One of the most impressive thing about the Yoruba language is it's scientific nature. It has the ability to validate scientific inputs if new finding is linguistically correct or accurate.

Last time I tried to establish "ro', it led me to discover ancient Yoruba understanding of the water cycle. Something like it is also in the offing: the Yoruba language is scientific.

A scientific language is a thinking language. "Ìwò", which is a variant of ewo is the direct opposite of the subject matter. Assume where Ewo means "entry barred", Iwo would mean "entry".

Oduduwa Atewonro

Now in ancient Yoruba, ewon is not the same as prison, instead it's a chain. A good instance is the case of Paul and Silas. They were chained and thrown in jail, but the fetters became straws, or broke up like straw.

Exactly what it means that Oduduwa a te ewo/ewon ro. To be imprisoned in ancient times, you are first tied, then thrown to the prison. That's breaking the law and facing the justice. The law is E-wo, the justice system is E-won. That's how claims agrees to make fact.

E wo is identical with ko-wo or "ko boju mu", or "ko sun won". Ko sun won means "ko sun iwon". Meaning it doesn't sleep on the zero degree of the standard. Both ewo and ewon were legal terms. E-wo is deep rooted in Yoruba antiquity, likewise E-won.

E wo is the penal code. If you break the penal code, you will stand before the scale where your actions will be measured. Won is to go through trial, metaphorically. As such, the first stage is to break E-wo, then face E-won.

In order words, won is identical with scale or the rule of law, something that cannot be compromised. E wo is akin to an ancient agreement or a primitive form of constitution, it was established by one ancient Yoruba ancestor known as Orisa, hence it's said "E-wo Orisa".

Won in Yoruba can mean break, it's a case where something metallic with a handle break off from the point it's sold to the body. In that sense, we can say "owo ajiga yen ti won" meaning, the handle of the bucket is broken.

The other sense of won is to be expensive, because when place on scale, the mass becomes "massive" or "grossly" and "costly" by implication. Won is to tilt the measurements upward in a scale against the standard.

Iwon is to drag down the balance against the standard, as if the count of the crime will be read against the degree displaced by each count of whatever represent the weight of the crime dropped in the weighing cup against the standard. The standard will be point zero degree

Ìwò As Hook

In Yoruba, the word Iwo also stands for "hook". As a result, the sensibility of this meaning is that it's the "entry" point that the fish swallows. It is what "enter" into the fishes mouth.

Observe how this is used in a proverb: "mofinu wenu, mo jewo" (I took every motive as mine and ate the poison) here, the speaker had a friendly disposition to all, believing everyone who are in his life were good friends, he ended up being poisoned.

The poison here is not majele but iwo, which is a killer-hook disguised as treat from a friend (an enemy pretending to be a friend). The unsuspecting victim ate the Iwo only to realize his mistake at the point of death.

Majele is quite different from Iwo: majele kills instantly, it is majele because the person who eat it won't eat another. But Iwo incapacitate the victim and make him a captive to the adversary. As such, the difference is clear.

Iwo As Question Mark

Then there's something about the shape of the hook, it looks like question mark. Question mark looks like "iko". Iko is prefix in "ikoti" a weapon ascribed to the Ota, possibly a variation of ele in [Iganmode a]fele ja.

Now let's look at this together, when the Yoruba says "nko", it's a question, a different form of "question" is "abi", "ibere" or "ibini". A dialectic variation is Ijesha's "siko" and another, "wo" among the Awori.

Then if you grew up before the millennium, we used to say "asko o" and make a sign of the hand with it. It equally looks like the question mark or sickle. All these reminisces the question mark.

Iko, curve, sickle, siko, asko, wo, bend. This is not the only place you have sometthing like that, the phenomenon abounds. The harrower looks like number seven, it is called akoro in Yoruba, meaning "dash and slant": a~ that which, ko~ hook up, ro~ bend.

absoluteSuccess:
Osuwon: The meeting point

Justice is Osuwon in the sense that, it is the balance of deed. Do the crime, serve the term. So, the Yoruba would say "Osuwon e kotii kun" (your cup is yet to be filled) to mean, you are still enjoying the time of grace.

This is an evidence that the metaphor derived from a justice system accurately depicted by today's judicial system with an image holding an ancient scale in one hand and sword in the other hand.

This justice system is not alien to the ancient Yoruba. It existed somewhere in Yoruba history. In fact, it's exactly this same scenario that Jesus was alluding to, when he answered the mother of Zebedee.

"If they were able to drink from the cup that I will drink from" or when he prayed at the garden of Gethsemane, that "if this cup will pass over me, but thy will be done". The cup is figurative of trial, or the scale cup.

Ofin: rule
Olofin: ruler
Arufin: defaulter
Afin: Court
Aafin: Yoruba palace.

Sewon: to be wanting before the scale; 'Se' inequity, not measured up to, "not fit in". Ese, excess, a degree of want against the scale when the item that is equivalent of the crime is dropped in the measuring cup.

Wò As Content ~ With Won As Context

Another angle is wò, to enter. This is the angle that implies "content". Here, Iwo is what goes inside a container. Iwo is the unit of item that goes into the container, while iwon is the total number of items that the container can take or the "volume" of the container itself.

At the end, iwo is like the inbound item and the container used to do the measurements is iwon. Therefore, Iwo and E-won technically describe relationship between "inbound" and "inlet".

The difference is that Iwo could be a thing or many things, at which point Iwo becomes iwon: in the same vein, iwonba thus means "a moderate measure". Moderate is "iba" in this combination, and also moderate is a function of quantity.

Iwon is therefore a measure of quantity. Won is the scalar calibration of measurements that a container can carry. This is not immediately visible linguistically. Compare the sentence "E won De Rica rice meji" meaning, "measure 2 derica of rice".

Won in Yoruba language is measurements of all kinds. As a result, E-won is not actually prison in "the prison", but the "measure of term" that the convict will serve. Iwo is to initiate the measurements by commiting a crime, whereby, ewo is the inertia.

Now let's look at Iwo as meaning "entry": it's this clear that Iwo is nesting, which if apply to a human being would mean solitary confinement. Iwo is therefore to enter into (trouble) legal wise, hence it's said "o ti wo gau".

Iwo and ewon are thus composite ancient legal terms. Iwo is the content, while iwon is the context in which the content is served. Iwo is the content, iwon is the volume of content to a container.

On the other hand, Ewo is "the deterrent" that negates iwo, while owo is the "immunity" that prevents someone from becoming a victim of the law, as Oluwo. In extension, owo is divine immunity against accident, attacks from criminal elements or malevolence forces.

Now if you are painstakingly tracking Yoruba language and it's semantics, given that you are accurate in your work, then provident will guide you on. Note where I claimed "won" means "break" of an iron?

The reward

There are 16 ancient chapters of Ifa, each is coined from words derived from recess of classic events in ancient Yoruba history. For instance, the sixth chapter of Ifa is named "owonrin meji". The question is, what is owonrin?

Well it's a good piece of clause. However, owonrin has fascinated our fathers of old and priests of ancient Yoruba who have tried to interpret the clause with anecdotes to be found in Ifa.

One of such systematically interpret owonrin in half as "scarcity". But going by the sense of the phrase, owonrin doesn't have anything to do with scarcity.

Rather, owonrin simply implies "iron breaker". That's a phrase that has been formed from the ancient Yoruba idea of divine justice, a strong hero that cannot be shackled in iron or imprisonment.

Now, going by this discovery, the thought that a shackle breaker tradition exist in Yoruba of old validate my claim on ateworo.

absoluteSuccess:
Oduduwa Atewonro

Now in ancient Yoruba, ewon is not the same as prison, instead it's a chain. A good instance is the case of Paul and Silas. They were chained and thrown in jail, but the fetters became straws, or broke up like straw.

Exactly what it means that Oduduwa a te ewo/ewon ro. To be imprisoned in ancient times, you are first tied, then thrown to the prison. That's breaking the law and facing the justice. The law is E-wo, the justice system is E-won. That's how claims agrees to make fact.

E wo is identical with ko-wo or "ko boju mu", or "ko sun won". Ko sun won means "ko sun iwon". Meaning it doesn't sleep on the zero degree of the standard. Both ewo and ewon were legal terms. E-wo is deep rooted in Yoruba antiquity, likewise E-won.

E wo is the penal code. If you break the penal code, you will stand before the scale where your actions will be measured. Won is to go through trial, metaphorically. As such, the first stage is to break E-wo, then face E-won.

In order words, won is identical with scale or the rule of law, something that cannot be compromised. E wo is akin to an ancient agreement or a primitive form of constitution, it was established by one ancient Yoruba ancestor known as Orisa, hence it's said "E-wo Orisa".

Won in Yoruba can mean break, it's a case where something metallic with a handle break off from the point it's sold to the body. In that sense, we can say "owo ajiga yen ti won" meaning, the handle of the bucket is broken.

The other sense of won is to be expensive, because when place on scale, the mass becomes "massive" or "grossly" and "costly" by implication. Won is to tilt the measurements upward in a scale against the standard.

Iwon is to drag down the balance against the standard, as if the count of the crime will be read against the degree displaced by each count of whatever represent the weight of the crime dropped in the weighing cup against the standard. The standard will be point zero degree

The bolded is the context from where the phrase owonrin was coined. The verb is almost obsolete.

Won as "break" is the source code for Owonrin, combined with irin, Yoruba for iron. The phrase became an entry in Ifa as of old.

The priests of old could not break the phrase because the source of the phrase has to be known before it can be decrypted.

Back in basic chemistry, we were told that the elements that occupied the 8th column of the periodic table are Noble gases, because they don't take electron or discharge electron.

Noble~owo, honor.

Inert, at the point of rest. A body will continue at a point of rest or on constant motion. That is the inert state of every body in existence. Any disturbance on this order is the inertia.

absoluteSuccess:



Wò As Content ~ With Won As Context

Another angle is wò, to enter. This is the angle that implies "content". Here, Iwo is what goes inside a container. Iwo is the unit of item that goes into the container, while iwon is the total number of items that the container can take or the "volume" of the container itself.

At the end, iwo is like the inbound item and the container used to do the measurements is iwon. Therefore, Iwo and E-won technically describe relationship between "inbound" and "inlet".

The difference is that Iwo could be a thing or many things, at which point Iwo becomes iwon: in the same vein, iwonba thus means "a moderate measure". Moderate is "iba" in this combination, and also moderate is a function of quantity.

Iwon is therefore a measure of quantity. Won is the scalar calibration of measurements that a container can carry. This is not immediately visible linguistically. Compare the sentence "E won De Rica rice meji" meaning, "measure 2 derica of rice".

Won in Yoruba language is measurements of all kinds. As a result, E-won is not actually prison in "the prison", but the "measure of term" that the convict will serve. Iwo is to initiate the measurements by commiting a crime, whereby, ewo is the inertia.

Now let's look at Iwo as meaning "entry": it's this clear that Iwo is nesting, which if apply to a human being would mean solitary confinement. Iwo is therefore to enter into (trouble) legal wise, hence it's said "o ti wo gau".

Iwo and ewon are thus composite ancient legal terms. Iwo is the content, while iwon is the context in which the content is served. Iwo is the content, iwon is the volume of content to a container.

On the other hand, Ewo is "the deterrent" that negates iwo, while owo is the "immunity" that prevents someone from becoming a victim of the law, as Oluwo. In extension, owo is divine immunity against accident, attacks from criminal elements or malevolence forces.

Now if you are painstakingly tracking Yoruba language and it's semantics, given that you are accurate in your work, then provident will guide you on. Note where I claimed "won" means "break" of an iron?

Good day bro! Mo yo fun e, mo yo fun ara mi!

When I try to stay away from here you always deploy something to return me. . Not that I complain. Reading you is a mental therapy. . God continue to bless and make your ways easy and profitable.

In networking technology there is a function called packet sniffing. You have billions of packets going through a tunnel and you are looking for a particular data stream. To find it you do what is called "tcp dump". It is a filtering process to deep dive and extract what you need from the multitude. Another way I will explain it is taking a chaotic information, descramble it, then reassemble it, and recompose before presenting in a new format where it is clear to an audience. In its original form it is useless to the audience. As the agent of clarity you have produced value, and an outcome.

I see your "dump" as exactly that function of value and outcome. Once more, may the Almighty bless you all days of your life.


Coming to this subject, I cannot dispute all you wrote here and generally in the series. I have always viewed "wo" as a threshold. That point where input and outcomes tilt one way or another. A line of equity as you said....or balance as you illustrated with the symbol of Lady Liberty and her scales.

"wo" is the function of DOs and DONTs. It is the rulebook of social interaction and balance in the total ecology of living and non-living.

I mentioned in one of our earlier lengthy threads that AWO is the Yoruba equivalent of LAW in English. In which case, Babalawo is Lady Liberty, overseeing the threshold of DOs and DONTs.

I will shut up here. You have done a fantsastic job highlighting this subject. I love you man!

MetaPhysical:


Good day bro! Mo yo fun e, mo yo fun ara mi!

When I try to stay away from here you always deploy something to return me. . Not that I complain. Reading you is a mental therapy. . God continue to bless and make your ways easy and profitable.

In networking technology there is a function called packet sniffing. You have billions of packets going through a tunnel and you are looking for a particular data stream. To find it you do what is called "tcp dump". It is a filtering process to deep dive and extract what you need from the multitude. Another way I will explain it is taking a chaotic information, descramble it, then reassemble it, and recompose before presenting in a new format where it is clear to an audience. In its original form it is useless to the audience. As the agent of clarity you have produced value, and an outcome.

The fact that the Yoruba language is adaptable to scientific principles and technicalities of engineering, pure and applied sciences beat my understanding. Hence interacting with them from the cellular level is crucial.

It's not patronizing my language but trying to find out more and analyze 'yet to be identified secrets' in each terminology of interest. Each of the word of knowledge push us forward in knowledge.

I see your "dump" as exactly that function of value and outcome. Once more, may the Almighty bless you all days of your life.


Coming to this subject, I cannot dispute all you wrote here and generally in the series. I have always viewed "wo" as a threshold. That point where input and outcomes tilt one way or another. A line of equity as you said....or balance as you illustrated with the symbol of Lady Liberty and her scales.

"wo" is the function of DOs and DONTs. It is the rulebook of social interaction and balance in the total ecology of living and non-living.

I mentioned in one of our earlier lengthy threads that AWO is the Yoruba equivalent of LAW in English. In which case, Babalawo is Lady Liberty, overseeing the threshold of DOs and DONTs.

I will shut up here. You have done a fantsastic job highlighting this subject. I love you man!

Amen and amen to your prayers boss.

Inu mi dun lati ka atejade yin. I'm so delighted reading your post yesterday on the Farooq Kperogi Yoruba Larubawa names. With people like you, I believe I've not worked in vain, we're the keepers of the precious remnants of an ancient time, possibly time travellers we are.

You see, each time you drop a word, it's like a peep into the foundational oracle. In line with your thoughts, I recently stumbled on the meaning to the obsolete English word, "saw". It means "so", which is Yoruba for say.

Say was "saw" in ancient English. Now let's look at awo. The closest sound in English to this is cow. The next question is, what relationship exist here? Cow is also known as kine. In Yoruba, Awo uses Ikin to divine.

Wò, the predominant morpheme in this business is the "reading aid", but the "reading" in this sense is "seeing the invisible". The invisible is "the verbal recitation" that determine what is cast upon the opon Ifa.

The invisible are relics from many broken pieces of the law made into oral records. The babalawo as you said were the lawyers of old. Awo, cow; heifa, Ifa; Ikin, kine. From this linguistic metamorphosis comes the word "alphabet".

Alpha is "inverted cow head", beta is "house", etc. The mystery comes from the fact that "writing" won't have been originally intended for "education", but some form of oracular or temple practice that eventually survived their original use.

The priests were the "professors" who have the knowledge of this divining (reading) and were in extension the custodians of the law. Ifa is perpetuated in Yoruba language as evidence of the writing culture coming before the oral version of Ifa.

In that sense the art of divining of the Yoruba is a shift that tries to retain it's original sense in a different clime and practice in incognito. Here, idibo replace the word for making a scroll or "tying up the covered" literally.

Idibo is divining. Originally, what is it that was idi (tied) and bo (covered)? Scrolls. So, divining is consulting "idibo". Ifa is more like a figurative word equivalent to "letters" as meaning "record", like Paul said "letter killeth" or we say "man of letters", or Solomon says "much learning is wearisome to the soul".

By this token, Ifa was the book of letters that the original verses of Ifa were written. It was lost at some point where the culture could not be sustained by the emigrants to the forest, and the fathers made a replacement with the present canticles. Ifa is thus an oral scripture.

Education, derived from Latin for training. Etymology, e~ducere: e (out) ducere (draw, to lead). Where education means "drawn out".

Odu Ifa

What is Odu in Yoruba? I don't know, but Ifa agreed with "drawn out" or as you would say, bami gbe ifami wa (fetch me the water drawer) from this we understand Ifa as "drawer".

We're far below the level of linguituc and spiritual intelligence of our progenitors, we've only achieved material advancement that comes with population growth and development foster by global peace and trade.

The content is Odu, while the context is Ifa. You may not know what an Odu says, but you know it's Ifa they were talking about when we say babalawo.

absoluteSuccess:
Ìwò As Hook

In Yoruba, the word Iwo also stands for "hook". As a result, the sensibility of this meaning is that it's the "entry" point that the fish swallows. It is what "enter" into the fishes mouth.

Observe how this is used in a proverb: "mofinu wenu, mo jewo" (I took every motive as mine and ate the poison) here, the speaker had a friendly disposition to all, believing everyone who are in his life were good friends, he ended up being poisoned.

The poison here is not majele but iwo, which is a killer-hook disguised as treat from a friend (an enemy pretending to be a friend). The unsuspecting victim ate the Iwo only to realize his mistake at the point of death.

Majele is quite different from Iwo: majele kills instantly, it is majele because the person who eat it won't eat another. But Iwo incapacitate the victim and make him a captive to the adversary. As such, the difference is clear.

The wicked are wicked by nature.

RIP man.

Always be safety and security conscious.

https://www.nairaland.com/7842897/mohbad-something-added-water-ndlea#up

Won is cut, as you won, you cut part of a bulk to yourself. In another sense of the word, Owon is to be far away from the place or person who wants you. Therefore, o-won means "missed" or wanting in presence, that is, absence but desired in presence. This has to do with the shade of love or affection. But that's not all of it.

Lets say "I want [to buy] grains", in Yoruba. That would be "mo fe [won] yere". Won would be to "measure", but more aptly, to weigh. The moment you buy the grain, it becomes part of your body-mass "on the move". So, you "weigh" the grain. This makes "won" a shift from a mass (storage) to another mass (stock). In a technical sense of the word, won is still in sync with cut-out of substance from a source to a destination.

This scientific consistency shows that the smallest sonic atom of the Yoruba word follow a scientific sequence that cannot be broken in meaning, except its misunderstood. By implication, an error of interpretation can only happen in dealing with a given Yoruba word, but not at its conception level. this brings us to the fact that a very strong sort of knowledge and knowledgeable people invented or device the Yoruba language.

Won, (sprinkle) is another shade of the word in our consideration. We either sprinkle salt or water on anything of our interest: "wonmi si" (sprinkle water on it); "wonyo si" (sprinkle salt on it). The very act of sprinkling is bulk-breaking. You take "a" from "A" and reduce to "a++".

That is, you take a lump or handful of a desired substance and "sprinkle", or break same into granular sizes of dispersed grains on another surface. Compare with won (weigh), won (sprinkle) is also a scalar function, a droplet-measure of substance in liquid or granular state.

won: measure, weigh.
won: sprinkle.

Sprinkle is a measure that can be weighed in spite of its minuscule size. For instance, a pint of salt or a droplet of water is measurable. The Yoruba language in extension is capable of describing cellular-unit of a matter.

Kekere: ike-ikere, small of the small.
Omolekun: omo-le-kun - content of a unit cell.
Kinkinni: kin-ni-ikin-ni, least of the least: the smallest possible form or measure of a given matter.

'kin' is Yoruba for the click sound, its the mental-metric of "the least audible sound possible", such that whatever makes the sound is the last visible matter thought possible: So the word can be reduced to its morphemes: kin (pin-sound-size) ni (at) ikin (period) ni (first). This describes something hardly visible at first appearance, an object at microscopic level.

kekere; kenkele, kinkin; kinkinni.

Meanings give birth to Yoruba words, not the other way round. Therefore, words and their interpretation is the forth of Yoruba language.

absoluteSuccess:
The reward

There are 16 ancient chapters of Ifa, each is coined from words derived from recess of classic events in ancient Yoruba history. For instance, the sixth chapter of Ifa is named "owonrin meji". The question is, what is owonrin?

Well it's a good piece of clause. However, owonrin has fascinated our fathers of old and priests of ancient Yoruba who have tried to interpret the clause with anecdotes to be found in Ifa.

One of such systematically interpret owonrin in half as "scarcity". But going by the sense of the phrase, owonrin doesn't have anything to do with scarcity.

Rather, owonrin simply implies "iron breaker". That's a phrase that has been formed from the ancient Yoruba idea of divine justice, a strong hero that cannot be shackled in iron or imprisonment.

Now, going by this discovery, the thought that a shackle breaker tradition exist in Yoruba of old validate my claim on ateworo.



The bolded is the context from where the phrase owonrin was coined. The verb is almost obsolete.

Won as "break" is the source code for Owonrin, combined with irin, Yoruba for iron. The phrase became an entry in Ifa as of old.

The priests of old could not break the phrase because the source of the phrase has to be known before it can be decrypted.

Great effort though seeing your zeal to always inform. But, Owonrin, is more of letting the past be for a solidifying the present and things to come.

My widow's might

Olu317:
Great effort though seeing your zeal to always inform. But, Owonrin, is more of letting the past be for a solidifying the present and things to come.

My widow's might

Thanks for the widow's mite dear brother, I really appreciate it. One man can't claim monopoly of knowledge.

As to what the philosophical connotation of Owonrin means, I can't claim to know it all and there are tens of poetry under this title in Ifa, being one of its major entries. Tradition would say Orunmila knows it all.

However, my take is 'etymology' (Itunmo oro), which is the meaning of a word that is found in the grammar of a language. This has absolute nothing to do with oral traditions as its a branch of knowledge on its own.