The world is a market-place

✍ Scribed by Nkeonye Otakpor

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 573 KB
• Volume: 30
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-5363
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00148558

✦ Synopsis

Language expressions lend credence to the world-view of a people and bring to the limelight the philosophical potentialities of the people. These expressions, particularly proverbs, have fixed word-order, which with their semantic interpretations must take into consideration cultural traditions and norms of the ethnic group. Lexical analysis of such expressions will be unfruitful unless the meanings of the lexical items are considered in the contexts within and outside the surface structure of the expressions.

These expressions emphasize the pursuits of the mind through painstaking inquiries. Thus they summarize the community's collective wisdom and experience. Since the expressions are poetic devices that exploit extra-linguistic knowledge, their usage and interpretation require an interplay of literary and philosophical considerations.

This essay is about the Igbo. They are the third largest ethnic group in Nigeria according to the results of the 1992 national census figures. Igbo refers to the people and their language. 1 For them, Uwa bu aria "the world is a market-place." The world and a market-place have similar characteristics. Since a market is an intrinsic part of human activity, the statement is made with the full knowledge (1) that the world encompasses many markets, (2) that without the world there would be no markets, and (3) that a market needs the world to survive and have meaning.

Against this background, "the world is a market-place" is a metaphorical expression. The literal meanings of the world and a market are not in focus. What, then, does the saying mean? The non-literal meaning and interpretation of Uwa bu aria will be the concern of this essay.