Yoruba

Yoruba proverbs, at a glance

• A child who knows how to wash his hands will dine with the elders

  Ọmọ tó mọ ọwọ́ rẹ̀ wẹ̀ á bá àgbà jẹun

  Literally: A child who knows his hands [to] wash, will-with elders eat

  Yoruba · Nigeria

  Set beside

  • Igbo (via Achebe) — the same image, but the ceiling moves from elders to kings
  • English — the small discipline doesn't earn admission; it constitutes the man
  • Confucian/Mandarin — one threshold becomes a four-rung staircase from the body to the cosmos

• A proverb is the horse that carries speech

  Òwe lẹṣin ọ̀rọ̀; bí ọ̀rọ̀-ọ́ bá sọnù, òwe la fi ńwá a.

  Literally: Proverb is the horse of speech; when speech is lost, proverb is the means we use to hunt for it.

  Yoruba · Nigeria

  Set beside

  • Igbo — Achebe; a proverb is the palm-oil with which words are eaten
  • Russian (Dal') — a saying is a flower, a proverb is the berry
  • Latin (Erasmus, Adagia) — proverbs as remnants and sparks of ancient wisdom, small gems that must be set with skill

• Push into an affair no one summoned you to, and whatever you meet there is your own doing.

  Bí ẹlẹ́bọ ò bá pe ẹni, àṣefín ò yẹni.

  Literally: If the offerer of the sacrifice has not called you, inviting yourself does not become you.

  Yoruba · Nigeria

  Set beside

  • Igbo — the fly with no one to advise it follows the corpse into the grave; the uninvited creature at a funeral, where the Yoruba intruder turns up at a sacrifice
  • Russian (Знай, сверчок, свой шесток) — know your perch, cricket; overstep your station and you are put back in it
  • Arabic (من تدخل فيما لا يعنيه سمع ما لا يرضيه) — whoever meddles in what does not concern him hears what does not please him

• The young can do what the old cannot, and the old what the young cannot — so each needs the other.

  Ọwọ́ ọmọdé ò tó pẹpẹ, t'àgbàlagbà ò wọ kèǹgbè.

  Literally: A child's hand does not reach the shelf; an elder's does not enter the calabash.

  Yoruba · Nigeria

  Set beside

  • Mandarin (尺有所短，寸有所长) — a foot can fall short and an inch run long; strength is relative
  • Greek — the blind man carries the lame man who can see; two lacks make one whole traveler
  • Latin (Menenius/Livy) — the body's parts rebel, then learn that each does what none can do alone