– The Appeals of Yoruba Language
Metaphorically speaking, Yoruba people live, breath, eat, and drink philosophy. They employ the potent axioms embedded in their language, for ‘healing’ minds, reassuring the members of their communities, and restoring confidence in people. Perhaps, no minds need more confidence and reassurance than those of the younger folks, who are discovering new things and encountering fresh challenges almost daily. Thus, Yoruba adults play a major role in the endeavor of implanting hope in the youth. They build confidence in their youth during their ‘Tales by Moonlight Years’ (elementary and middle school years,) and watch as they grow up and apply what they learned.
For instance, the adults confront ‘bullying,’ the universal problem that affect children everywhere, with proverbial words – by building confidence in their youth with courage-evoking axioms. My maternal grandfather, the late Chief David Oni Aro, from whom I inherited the admiration for Yoruba adages, taught me a lot about this. As a teenager, I watched him counseling a relative, who tried to skip school, because the children of a ‘well-to-do-man’ in the community had been harassing him, for not wearing a befitting school uniform (he inherited his uniform from an older relative.)
My grandfather reassured the boy, by breaking the issue down as follows (permit me to recount what he said in his native Ekiti dialect in the general Yoruba language): ‘Ile aye ile ogun. Ba j’efo sun, inu a b’eleran; ba rin n’ile, inu a b’el’esin; ba w’akisa, inu a b’al’aso.’ MEANING: ‘The world is a battlefield. When we eat vegetables as dinner, those who eat meat are offended; when we trek barefooted, those who ride horses are offended; and when we wear rags, those who wear pleasant clothes are offended.’ The elderly man reassured the boy that he could not skip school because of the bullies, because bullies were usually offended by everything. Rather, he should have confidence in himself, and show the bullies that their putdowns won’t stop him from attending school.
IMAGE: (Standing) His Royal Majesty, Kabiyesi, Igba-Keji Orisa, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi – Ojaja II, the 51st Ooni of Ile-Ife, Osun-State, Nigeria. Ile-Ife is the cradle of Yoruba people worldwide.
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