How grammatical is your festival? You may be taken aback by this question. You are not alone. Every year, especially the periods around the festivals, the Muslim ummah in Nigeria is always plunged into one controversy or the other. If it's not about the permissibility of monetizing zakat l Fitr, it would be about the sighting of the moon, or whether to use the Saudi Arabia reckoning for the beginning or end of Ramadan or not.
This year wasn’t different, and grammarians have been dragged into the din. The first argument that ensued was whether to spell Ramadan as Ramadan or Romodon, or Romodhon, or Ramadhan or Ramadaan, or Romodhaan.
While this seem superficially a nonsensical rant, the fury from the scenes of such heated arguments and its consequence call for a quick intervention, before the malady extends to something else. A brother sought my opinion on this, and here was my submission.
First, those who subscribe to other variants aside from the usual and common spelling, Ramadan are perhaps, quite mindful and conservative about the actual pronunciation of the word from the original language, Arabic, before it was borrowed into English. The “ra” in the first syllable can actually be pronounced ra or ro depending on the Arabic dialect, same with the “ma” in the second syllable. As for the last syllable, “dan”, the d is not the usual /d/ sound, it has a sound that has no exact replica in the English alphabet. Thus, some people prefer to represent it as “dh”. The a in the middle of that syllable is an elongated one, that’s why some people prefer to use a “double a” or an a with a tilde (~) above it. So, the vectors of these new spellings only wish to write as close as possible to exactly what they pronounce.
However, the English language, unlike most other languages, does not have this rigidity of spelling exactly what you pronounce, or vice versa. If this were to be the case, then many English words or words borrowed into English would have been spelt differently as they are today. The word lieutenant, for example, should have been spelt leftenant since that is what is actually pronounced. Same way pizza should have been spelt as pitsa, Christian as krischen, colonel as kenl, commensurate as comenshorot, the list is endless, in fact, nearly all English word is never spelt as pronounced. What is most important is the right pronunciation (and transcription) which is captured under a different aspect of the language – phonetics and diction.
This seemingly nonconformity of spelling with pronunciation in English is perhaps a blessing to Nigerians, especially the ardent users of the social media who wish to put a touch of English to their names in an attempt to delocalize their identity. They pad their names by heavily lavishing the English alphabets on them in myriads of ways, thus creating a confused “anglophonised” written version of their names. A kamoli, for example, could spell his name as chamorlee, Taofik as Taophyc, Lateefat as Lartyphart… you’d find a thousand of this on the social media. You might be confused in the first place or even bite your tongue in an attempt to decipher the spelling, but these different spellings give almost exactly the same pronunciation.
I was almost dragged into that craze too then in my secondary school when I spelt my name as Yoosuph if not for my dad who reset my brain to default with scolding and verbal lashes.
The choice of spelling in a particular way is purely a matter of convection adopted by native speakers. The word Ramadan as borrowed into English is spelt Ramadan (OALD 9th edition) and transcribed as /ˌræməˈdæn/ or /ˈræmədæn/. So, Ramadan as a spelling is sufficient to capture the pronunciation, and no need for any padding.
Transliteration of Arabic to English has always caused controversies, unfortunately, we do not have our own standard Nigerian English yet, so, we adopt the standard English. Any other spelling is a waste of letters.
Now back to Sallah! Not the one in Liverpool though. There are rising arguments on the grammaticality and acceptability of the phrase “Barka de Sallah” as a compliment for the Muslim festivals.
For the records, the word Sallah is not (yet) an English word. It is an Hausa word borrowed from the Arabic word for prayer —Solah. In my research for this exploration, most of my Hausa friends agreed to the narration that the word Sallah itself actually refers to the prayer offered on the morning of the eid day. It was later adopted to mean the whole day itself.
The root meaning of this word is still present in many other Hausa words – Musolah (prayer mat), Mosalashi (Mosque), etc. the equivalent word in Yoruba is odun which in this context means festival. In Arabic, it is Eid. Thus, a Hausa man would say “Barka de Sallah”, while his Yoruba counterpart would say “Eku Odun”, and the Arabians would say “Eid Mubarak”, all as a compliment for the festival.
For many decades, the phrase “Barka de Sallah” became more popular than any compliment from other languages in Nigeria. Since Islam came to the West through the North, many westerners erroneously adopted the phrase, thinking it was Arabic. Thus, it became increasingly popular among the non-Muslims. The word Sallah now find use even in formal contexts, all thanks to the conservativeness of native Hausas.
As for the Arabic “Eid Mubarak” (blessed or happy festival), increasing level of exposure, and literacy have tilted the choice of Nigerian Muslims towards this phrase. This is so because the Arabic language is the language of Islam, and in attempts to preserve the originality of the religion and to emulate exactly the prophet Muhammad in his way of life (for whoever does so is, in fact, engaging in an act of worship and earning a reward), Muslims worldwide (Arab and non-Arab) prefer the Arabic version to any other.
This is why greetings like Salam Alaykum is preferred to good morning. Jazaakumullah khairan, is preferred to thank you, etc. Also, an interpretation of the Arabic versions of most greeting shows that they are actually prayers.
Summarily, while it is not wrong to say “eku odun’ to the Yorubas and “Barka de Sallah” to the Hausas (and them alone), Eid Mubarak is universal and most appropriate to all, for it is not just a greeting, but it is also a prayer and an act of worship.
Yussuf Ayodele,
yusfulinks@gmail.com
Lagos, Nigeria