Languagle #23: Yoruba
Gbogbo aláǹgbá ló dánú délẹ̀, a kò mọ èyí tí inú ń run
Gbogbo alangba lo d'anu dele, a ko mo eyi t'inu nrun
"All lizards lie flat on their bellies. You can't tell which one has a stomach ache."
What it means
Everyone looks fine on the outside, but you can't see what someone is going through inside. Lizards all lie flat on their bellies, so you can't tell which one has a stomach ache. Don't assume other people have no troubles.
How to say it
gbo-gbo a-lan-gba lo da-noo deh-leh, a kaw maw eh-yee tee ee-noo n roon
Yoruba is tonal, and the accents tell you the pitch: high on á, low on à, middle where there's no mark. Gb is said as g and b at the same time. Ẹ is the e in 'bed' and ọ the aw in 'law'.
Word by word
- Gbogbo gbo-gbo: all
- aláǹgbá a-lan-gba: lizards
- ló dánú délẹ̀ lo da-noo deh-leh: lie with their bellies on the ground
- a kò mọ a kaw maw: we don't know
- èyí tí eh-yee tee: the one that
- inú ń run ee-noo n roon: has a stomach ache
Where it was found
Yoruba calls a proverb an òwe. The source, Nigerian Finder, prints it without tone marks, so they've been put back here.
Similar sayings
- English: Appearances can be deceptive
How to recognise Yoruba
Yoruba puts dots under some letters (ẹ, ọ and ṣ) and tone marks over its vowels, an acute accent for a high tone and a grave accent for a low one. Tone marks can even sit on an n, as in ǹ. It also has the letter pair gb. Igbo uses dots too, but on ị, ọ and ụ, and adds ṅ with a dot on top. Hausa uses hooked letters like ɓ, ɗ and ƙ.
About the Yoruba language
Yoruba is a Niger-Congo language spoken by around 45 million people, mainly in southwestern Nigeria and in Benin and Togo. It is tonal, with three tones marked by accents over the vowels, and dots under letters such as ẹ, ọ and ṣ mark other sounds. Yoruba also travelled across the Atlantic with enslaved people and survives in religious use in Cuba and Brazil. Proverbs (òwe) are central to Yoruba speech: a saying goes that proverbs are the horses of speech.
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