Proverb Monday

Proverb: ɔman rebεbɔ a, ɔmampam na ɔkuta poma.
Transliteration: When the nation is about to come to ruin, it is the monitor lizard which holds the staff.
Implication: There's a play on words here: "ɔman-pam" would mean "put together the nation". "ɔmam-pam" is the monitor lizard. Hence: only unity can save the nation.
My Understanding: The monitor lizard is known to be deaf hence, if it holds the staff (or becomes the linguists, as linguists hold the staff of the Chief/King and they repeat to the King whatever someone has said) then the Chief would hear nothing better and this would lead to the collapse of the nation. Perhaps it could also be that poor advisors leads to collapse of a nation.

Note: 'ɔ' as in 'fork' with a silent 'r' or as in 'mop'; 'ε' as in 'death', or as in 'bet', and 'e' as in 'it'.

Comments

  1. Geosi6 December 2010 at 13:51

    If I hadn't read your understanding of this proverb, the oman and omampam would have totally confused me. I'm learning more from here...lol!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Geosi6 December 2010 at 13:53

    And I'm really looking forward to your thoughts on Myne Whitman's book.

    ReplyDelete
  3. ImageNations6 December 2010 at 14:05

    @Geosi... lol. There is confusion somewhere within. Oman (with an 'n') is 'nation' so 'Oman-pam' is building a nation though 'pam' actually means 'sew'. lol.

    I have just posted it...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Geosi6 December 2010 at 14:18

    I see the post and reading it. hey! thanks for those explanations...very insightful.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Amy6 December 2010 at 14:30

    Another great and wise proverb!

    ReplyDelete
  6. ImageNations6 December 2010 at 14:46

    @Amy... thanks..lol

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Help Improve the Blog with a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

10. Unexpected Joy at Dawn: My Reading

Image
Title: Unexpected Joy At Dawn Author: Alex Agyei-Agyiri Genre: Novel Publisher: Sub-Saharan Publishers Pages: 331 Year: 2004 Country: Ghana Unexpected Joy at Dawn is a story of two siblings, Nii and Mama Orojo, during the 1983 deportation of Ghanaians from Nigeria under the Shehu Shagari government. Nii, who is a Nigerian by blood but a Ghanaian by birth, was left in Ghana by his parents as they made the tortuous journey to Nigeria when Ghana enacted the Aliens Compliance Order of 1969, which made every person living in Ghana without the required papers an alien. His name was changed to reflect the name of his adopted parents. After fourteen years of living in hardship in Ghana, which involves living in slums even though he was an Assistant Manager at a bank, taking on multiple jobs, not being able to bury a wife and being chased around by market women for purported 'fraud', he decided to go to Nigeria in search of his roots. Besides, he entertained the fears of being...
Read more

69. The Clothes of Nakedness by Benjamin Kwakye, A Review

Image
Title: The Clothes of Nakedness Author: Benjamin Kwakye Publishers: Heinemann African Writers Series Genre: Fiction/Novel/Class Pages: 212 Year of First Publication: 1998 Country: Ghana For the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Africa Region Winners Reading Challenge Benjamin Kwakye 's novel The Clothes of Nakedness  is a compelling narrative directed at a Ghanaian audience, in particular. It reveals the economic hardships existing in our society; it also reveals the intricately woven relationships between the rich and the poor and how the 'seemingly' rich manipulate the poor to further that wealth-dom in this dual economic society where absolute riches exist side by side with abject poverty. The latter scenario is even more stark and pathetic if one knows that Nima and Kanda Estates, two neighbourhoods presented in the story, are real and not just fictional representation made concrete by Kwakye's brilliant mind. The story revolves around thr...
Read more

42. The Blinkards by Kobina Sekyi

Image
Title: The Blinkards, A Comedy and The Anglo-Fanti - A Short Story Author: Kobina Sekyi Genre: Play/Short Story Pages: 256 Publishers: Heinemann/Readwide ISBN: 978-0-435-92784-4 Year of Publication: 1974 (this edition, 1997) Country: Gold Coast (Now Ghana) Setting:  This book contains two stories: The Blinkards - a play and The Anglo-Fanti - a short story . Though the stories are from two different genres, one theme threads through them: the effect of absolute cultural osmosis or better still the consequences of swallowing an alien culture without much scrutiny, as happened in occupied countries popularly referred to by the occupiers as colonies (colonies of what? Ants? Bees?) Both stories took place in Cape Coast and the setting is very significant to the story. Apart from the author being a Fanti from Cape Coast, Cape Coast was the first point of introduction to colonial rule. As a seaport city, it was the first town that was brought under colonial rule; hence ...
Read more