proverb

The tradition & historical record

A proverb (from Latin: proverbium) or an adage is a simple, traditional saying that expresses a perceived truth based on common sense or experience. Proverbs are often metaphorical and are an example of formulaic language. A proverbial phrase or a proverbial expression is a type of a conventional saying similar to proverbs and transmitted by oral tradition. The difference is that a proverb is a fixed expression, while a proverbial phrase permits alterations to fit the grammar of the context. Collectively, they form a genre of folklore. Some proverbs exist in more than one language because people borrow them from languages and cultures with which they are in contact. In the West, the Bible (including, but not limited to the Book of Proverbs) and medieval Latin (aided by the work of Erasmus) have played a considerable role in distributing proverbs. Not all Biblical proverbs, however, were distributed to the same extent: one scholar has gathered evidence to show that cultures in which the Bible is the major spiritual book contain "between three hundred and five hundred proverbs that stem from the Bible", whereas another shows that, of the 106 most common and widespread proverbs across Europe, 11 are from the Bible. However, almost every culture has its own unique proverbs. ¹

Lord John Russell (c. 1850) observed poetically that a "proverb is the wit of one, and the wisdom of many". But giving the word "proverb" the sort of definition theorists need has proven to be a difficult task, and although scholars often quote Archer Taylor's argument that formulating a scientific "definition of a proverb is too difficult to repay the undertaking... An incommunicable quality tells us this sentence is proverbial and that one is not. Hence no definition will enable us to identify positively a sentence as proverbial", many students of proverbs have attempted to itemize their essential characteristics. More constructively, Wolfgang Mieder has proposed the following definition: "A proverb is a short, generally known sentence of the folk which contains wisdom, truth, morals, and traditional views in a metaphorical, fixed, and memorizable form and which is handed down from generation to generation." To distinguish proverbs from idioms, cliches, etc., Norrick created a table of distinctive features, an abstract tool originally developed for linguistics. Prahlad distinguishes proverbs from some other, closely related types of sayings: "True proverbs must further be distinguished from other types of proverbial speech, e.g. ¹

A dog is a man's best friend All that glitters is not gold A little learning is a dangerous thing A rolling stone gathers no moss A stitch in time saves nine An apple a day keeps the doctor away Don't cross the bridge until you come to it Don't count your chickens before they hatch Don't put all your eggs in one basket Fortune favours the bold Garbage in, garbage out Haste makes waste If the shoe fits, wear it Ignorance is bliss It ain't over till the fat lady sings If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog The early bird gets the worm The enemy of my enemy is my friend Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones With great power comes great responsibility You can't have your cake and eat it Your mileage may vary ¹

Interpreting proverbs is often complex, but is best done in a context. Interpreting proverbs from other cultures is much more difficult than interpreting proverbs in one's own culture. Even within English-speaking cultures, there is difference of opinion on how to interpret the proverb "A rolling stone gathers no moss." Some see it as condemning a person that keeps moving, seeing moss as a positive thing, such as profit; others see the proverb as praising people that keep moving and developing, seeing moss as a negative thing, such as negative habits. Similarly, among Tajik speakers, the proverb "One hand cannot clap" has two significantly different interpretations. Most see the proverb as promoting teamwork. Others understand it to mean that an argument requires two people. In an extreme example, one researcher working in Ghana found that for a single Akan proverb, twelve different interpretations were given. Proverb interpretation is not automatic, even for people within a culture: Owomoyela tells of a Yoruba radio program that asked people to interpret an unfamiliar Yoruba proverb, "very few people could do so". Siran found that people who had moved out of the traditional Vute-speaking area of Cameroon were not able to interpret Vute proverbs correctly, even though they still spoke Vute. Their interpretations tended to be literal. Children will sometimes interpret proverbs in a literal sense, not yet knowing how to understand the conventionalized metaphor. Interpretation of proverbs is also affected by injuries and diseases of the brain, "A hallmark of schizophrenia is impaired proverb interpretation." ¹

Proverbs in various languages are found with a wide variety of grammatical structures. In English, for example, we find the following structures (in addition to others): ¹

Imperative, negative – Don't beat a dead horse. Imperative, positive – If the shoe fits, wear it! Parallel phrases – Garbage in, garbage out. Rhetorical question – Is the Pope Catholic? Declarative sentence – Birds of a feather flock together. However, people will often quote only a fraction of a proverb to invoke an entire proverb, e.g. "All is fair" instead of "All is fair in love and war", and "A rolling stone" for "A rolling stone gathers no moss." The grammar of proverbs is not always the typical grammar of the spoken language. Elements are often moved around, to achieve rhyme or focus. Another type of grammatical construction is the wellerism, a speaker and a quotation, often with an unusual circumstance, such as the following, a representative of a wellerism proverb found in many languages: "The bride couldn't dance; she said, 'The room floor isn't flat.'" Another type of grammatical structure in proverbs is a short dialogue: ¹

Shor/Khkas (SW Siberia): "They asked the camel, 'Why is your neck crooked?' The camel laughed roaringly, 'What of me is straight?'" Armenian: "They asked the wine, 'Have you built or destroyed more?' It said, 'I do not know of building; of destroying I know a lot.'" Bakgatla (a.k.a. Tswana): "The thukhui jackal said, 'I can run fast.' But the sands said, 'We are wide.'" (Botswana) Bamana: "'Speech, what made you good?' 'The way I am,' said Speech. 'What made you bad?' 'The way I am,' said Speech." (Mali) ¹

Because many proverbs are both poetic and traditional, they are often passed down in fixed forms. Though spoken language may change, many proverbs are often preserved in conservative, even archaic, form. "Proverbs often contain archaic... ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Proverb”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

proverb is saying that gives advice, usually as a metaphor, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 50 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ²