Adiitu Olodumare by D.O Fagunwa (MBE): Figures of Speech in Yoruba Language
Adiitu Olodumare (Mystery of God) was probably the last book written by DO Fagunwa. It was published in 1961, just two years before his tragic death, in Bida, Niger State.
In this post, I want to focus on how Fagunwa, an accomplished master of the language used figures of speech in the very first paragraph of Adiitu Olodumare. I set out to do a review, but that will have to wait. Elsewhere, I wrote about the unusual length of paragraphs in Fagunwa’s books (read here).
In the first paragraph of Adiitu Olodumare, Fagunwa described a journey he took on a day when it rained heavily. To describe how heavy the rain was, he wrote “…se ni ojo nlu ilu le wa lo ri” (the rain was so heavy it was as if it was drumming on our car). This is the deployment of personification. Anybody who has ever experience a heavy rain in the South West of Nigeria will know precisely what he meant here.
In the same sentence, Fagunwa continued “…o n dun winniwinni bi omele ilu dundun” (the rain sounded like a particular Yoruba drum). If you have ever heard the sound of this drum, this simile will help you to paint a graphic picture of the event. Immediately after this, Fagunwa wrote: “bi a gbo gbururururu lapa otun, igbati o ba se, a gbo gbururururu lapa osi”. Here, he was describing the sound of the heavy rain using how it sounded, this is onomatopoeia. Another pair of onomatopoeia followed immediately (giriririri).
The next sentence used simile to compare the colour of the sky to a deep blue dye (o dudu bi aro). This was followed by “afi bi igbati Olodumare se iyefun fadaka, ti o nda sile lati oju orun”. Translated, this means it was as if God was pouring down silver dust from heaven. This for me is a metaphor, though I am not very sure, whatever the case, it is beautiful use of language. Another personification immediately followed when Fagunwa said the wiper wiping rain water off the windscreen became exhausted and gave up.
Fagunwa used hyperbole to give his readers a sense of the quantity of rain water on the road by saying that a boat can easily sail on the road due to the rain.
These many figures of speech in a passage that I estimated to have just 121 words and there are a few others that I left out. This is the beauty of the Yoruba language illustrated by the thoughts of an accomplished expert like Fagunwa.
it is up to the Yorubas to ensure this language doesn’t die. Sadly, we seem to prefer English to it.
