On English-Subtitled Yoruba Films

By

SAMUEL Noah Oluwafemi, Lagos Nigeria

I love to see movies. The Nigerian movie industry (Nollywood, as it was christened)
has been ranked second in terms of volumes of work in the world, only behind
Hollywood (America), with Bollywood (India) occupying the third position. This dais
is worth celebrating, especially when considering the lens, through which the
country has been viewed over the years by the developed nations.

This recognition of the efforts of ardent Nigerians in the sector is commendable.

Despite the fact that the sector is capital intensive and there are no adequate
provision from the government at all levels for support right from inception, the
sector was still able to make headway. From my heart, I offer real kudos to those
who have been involved in the sector over the years to make it what it is today.

However, the Nigerian movie sector is quite diverse. As a nation with three major
ethnic groups, I will restrict this right up to the Igbo movie makers (by this, I mean
those who produce films in the Igbo language), Yoruba movie makers, the Hausa
movie makers and the one that is ‘supposed’ to merge all together, the English film
genre.

I guess you would understand why I chose to use the word ‘supposed’? It is quite
obvious that many of the people in the sector over some years have grumbled
about the segregation that exists in the English film genre of the industry. This
however is not the focus of this write-up. This may stand for a topic some other
time.

This write-up is however focusing on the Yoruba movie making sector with a
particular emphasis on grammatical and sentence construction errors in English-
subtitled Yoruba films. Here, I do not stand to condemn anyone or the work of any
producer.

As with the first line I started with, I love to see movies. However, I get turn on by
professionalism whenever I see any movie that has been put together with all
diligence. Most Yoruba films that have been produced over the years to some
extent have won my heart in this regard.

Nevertheless, with regard to subtitling, I have seen too many Yoruba films well
enough to be able to confidently say that the subtitling culture to a large extent
lacks professionalism. For clarity, a number of English-Subtitled Yoruba films were
examined recently for both grammatical and sentence construction errors and a
sizeable amount of the films failed this test. It is estimated that in a collection of ten
English-Subtitled Yoruba films, just about three are adequately subtitled while the
remaining seven are either packed with wrong sentence construction and/or bad
grammatical expressions.

Though, as one who understands the Yoruba language, I indeed need no one to
subtitle the films for me to comprehend the message being passed. However, I
believe the main rationale behind subtitling is for the people who might not
understand the scripting language or the language the film is made to truly see the
movie and be able to understand just by reading along the subtitled information on
the screen.

With regard to the aforementioned, many Yoruba film producers have really erred.
Many devote more attention to the actual making of the films, which is perfectly
okay, but leave the subtitling of the film to the appropriate language in the hands of
people who do not have proper command of the English language. This reduces the
overall quality of the films.

It is high time professionalism is introduced in every aspect of the movie making

process of which subtitling is a part. Yoruba movie making houses should have a
unit in the whole movie making process that will ensure that qualified people are
employed to do the work of subtitling the films being made into apposite language
(English) if the drive is towards professionalism.

There are people who have read courses like Yoruba in the University and as part of
their course have also studied the English language and have done major works on
translation. This set of people could be given the job of subtitling Yoruba films into
the English language.
There are a number of times I have seen Indian films and some American films that
it was only through the subtitled message I was able to understand what the films
were really saying. I believe there are many people who would love to see Yoruba
films, especially for the knowledge of how things are done in the Yoruba setting, but
naturally be put off by poor subtitling.

It is not to say however, that the foreign films I have seen over the years are not
without their own shortcomings in this regard, but it is noteworthy that such errors
are not as unbridled as we have it in most English-subtitled Yoruba films.

As a matter of urgency, something need be done concerning this quandary in other

to ignite people’s interest in the Yoruba movie sector of the Nigerian movie industry
and for the obvious reason of professionalism, which is what will show people how
much you are ready to give to what you do. Let the change begin!

SAMUEL Noah Oluwafemi is a graduate of Communication Technology, Lagos State University

Nigeria. His interest spans the print and electronic media industry as well as the film industry. E-mail:
samnoah2001@yahoo.com
Mobile: +2348027484528