Abanijẹ́ ba ara ẹ̀ jẹ́.
Character and other people
Original
Abanijẹ́ ba ara ẹ̀ jẹ́.
Literal gloss
- Abanijẹ́ the-one-who-spoils-others ba ara ẹ̀ jẹ́ spoils himself.
Idiomatic English
"A detractor injures his own reputation."
No translator is named in the source.
What it means
Running others down damages the person doing it.
Used when
Owomoyela: "A person who maligns other people reflects badly on his own character"
Notes on the translation
The proverb turns on repeating the verb ba... jẹ́, to spoil, with the object switched from others to self, so the sentence performs the reversal it asserts. Abanijẹ́ is an agent noun built from the same verb, so all three elements are one root, which is why the Yorùbá is four words and the English is eight.