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 .
