Kí ọmọdé tó gbọn, ìwà-a ẹ̀ á bàjẹ́.
Original
Kí ọmọdé tó gbọn, ìwà-a ẹ̀ á bàjẹ́.
Literal gloss
- Kí ọmọdé tó gbọn before a-child becomes wise, ìwà-a ẹ̀ his character á bàjẹ́ will-be spoiled.
Idiomatic English
"Before a child learns wisdom, he or she will have earned a bad reputation."
No translator is named in the source.
What it means
Wisdom arrives after the damage that teaches it.
Used when
Owomoyela: "One seldom learns wisdom before one has made some blunders" Used to argue for patience with a young person.
Notes on the translation
Bàjẹ́ covers both spoiled and disgraced, so the Yorùbá does not separate the ruin of the character from the ruin of the name, and Owomoyela's "reputation" chooses one side of a word that holds both. Read against entry 33 the pair is not consistent: 33 says formation is the household's job, 34 says failure is unavoidable first. Yorùbá proverbs are tools selected for occasions, not clauses in a system.