Afrikkalaistettu englanti käännösongelmana

The global spread of the English language has led to the development of regional varieties of English around the world. This article investigates how West African novelists use English that has been influenced by African languages and how such varieties of English have been translated into Finnish. Common features of Africanised English are loan words, coinage, collocational and semantic extension, and expressions and idioms translated from African languages. The focus of this article is on Nigerian writers with Igbo as their mother tongue. Four Igbo novelists have had their work published in Finland: Chinua Achebe, Buchi Emecheta, Flora Nwapa and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Their novels and the Finnish translations of the books are examined to see what kinds of strategies Finnish translators have used to solve the problems posed by Igbo, Igbo English and Pidgin English in the source texts. Some implications of the translation strategies chosen are also discussed.