Akata?

Food4tot,

You must be pulling my leg! That is great news! 

So now that we know that Nigerians may have some concept of what Blackskin means.

It shouldn't be that hard to teach them the word ''American''.

After they learn the word ''American'', then they can be taught to put the two together:

Adulawo American.

Black American.

It must be the word American that is confusing Nigerians and the reason they need to say Akata.

I think we should start teaching Nigerians right away that somebody named Columbus discovered some land over here and now it is called America.

And in America they have a tribe of people called Adulawo.

So these people call themselves Adulawo Americans.

And they like being called Adulawo Americans.

They think you should respect what they call themselves and learn the word.

And imagine, some Nigerians have been known to be upset if you do not pronounce their long names correctly.

I am sure that Nigerians in Africa once learning about the land on the otherside of the world, would understand why Adulawo Americans prefer to be called by their name and not some slang word for them.

Who would have thunk it?

  bluenubian, you should get spanked for that statement you made.

Before you go on reading meaning to my next comment please note that the meaning of a word gets lost over time. But you keep refering to people using what you knew about them.

PLEASE, IT IS NOT A DEROGATIVE WORD, NEVER WAS.

The news people in africa heard was that the slaves were not taken away for any form of punishment or sacrifice but they were in fact taken away to work on farms.

Hence the Yoruba word A ka ata; meaning someone who plucks pepper.

A (someone who)
Ka: pluck
Ata: Pepper

Which could literally mean, "pepper plucker"

This is not meant to be derogatory, people are known by their profession.

A student is "Akeko" someone who learns culture. or to make more sense the direct translation should be "culture learner".

This doesn't mean that every word that starts with "a" has something to do with profession or vise versa.

Just as you have "er"/"or" in english you also have "a"/"o" in Yoruba.
A teacher is "oluko" meaning, someone who teaches.

"Olu" means someone who ,  Hence, words like OLUKUMI -pronounced LUKUMI (someone who is my kind). This is getting complicated "O" is the main thing, what comes after it e.g. "lu" as in the case of "OLU" is dependent on the word that comes after it. e.g. A word of insult like the english word Stupid Bastard is "Oloriburuku"  O="Someone who" Ori="Head" Bad="Buruku"
Gosh!! it gets even more complicated, I give up.

@food4tot
u remind me of my yoruba teacher that made me pay 1 naira evry time i spoke english in his class.

he was a dwarf little person

food4tot,


Come now. I am well aware that even Nigerians are ignorant of what Yoruba words mean.

But surely you know that Akata refers to a littel animal that lives in Sugar cane fields and eats sugar cane.

It is more or less a proper name, it is not divisible in the way that you have just divided it.

Akata is one indivisible word, like Marie or Thomas.

Any African American who hears somebody calling them an Akata, should have the exact reaction Hero did and cuss the person out.

Better yet, pull out a roll of toilet paper and offer to send it to Nigeria for their mama to learn of this new toilet paper technology.

It's an insult. Why play?

That's what I thought.   

Yoruba can be a very complex language, some words sometimes get abbreviated to the extent that you loose recognition of its origin.

SEUN means (Done something)

but the message you are passing across is I acknowledge that you've done something

IN SIMPLE TERMS, THAT IS THANK YOU !!!

people simply interpret "SEUN" as "THANKS"

You are welcome,

But simply saying seun is not grammatically right. It goes to show that I'm a bad teacher.

It makes better sense when it is OSEUN or OSE

the "s" is pronounced "sh"

In this case, "o" is different from the preceeding "o" in OLUWASEUN. It carries a different meaning. In this case it means : YOU

OSE: YOU HAVE DONE IT!
OSEUN: YOU HAVE DONE SOMETHING!

OSE is more commonly used and it simply means THANK YOU

Drusilla, I lost you hereniggardly is an actually word that is widely known to mean "provided in meanly limited supply".

"Niggardly is a word synonymous with stingy and miserly, and a niggard (noun) is a miser. They are both derived from the Old Norse verb nigla, meaning "to fuss about small matters". (The English word "niggle" retains the original Norse meaning.)"

"The Howard incident led to a national debate in the US., in the context of racial sensitivity and political correctness, on whether use of the word niggardly should be avoided because of its potential association with the extremely pejorative racial slur nigger, despite the entirely separate and unrelated etymologies of the two words ("nigger" derives from niger, the Latin for "black")."

It has no relation to the word "niger". So, again, I will not be ruled by another's ignorance in respect to this word.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niggardly
http://m-w.com/dictionary/niggardly

Well, I know it means FOREIGNER but more often, it means AFRICAN AMERICAN. As per origin, I have given you the piece I know.

I am willing to change my view if you give me a better explanation to the word "akata"

NOPE, not you. My comment is directed to NIA and indirectly to Drusilla. Just to let them know I am open to a different explanation.

Foof4tot,

Ose! 

Er, is there some sort of Yoruba/English dictionary you're consulting?

Chinani,


That is a simple yet profound statement.

Say no more. I understand exactly what happenned now.

Have a good day.

So you are spouting gibberish now that your logic fails to hold water? With people like you who can not answer simple questions and triumph in taking comments out of context it is no wonder you are so easily offended. . .

Hero,

Dat's jus wrong.