Akan (Twi) proverbs — read closely

Parallel & Proverbs

A weekly literary miscellany

The One Who Asks Questions Doesn't Lose His Way

Ɔberebere ɔbɛhunu

ɔberebere ɔbɛhunu

An Akan proverb from Ghana says the one who asks questions will never lose the road — and what it means to build an entire worldview around the dignity of not-knowing.

Humility 1,300 wds 7 min

№ 01 Ghana

No One Points Out God to a Child

Obi nkyerɛ akwadaa Nyame

obi nkyerɛ akwadaa nyame

An Akan proverb says no one teaches a child that God exists — and Arabic, Buddhist, and Greek traditions each make the same wager, that some knowledge is born in us rather than poured in.

Humility 1,100 wds 7 min

Akan (Twi) proverbs, at a glance

No one needs to teach a child that God exists.

Obi nkyerɛ akwadaa Nyame

Literally: Someone does-not-teach child God

Akan (Twi) · Ghana

Set beside
- Arabic (hadith) — every child is born upon the fitra, the innate disposition toward God: the same claim raised to formal doctrine
- Pali (Buddhist) — be a lamp unto yourself: the light is already within, the outside teacher only points to it
- Greek (Plato) — knowledge is recollection: the soul already holds what it seems to learn; the teacher only draws it out
The one who asks questions doesn't lose his way.

Ɔberebere ɔbɛhunu

Literally: The one who asks around will find it

Akan (Twi) · Ghana

Set beside
- Japanese — 聞くは一時の恥、聞かぬは一生の恥; the same counsel filtered through a shame-honour calculus — asking costs a moment's face, silence costs a lifetime's ignorance
- Hebrew — Pirkei Avot 4:1; 'Who is wise? One who learns from every person' — the inquiry becomes identity, not strategy