Proverb

A proverb (from the Latin proverbium) is a simple and concrete saying popularly known and reversed, which expresses a truth, based on common sense or the practical experience of humanity. They are often metaphorical. A proverb that describes a basic rule of conduct may also be known as a maxim. If a proverb is distinguished by particularly good phrasing, it may be known as an aphorism.

Proverbs are often borrowed from similar languages and cultures, and sometimes come down to the present through more than one language. Both the Bible (Book of Proverbs) and medieval Latin have played a considerable role in distributing proverbs across Western Europe and even further.

Paremiology

The study of proverbs is called paremiology (from Greek paremia = proverb) and can be dated back as far as Aristotle. Paremiography, on the other hand, is the collection of proverbs. Currently, the foremost proverb scholar in the United States is Wolfgang Mieder, who defines the term proverb as follows:

"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.” (Mieder 1985:119; also in Mieder 1993:24)

Subgenres include proverbial expressions (“to bite the dust”), proverbial comparisons (“as busy as a bee”), proverbial interrogatives (“Does a chicken have lips?”) and twin formulas (“give and take”).

Another subcategory are wellerisms, named after Sam Weller from Charles Dickens's The Pickwick Papers (1837). They are constructed in a triadic manner which consists of a statement (often a proverb), an identification of a speaker (person or animal) and a phrase that places the statement into an unexpected situation. Ex.: “Every evil is followed by some good,” as the man said when his wife died the day after he became bankrupt.

Typical stylistic features of proverbs (as Shirley Arora points out in her article, The Perception of Proverbiality (1984)) are:

• alliteration (Forgive and forget)
• parallelism (Nothing ventured, nothing gained)
• rhyme (When the cat is away, the mice will play)
• ellipsis (Once bitten, twice shy)

Internal features that can be found quite frequently include :

• hyperbole (All is fair in love and war)
• paradox (The longest way around is the shortest way home)
• personification (Hunger is the best cook)

To make the respective statement more general most proverbs are based on a metaphor. Further typical features of the proverb are its shortness (average: seven words), and the fact that its author is generally unknown (otherwise it would be a quotation).

In the article “Tensions in Proverbs: More Light on International Understanding,” Joseph Raymond comments on what common Russian proverbs from the 1700s and 1800s portray: Potent antiauthoritarian proverbs reflected tensions between the Russian people and the Czar. The rollickingly malicious undertone of these folk verbalizations constitutes what might be labeled a ‘paremiological revolt.’ To avoid openly criticizing a given authority or cultural pattern, folk take recourse to proverbial expressions which voice personal tensions in a tone of generalized consent. Thus, personal involvement is linked with public opinion Proverbs that speak to the political disgruntlement include: “When the Czar spits into the soup dish, it fairly bursts with pride”; “If the Czar be a rhymester, woe be to the poets”; and “The hen of the Czarina herself does not lay swan’s eggs.” While none of these proverbs state directly, “I hate the Czar and detest my situation” (which would have been incredibly dangerous), they do get their points across.

Other well known Russian proverbs include: “Every seed knows its time” (everything comes in time), “you will reap what you sow,” “a titmouse in the hand is better than a crane in the sky” (remarkably similar to “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”), “idleness is the mother of all vices” (similarly, “idle hands are the Devil’s workshop”), “God takes care of the one who takes care of himself,” and “chickens are counted in autumn” (“don’t count your chickens until the eggs have hatched”) (cogweb.ucla.edu). These proverbs have in common the values of diligent work, patience, and gratitude—all of which peasants would teach their children.