particularly difficult as well. Standard Igbo is at the center of these attempts, crossing Central Igbo with words from other variations, but these efforts have been famously and passionately rejected by many, including Nigerian poet Chinua Achebe.

Languages form to describe their contexts, which means that different languages formed in and from different contexts won’t just be different, they may describe things in fundamentally different ways. This is to say that direct translations between languages are not always simple, or even possible.

This makes cultural understanding an incredibly important element of accurate translation services. Without it, your translations may seem silly, incoherent, and ultimately unprofessional to your target audience, which in turn looks bad for your brand and your image. In order to build a strong and respectful relationship with this audience, accurate and culturally sensitive translations are paramount.