Òwe: Proverbs

Fifty-eight Yorùbá proverbs on character, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.

Forty-eight Yorùbá proverbs on the ọmọlúàbí ideal, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.

Sourced Yorùbá proverbs about telling the truth, the mechanics of lying and self-deception, and the value placed on a person whose word is reliable.

Forty-three Yorùbá proverbs on sùúrù, patience, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.

Fifty-five Yorùbá proverbs on pride, arrogance, humility, and the limits of what a person can know about themselves, each given with the original, a literal gloss, and a named translation.

Thirteen sourced Yorùbá proverbs on shame, disgrace and reputation, presented with the original, a literal gloss, and a named translation, honestly reflecting how thin this theme is in the digitised record available to this corpus.

Twenty-one Yorùbá proverbs on doing and receiving favors, the risk that kindness goes unrewarded or turns to harm, and the moral weight of ingratitude, drawn from a thinner sourced record than most themes in this corpus.

Forty-six Yorùbá proverbs on facing danger, the coward's self-betrayal, toughness and invulnerability, and endurance under hardship, each given with the original, a literal gloss, and a named translation.

Fifty Yorùbá proverbs on foolishness, wisdom as practical judgement, and the way experience, not instruction alone, is what actually teaches.

Sourced Yorùbá proverbs about the household, the lineage, the father's house and the obligations that follow from being born into a particular family.

Sourced Yorùbá proverbs on bearing and raising children, the duties of parents, the training of the young, and what passes from one generation to the next.

Sourced Yorùbá proverbs about courtship, the bond between husband and wife, and the frictions and duties of the polygynous marriage itself.

Sourced Yorùbá proverbs on what friendship actually obliges, how far trust can safely go, and what betrayal by an intimate looks like.

Sourced Yorùbá proverbs on what age and seniority are owed, what they owe back, and the limits of both.

Sourced Yorùbá proverbs on the duties of host and visitor, the structural vulnerability of the stranger in a Yorùbá town, and the reciprocal etiquette that hospitality is built on.

Sourced Yorùbá proverbs on what a person owes the town and neighbours beyond the household, and what interdependence, gossip and collective responsibility look like in practice.

Sourced Yorùbá proverbs on what starts and escalates a quarrel, how an enemy is handled, and the limits of grudge and revenge.

Sourced Yorùbá proverbs on the ọba (king), the olóyè (titled chief), and the obligations, dangers and limits that come with holding power over others.

Sourced Yorùbá proverbs about the ọjà, the market, as an economic institution and a public stage, and about the traders, buyers and sellers who work it.

Sourced Yorùbá proverbs about riches, destitution, debt and the uses and limits of money, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.

Sourced Yorùbá proverbs about labour, the farm and the discipline of effort, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.

Seventy Yorùbá proverbs on the idler, the shirker and the squanderer, each with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation it is spoken in.

Sixty-seven Yorùbá proverbs on hunger, eating, restraint at table and the difference between a full house and an empty one, each with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation it is spoken in.

Forty Yorùbá proverbs on destiny, the allotted orí, and what a person can and cannot change about their lot, each with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation it is spoken in.

Fifty-one Yorùbá proverbs in which death, burial, mourning and the masquerade of the ancestors carry the argument, each with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation it is spoken in.

Forty-eight Yorùbá proverbs on speech, silence, and the tongue, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.

Fifty-five Yorùbá proverbs on what should not be told, the talebearer who carries news between households, and how secrets and rumours travel and eventually surface.

Twenty-six Yorùbá proverbs about proverbs themselves and about the wise, understood speech that makes them work, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.

Twenty-nine Yorùbá proverbs built around Àjàpá the tortoise, the tradition's central trickster animal, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.

Forty-two Yorùbá proverbs on the head as body part and as destiny, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.

Forty-nine Yorùbá proverbs on the hand and the foot, the body's two instruments of labor, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.

Thirty Yorùbá proverbs on the eye as the organ of witness and judgment, and on blindness as both a literal condition and a figure for folly, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.

Thirty-two Yorùbá proverbs on the ear as the organ of instruction and intelligence, deafness as a figure for obstinacy, and the mouth as the organ that eats, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.

Thirty-six Yorùbá proverbs on hunger, greed, and the inside of a person as the place where feeling and counsel are kept, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.

Thirty-eight Yorùbá proverbs on beauty and its uses, the danger it attracts, adornment, and the gap between how a person looks and what a person is, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.

Forty-five Yorùbá proverbs on childhood, youth, elderhood and the passage of a life from one station to the next, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.

Thirty-six Yorùbá proverbs on sleep, waking, dreaming and bodily rest, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.

Sixty Yorùbá proverbs on cloth as the marker of standing, on clothing worn, patched and outgrown, and on nakedness as the condition beneath every covering, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.

Thirty-eight Yorùbá proverbs in which kinship is argued through the body, blood as substance and as evidence, bone and marrow as the limit of what can be extracted, flesh and the breast, and resemblance as the proof of descent, each with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation it is spoken in.

Forty Yorùbá proverbs on war as an institution, the warrior's obligations, cowardice and boasting, and what battle exposes about a person, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.

Twenty-two Yorùbá proverbs on the sword, the arrow and the cudgel as objects, and on the exposed or unprepared state that a weapon exists to answer, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.

Thirty-four Yorùbá proverbs on what wins a contest, what losing costs, the difference between being beaten and being humiliated, and the outcomes that no amount of effort alters, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.

Thirty-eight Yorùbá proverbs on the crown, the throne, the palace and the offices around them, on what a king owns and what he cannot forbid, and on how a person is placed on a throne or kept off one, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.

Forty Yorùbá proverbs on the lawsuit, the hearing, the judge and the verdict, on what makes a judgement fair and what corrupts it, and on the guilt that arrives before anyone rules on it, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.

Thirty-four Yorùbá proverbs on bearing witness, swearing an oath, the difference between what you saw and what you were told, and what happens to the person who swears falsely, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.

Eighteen Yorùbá proverbs on establishing what happened when accounts conflict, on the oath and the curse as instruments of proof, and on the tells that mark out the guilty party, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.

Fourteen Yorùbá proverbs on what a wrongdoer is owed once guilt is settled, on forgiveness as a practical act rather than a sentiment, and on consequence as something that arrives on its own, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.

Twenty-two Yorùbá proverbs on the enslaved person, the debt-pawn, and the freeborn, and on what the proverb tradition says a person in bondage is owed, denied, and worth.

Seven Yorùbá proverbs on political and territorial belonging, the frontier of a town, and the structural non-standing of the outsider, distinct from the corpus's separate file on host-and-guest hospitality.

Thirty-two Yorùbá proverbs on the blacksmith and his trade, the forge and its tools, iron as material, and Ògún as the power standing behind the craft, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.

Thirty-four Yorùbá proverbs on carving wood, working clay, and the calabash and pot as made objects, on what a maker can and cannot do, and on the work that outlasts the worker, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.

Nineteen Yorùbá proverbs in which Olódùmarè and Ọlọ́run appear, showing how ordinary speech talks about the supreme being's power, patience and inaccessibility to human interference.

Twenty-two Yorùbá proverbs in which òrìṣà appear as the vehicle of an argument about human affairs, showing how ordinary speech treats the gods as present, particular, and sometimes named individually.

Twenty-one Yorùbá proverbs about the Ifá oracle, its priests, and divination, showing how the profession, its discipline, and its authority are talked about in everyday speech.

Eight Yorùbá proverbs featuring Èṣù, the unpredictable gatekeeper-messenger god, showing how ordinary speech treats him as a figure of hazard, mischief, and the crossroads rather than as a moral abstraction.

Thirteen Yorùbá proverbs about ẹbọ, sacrifice and offering, showing how ordinary speech treats the exchange between humans and the unseen as a transaction with real limits and real risks of interception.

Twenty-six Yorùbá proverbs on mortality, ìkú (death), and ọ̀run (the beyond), drawn from Owomoyela's dedicated section on the subject, showing how ordinary speech treats death as certain, undodgeable, and impartial.

Twenty-two Yorùbá proverbs on àjẹ́ (witches), oògùn (medicine or charm), and other hidden forms of power, showing how ordinary speech treats these as real, checkable forces with their own limits.

Twelve Yorùbá proverbs built on èèwọ̀ (taboo) and related concepts of the forbidden, showing how proverb-speech treats prohibition as binding, socially variable, and in at least one case, lethal to violate.

Nine Yorùbá proverbs on àdúrà (prayer), bùkún (blessing) and èpè (curse), showing that curse dominates this vocabulary in the recorded corpus and is treated as a real, targeted, and sometimes self-inflicted force.

Fifty Yorùbá proverbs on ọ̀run-àpáàdì, orí and àyànmọ́ (fate and destiny), drawn from Owomoyela's dedicated section "On fate (and reciprocity)," showing destiny as chosen before birth, unappealable, yet compatible with real human effort.

Twenty-two Yorùbá proverbs in which ọ̀nà (the road) and àjò (the journey) carry an argument about home, return, exposure, and what a traveller cannot leave behind.

Thirteen Yorùbá proverbs on ilé as the place one returns to, distinct from ilé as lineage, showing home as rest, safety, and the fixed point every wandering measures itself against.

Sixteen Yorùbá proverbs on ìlú, the town, showing it as the site of public reputation, of collective liability for disruptive individuals, and of the deference owed to place.

Twenty-four Yorùbá proverbs on oko (the farm) and igbó (the bush or forest), showing farm labour as the measure of a person's worth and the bush as the domain proper to animals and to danger.

Twenty Yorùbá proverbs on odò (the river), showing it as the standard image of an invincible or fearsome adversary, a boundary that reveals character in the crossing, and a site of caution before commitment.

Yorùbá proverbs in which the marketplace itself, as a physical location people enter, walk through, and disperse from, carries the argument, distinct from proverbs that use trade only as a figure of speech.

Yorùbá proverbs built on the king's palace, cult shrines, and the secret groves of Orò and the egúngún masquerade cult, showing these as real, bounded, and differently governed places within the Yorùbá town.

Eight Yorùbá proverbs built on ojúlé (doorway), pàlà and àlà (boundary line), and a named city boundary, showing threshold and border as sites of jurisdiction, dignity, and fair division rather than as mere architectural features.

Twelve Yorùbá proverbs on jìnnà (distance) and súnmọ́ (closeness), showing a consistent Yorùbá argument that value and danger both travel with distance, closeness breeding contempt and remoteness breeding esteem or risk.

Twenty Yorùbá proverbs on ogún (inheritance) and claim to patrimony, drawn largely from Owomoyela's dedicated section "On the right to one's patrimony and to property," focused on land, farm, throne, and territorial claim rather than movable wealth.

Four Yorùbá sayings Owomoyela identifies as riddles doing double duty as proverbs, alongside the genre theory that explains why òwe and àlọ́ (riddle) are treated as close kin in Yorùbá oral tradition.

What Owomoyela's collection can and cannot say about dialect origin, plus eight proverbs naming specific peoples, towns, or historical events, presented as regional and historically datable rather than as a dialect atlas this source does not support.

Six Yorùbá proverbs whose meaning Owomoyela himself marks as obscure, ambiguous, or open to more than one reading, shown with every competing interpretation the source offers rather than a single resolved gloss.

Seven Yorùbá proverbs whose entire mechanism depends on tone distinguishing otherwise identical syllables, with Owomoyela's own footnotes explaining each pun and what an untoned or translated rendering necessarily loses.

Thirteen Yorùbá proverbs built on méjì (two) and other numerals, showing a productive formula, "two X cannot Y in the same place," used repeatedly to argue that rival powers or claims cannot share one space.

Fourteen Yorùbá proverbs built on funfun (white), dúdú (black) and pupa (red or light brown), showing colour used as a marker of purity, seniority, concealment, and reliable natural pattern rather than as simple visual description.

Nine Yorùbá proverbs datable by internal evidence to the pre-colonial cowrie-currency economy or to the early colonial period, kept current in speech as fixed idiom for amounts and situations no living speaker has transacted in.

Two documented cases of proverbial refrains embedded directly inside Ifá divination verses, sourced from Abimbola's Sixteen Great Poems of Ifá, with a note on why this file is short.

A short pointer file explaining why this corpus's full treatment of proverbs-about-proverbs lives at file 32, with one cross-reference and an honest record of an empty search for material distinct from that file.

Twenty-eight Yorùbá proverbs from Owomoyela's own dedicated "Truisms" section, general observations about life, chance, and human limitation that do not belong to any single theme this corpus section has assigned.