Languagle #39: Afar
Missili missila ceelam meqeh, baxi abba ceelam meqe.
missili missila ceelam meqeh, baxi abba ceelam meqe
"As it is good for a son to resemble his father, it is good for one proverb to resemble another."
What it means
A proverb about proverbs. Quoted on Qafar Radio's own Afar-language proverbs page as the traditional Afar justification for answering one saying with another. Afar oral debate works by matching missila (proverbs) to each other, so likeness between sayings is itself a virtue.
What kind of saying it is
Oral tradition. Passed down by word of mouth. Sayings like this have no single author.
About the Afar language
Afar is a Cushitic language, part of the Afroasiatic family, spoken by the Afar people in the Horn of Africa: in the Afar region of Ethiopia, in Djibouti and in Eritrea. Much of Afar country lies in the Danakil Depression, one of the hottest places on Earth. Afar is written in a Latin alphabet devised in the 1970s, known as Qafar Feera.
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