I ye nɛgɛnnin ta "gengele"! I y'à bila "gengele"! À tɛna dɔ wɛrɛ fɔ nɛgɛninkan kɔ!

Dictionary / Dictionnaire Proverbs
1

Proverb:
I ye nɛgɛnnin ta gengele! I y’à bila gengele! À tɛna dɔ wɛrɛ fɔ nɛgɛninkan kɔ!

Literal Translation:
You took (a piece of) metal “gling”! You abandoned it “gling”! It will not make any other noise than that of (a piece of) metal!

Meaning:
Some things will never change!

Notes:

Alternative Form(s):
N’i ye nɛgɛ ta gangala, n’i y’à bila gangala, à tɛ dɔ wɛrɛ fɔ ni nɛgɛkan tɛ.

2

For the meaning, do you mean “such a thing” or “such a person” or “such a whatever” – that is, the expression is a bit like “Some things never change” and applied to specific person or thing?

3

I have only ever used it once… a few years back… and I applied it more so as “Old habits die hard.”

To answer your question, “such a person”… but more like “Some people never change” and more specifically, “You’ll never change”. :woman_shrugging:t5: lol! I don’t know if my application of it was technically incorrect? But it sure made the impact in the way that I applied it! :slightly_smiling_face:

I got it out of the Bamadaba. So, maybe it can be better understood and/or edited from there?

PS - I don’t understand French, so my information from the Bamadaba is always going through an automatic translator.

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4

This is also said:

N’i ye nɛgɛ ta gangala, n’i y’à bila gangala, à tɛ dɔ wɛrɛ fɔ ni nɛgɛkan tɛ.

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Hi Adama! Thanks for chiming in. I’ve added your alternative form of the proverb to the original post :slight_smile: Next time, you can edit it on your own (because the top post is a wiki post) – just make sure to use proper spelling and formatting!