Soyinka @ 90: Differences between pronunciations of ‘Nobel’ and ‘noble’

It is a great moment for foremost writer and human rights defender, Professor Wole Soyinka. On July 13, he will be 90 and a number of activities are on to celebrate the milestone. Also, as expected, a mistake that many make in the pronunciation of his literary title, ‘Nobel laureate’, is likely to break loose, as has already started manifesting in some places. In speech and writing, the term is ‘Nobel’, not ‘noble’.

A person’s name

‘Nobel’ is the surname of Alfred Nobel, the inventor who founded the prize, which is regarded the biggest literary prize in the world. The Nobel Prizes (including those in Medicine, Physics and Chemistry) are named after the Swedish scientist who invented the explosive called dynamite. The invention made him rich and he thus decided to use the money to honour people who helped humankind in some way. So, remember, ‘Nobel’ should not be confused with ‘noble’ in spelling and pronunciation. This does not mean that Nobel laureates are ignoble, for our own Soyinka remains a noble man.

Silent ‘e’

‘Nobel’ and ‘noble’ share some linguistic characteristics, really. For instance, each has two syllables: NO-BEL, NO-BLE. The first vowel, ‘o’ is also pronounced the same way. It is a diphthong harbouring two vowel sounds, O and U, making it nOOUbel and nOOUble in pronunciation. However, the ‘e’ in both words has different phonological manifestations. In ‘Nobel’, it is prominent in pronunciation and is articulated as E, the vowel sound in egg, bet, beg,wet and head. But the ‘e’ in ‘noble’ is silent. In other words, even in the correct pronunciation of ‘noble’, ‘e’ is naturally dormant. It is noBL, never nobLE or noBEL.

Laureate: Small or capital letter?

In describing Soyinka and other winners of the Nobel crest, should ‘laureate’ start with a capital letter like ‘Nobel’? No. The reason is that it is not naturally part of the name of the award, which is the Nobel Prize for Literature. It is thus not a proper noun. According to Oxford Dictionary, a laureate is ‘a person who is honoured with an award for outstanding creative or intellectual achievement’. Cambridge Dictionary says it is a person who has been given a very high honour because of their ability in a subject of study. Then it gives a phrasal example:

A Nobel laureate.

Soyinka, a senior member of English Class

 I should note that Professor Soyinka is a big fan of this English Class. In other words, he is a senior student. He has, on a number of occasions, reached out to me in the form of commendation and observations.  It is not surprising that he is interested in a project like the Punch English. He is a master at the use of English. He deploys it with ingenuity whether in writing or speech. No wonder, he equally hates bad English especially at official  settings.

Interestingly, his story, like that of his contemporary, the legendary Professor Chinua Achebe, is intriguing in terms of his mastery of English. As good as both are in it, they are still very vast in Yoruba and Igbo languages respectively. They eventually conquered English, own(ed) it and pollinate it with the indigenous forms. This is, for instance,  the essence of the immortality of Soyinka’s ever-amazing play, Death and the King’s Horseman; and Achebe’s classical Things Fall Apart, which many believe to be their best. The lesson here, therefore, is that you can be a genius at both English/French/German and your mother tongue. The knowledge of one does not destroy the chances of others. Rather, they help one another, a factor that we should particularly bear in mind when raising children.

What the Nobel sages said about Soyinka

Professor Soyinka broke the jinx for Africa in 1986 when he won the Nobel Prize. The jury underlined his excellence across genres such as drama, poetry and prose. While some of his popular works include Kongi’s Harvest, Lion and the Jewel and The Trials of Brother Jero, the jury made a particular reference to his arguably most iconic play, Death and the King’s Horseman. They described him as a writer “who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence.”

On behalf of the entire Punch English Class, I thus again congratulate Professor Soyinka on his 90th birthday — though not the tautological  ‘birthday anniversary’!