Türkçe – Ifeoluwa Siddiq Oyelami

An Idiom is a group of words established by long usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words. Generally, the frequent, and proper use of idioms undoubtedly represents the eloquence and proficiency of a speaker. Idioms in a language are greatly influenced by the culture and environment of its speakers. Thus, like I have experienced, trying to pass a message with a language’s idiom in another language is difficult and sometimes embarrassing.

I have been able to pen down some mutual idioms in Turkish and Yoruba languages. To make reading easier, the items are stated in their literally English meaning which may make no sense or appear funny to someone who speaks none of the two languages.

Continue reading “Yorkish Episode 3: Mutual idioms in Yoruba and Turkish” →

The use of figurative statements, metaphors and similes (TR: benzetme YR: afiwe) is a long-established part of almost, if not all the world languages. While making this symbolization and representation, human liken each other to certain animals, in order to portray the fact that the one who is likened behaves or looks like the animal to which he or she is likened to. But then, human perceives situations differently, thus their representation culture is not always the same. In this episode, let’s see how animal metaphors are used in Yoruba and the Turkish languages. Which animal’s name represent what….

Continue reading “Yorkish Episode 2: Animal Metaphors in Yoruba and Turkish Language.” →