Igbo Language - Proverbs

Proverbs

Proverbs and idiomatic (ilu in Igbo) expressions are highly valued by the Igbo people and proficiency in the language means knowing how to intersperse speech with a good dose of proverbs. Chinua Achebe (in Things Fall Apart) describes proverbs as "the palm oil with which words are eaten". Proverbs are widely used in the traditional society to describe, in very few words, what could have otherwise required a thousand words. Proverbs may also become euphemistic means of making certain expressions in the Igbo society, thus the Igbo have come to typically rely on this as avenues of certain expressions.

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Famous quotes containing the word proverbs:

    Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise.
    Bible: Hebrew, Proverbs 20:1.

    But such is life, the silliest proverbs prove to be true, and when a man thinks, now it’s all right, it’s not all right by a long shot. Man proposes, God disposes, and there’s always that last straw to break the camel’s back.
    Alfred Döblin (1878–1957)

    The offender never pardons.
    English proverb, collected in George Herbert, Outlandish Proverbs (1640)