A friend corrected me on a proverb.

Ɔpanyin nni hwee koraa no, ɔwɔ abakyɛn.

Before I break this down and transliterate it, we used to say 'abatwɛ' or elbow, which I thought signified skills and strength.
But 'abakyɛn' makes more sense. 'Aba' means 'arrival'. So w'aba means you've arrived. 'Kyɛn' means 'more than'/'advantage'.

Thus 'abakyɛn' means 'early arrival', as in I arrived before you or I have the advantage of time.
Hence, the proverb means, if the elderly (ɔpanyin) has nothing at all (nni hwee koraa no), he has the advantage of being born early (ɔwɔ a abakyɛn).
But why is being born early an advantage? For that we need to know two things: when this proverb is used and the Akan's perception of time.

First, the Akan believe that time offers experience and experience increases with age.
So we say 'ɔpanyin na obi nnyɛ bi da, abofra de obiara ayɛ bi da' (it is adulthood that no one has ever been before, but not childhood. We've all been there).
This latter proverb has an implicit understanding of time being infinite, which therefore means that relatively we're all children and never adults because we can't reach the end of time to justify that title. We are just younger children or older children.
And moving on that continuum of time, we pick up experiences. And these experiences are meant to be shared with the next generation. Note that the African pass on wisdom, norms, values, beliefs, orally.
These experiences are used to raise children and with time they consolidate to become the values, beliefs, superstitions and norms we hold dear.

This brings us to the second question. When is this proverb used? It's mostly used when we are giving advice to a younger person.
It is said to let the young individual know that whatever he/she is going through, there are others (mostly older people) who have gone through it and so have the experience to weather those storms. So he/she should be humble and accept the advice being given.
This is why 'abatwɛ' isn't the right word because we all have elbows but someone you're older than today, can't be older than you tomorrow. 'Abakyɛn' is certainty.
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