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<p>By Habib Sani Galadima</p><div class="NvyX65SU" style="clear:both;float:left;width:100%;margin:0 0 20px 0;"><script async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>

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<p>Let me start with the moment I knew something was wrong.</p>
<p>Hygeia HMO launched a health campaign in Northern Nigeria using the slogan, Lafiya Ubangiji ne. To a non-native speaker, it might sound poetic, maybe even spiritual. But to a Hausa ear, it bordered on blasphemy. Health is God?</p>
<p>That was not just a language slip. It was a failure of respect.</p><div class="aHKdpMji" style="clear:both;float:left;width:100%;margin:0 0 20px 0;"><script async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>

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<p>The intended message was likely, “Health comes from God.” But Hausa does not translate word for word. It translates relationally. Tone, logic, and spiritual coherence matter. What the audience heard was not comfort. It was distortion.</p>
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<p>They may have been reaching for something like &#8216;Lafiya uwar jiki&#8217;, loosely meaning, “health is wealth.” A common phrase that honors the value of health in daily life. It affirms the body without elevating it to divinity.</p>
<p>As a Hausa–English translator, I have seen this mistake repeat itself. In development campaigns, public signage, and even policy documents, well-meaning intentions often collapse under literalism.</p>
<p>This is not just a critique of one phrase. It is a call for a professional ethic rooted in cultural clarity.</p>
<p>Literal translation can betray meaning even when technically correct. “Jiki ya yi sauÆi” literally means “the body is light,” but it signals that someone is recovering. “Kana lafiya?” is not a medical check-in; it is a ritual of care. These are not surface greetings. They are social codes.</p>
<p>If we treat translation as sentence matching, we flatten those codes. We lose the very logic that gives the language its cultural shape.</p>
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<p>In another campaign, a non-alcoholic drink was advertised using, &#8220;Ba barasa a cikin wannan giya&#8221;. Literally, “No alcohol in this beer.” But in Hausa, &#8216;barasa&#8217; and &#8216;giya&#8217; are both alcohol. The result? “No alcohol in this alcohol.”</p>
<p>The problem was not grammar. It was conceptual. A clearer phrasing might be, Abin sha mai daÉi kuma babu giya a cikinsa. Not perfect, but far closer to what the message needed to convey.</p>
<p>Without this kind of reasoning, translation becomes a source of confusion. And in communities with strong moral or religious codes, confusion becomes rejection.</p>
<p>Even when grammar is correct, the tone can still fail. Hausa is not one uniform dialect. It moves across regions, registers, and roles.</p>
<p>A word like “descend” might be &#8216;sauka&#8217; in Kano, but &#8216;sabka&#8217; in Katsina. &#8216;Lafiya&#8217; might be said as &#8216;lahiyā&#8217; in Sokoto. These are not errors. They are cues of geography, class, and religious context. A skilled translator does not erase these distinctions; they navigate them.</p>
<p>Titles carry weight too. A teacher is not just &#8216;Abdullahi&#8217;. He is &#8216;Malam Abdullahi&#8217;. With a PhD, he becomes &#8216;Dr. Abdullahi&#8217;. These are not decorative. They are meaningful cues of respect, role, and social standing.</p>
<p>And religious phrases? &#8216;In sha Allah&#8217; is not simply “hopefully.” It carries a theology of humility. Flattening it into optimism misses the spiritual core. Translation must protect that texture.</p>
<p>Too often, Hausa translation is treated as a technical afterthought, something added at the end of a campaign or report. But when done carelessly, the damage is real.</p>
<p>We need to shift that thinking. Translators are not back-end technicians. They are interpreters of meaning.</p>
<p>What would change if we began to train translators not just in grammar, but in cultural listening?</p>
<p>What if translation in Hausa was judged not by speed or length, but by resonance, clarity, and respect?</p>
<p>Because this work requires more than accuracy. It requires care.</p>
<p>This is not just critique. It is an invitation.</p>
<p>To every Hausa–English translator, new or seasoned, this is a call to center meaning, not mimicry.</p>
<p>Let us build a professional ethic where cultural fidelity is a standard, not an accident. Where respect is embedded, not optional.</p>
<p>In Hausa, words are not empty vessels. They carry rhythm, status, reverence, belief. If we are going to carry them, we must carry them fully.</p>
<p>In Hausa, meaning does not live in grammar alone.</p>
<p>It lives in the space between speaker and listener. And that space must be honored.</p>
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