The Yoruba and the sacred art of verbal abuse
Crowds, hot, humid air, rowdy atmosphere. Yes, the description of a typical marketplace here in Lagos state? Not quite, at least not without the ample amount of verbal assaults and generous toppings of profanities. Much more like it. Nowhere else is proficiency in verbal insults evident as with the Yoruba of West Africa. Theirs is a language that has evolved to include some of the most creative expressions of disdain, utter disrespect, hate. It is probably impossible to do an absolutely empirical study of this aspect of the Yoruba language but who's to say attempts can't be made?
The most fascinating form a verbal attack in Yoruba language can take is arguably something I’d call the DOUBLE-WORD FORMAT. Omo jati jati, Olori gbagun gbagun, etc. These are generally adjectives and the best guess one could take as to their repetitive nature is that it serves the purpose of emphasis. Omo jati jati would be used to refer to an 'irredeemably useless child' and Olori gbagun gbagun refers to someone with a 'horribly shaped head' (definitely not something I’d wish to be called). Eleyin jaga jaga would mean "scattered teeth". Definitely, the double-word format adds more venom to the insult. The "double-word" keeps ringing in the ears of the victim, resulting in longer lasting damage to the ego. "Jati jati", "gbagun gbagun ". I may or may not be writing from experience.
The Yoruba are so adept at verbal abuse that their language simply allows them to conjure stinging expressions right on the spot. Yes, words that never really existed in the Yoruba vocabulary. What's more astonishing is the fact that the victim being Yoruba also immediately gets it! How else could one explain expressions like "elete shipiti", "onimu gonfia", "oloju kpaiko" ati bee bee lo (and so on). "Elete shipiti" would be in reference to someone with enormous lips. "Onimu gonfia" was a personal attack on me, by my Yoruba translator in the course of writing this very piece and I'd assume it was in reference to the generous size of my nose. "Gonfia", "shipiti" and the rest are not words with meanings of their own but when preceded by words like "onimu", "elete", "olori" one immediately gets the import.
How else can you be Yoruba if you don’t have that bestie/ group of friends you cuss out? For situations like those, there’s the FRIENDLY VERBAL ABUSE. Omo werey or just werey, Omo ale, etcetera. "Omo werey / werey" = mad person, "Omo ale" = Bastard. Those are terms of endearment and can be used with people one is fond of and would elicit a response of similar nature- if indeed the person(s) is/are fond of you too. It’s just the beauty of the language. "Omo werey" being a personal favourite. Worthy of note though is the fact that if the recipient of the insult isn’t that fond of you, you might just get yourself into a mess-one that might not get cleared up till you’ve both exhausted your arsenal of verbal assailants.
On a regular, normal, everyday-like trip back home, I witnessed a vehicle almost hit a Yoruba man. Of course, the right thing to do was to stick around for a chance to listen to the finest of verbal attacks showered with so much skill, the rain clouds get envious. "Aye e ma be legbe". That was the response. Brutal. Wicked. Sharp. "Your life would be punctured by the side". Albeit a very literal way to translate this particular masterpiece, hence it probably doesn’t retain the full impact in English. Trust, it does make deadly sense in Yoruba. Still, even I have questions. Why does the puncture have to take place by the side? Why puncture at all? This is what I’d refer to as the COMPOUND FORMAT. This is the ultimate. One with a mastery of this form of insult is a living legend. In several Yoruba movies, women have put men to flight with the most caustic of these type of verbal attacks. "Elenu tibolo tibolo bi enu aja". This is a scary one to translate, it consists of the double word format, the INVENTED ON THE SPOT FORMAT and hence is a compound - very compound, in fact - kind of insult. It’s essentially comparing the victim’s mouth to that of a dog. Only not as brilliant, deadly and ego-shattering in English language as the Yoruba language makes it.
Every parent who loves their child(ren) corrects them. Yoruba parents are no exception, in fact if correction was a measure of parental love, Yoruba parents love their children the most. Yoruba parents however, know not how to correct without prefixing it with an insult. "Olodo go do your homework", "Obun clean your room", "Ode don’t soil your clothes". For parents who love their children more and therefore want their concoction of correction and insult to register better we have; "Apoda don’t fall down there o", "Didirin why would you fail English!". Of course the insulting prefix is what matters and they can be used with different kinds of corrective expressions. Also, since correction doesn’t necessarily have to be from parent to child but could come from a wide array of sources to a similarly wide range of recipients these insults could also apply. Oponu would mean an idiot or a daft person, Didirin too has a similar meaning and would be used for a person with low mental faculties, Apoda is akin to being called a retard in English, Olodo represents a slow, dull person especially one with academic challenges, Obun is used to refer to someone whose hygiene is awful, Ode simply would mean 'stupid’. These are insulting words which prefix corrective expressions and therefore I’d call them CORRECTIVE INSULTS.
The beauty of this subject lies in the fact that there simply is no conclusion to the study of it. Somewhere, somehow, right now a Yoruba person is conjuring a hellish storm of verbal missiles with which they’d annihilate the victim’s continued interest in existence or at least existence in their own skin. By methods and techniques only the Yoruba know, this practice has remained inviolable and no doubt as the language keeps evolving so would it’s repertoire of types and forms of verbal missiles expand to encompass new expressions - speedily so too! One can only hope for some amazing Yoruba person to interest themselves in the documentation of this superior form of art. Hope you had fun reading this, Omo werey!
NOTE: My Yoruba translator was my Mom.
