Abstract:
Cultural elements like language, marriage, food, religion, proverbs,
idioms, dressing and others are often richly represented in literary
works. African literature on its part has evolved over time with
some of the most renowned works written in European languages.
However, they may to a large extend be considered as translated
texts. This is because the language structure presented in the works
usually takes the linguistic form of the authors’ mother tongue in
spite of the fact that they are presented in a foreign language. The
thought pattern of the authors of such works is usually rooted in
their African origin. This study is concerned with the presentation
of the African culture in the French and English languages. It
critically examines an aspect of culture: proverbs. Ten proverbs
selected from the English and French versions of Achebe’s Arrow of
God, are analyzed by comparing them with their original Igbo
versions. The result shows that these proverbs of Igbo origin lose
some of their meaning in the process of re-expression in either
English of French because the imagery used represents the different
realities of these cultures.
