Proverbs pack great truths into a few well-chosen words, no matter which language you speak. Check out this one from Belize: “Don’t call the alligator a big-mouth till you have crossed the river.” And this truism from Zanzibar: “When two elephants tussle, it’s the grass that suffers.” Martha and Grant discuss a new paremiography — a collection of proverbs — from around the world. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Proverbs from Around the World”
You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
Here’s a great piece of advice. It comes from Belize.
Don’t call the alligator a big mouth till you have crossed the river.
I love that.
That’s nice. That’s kind of like about not taunting bullies until you’re safely behind your door or something, right?
Exactly. Right, with a little taste of don’t count your chickens until they’re hatched.
Too. I love Proverbs. I love the way that they can sum up so much wisdom in just a few words.
Yeah, they’re culturally attached, aren’t they? They’re not the kind of thing that necessarily
You’re going to find the same Proverbs in every country, are you?
No, and if you want proof of that, there’s a huge book out called, As They Say in Zanzibar,
Proverbial Wisdom from Around the World. It’s by the prolific language writer David Crystal.
It’s got a picture of a couple of elephants on the front, and it says,
When two elephants tussle, it’s the grass that suffers.
It’s really profound, isn’t it?
Yeah, there are more than 2,000 proverbs in this book,
And it looks like he’s done a great deal of research
To pluck them out from as many cultures and languages as he could find.
There’s one I like from Cameroon.
It is the pot that boils, but the dish gets the credit.
In other words, we often fail to give credit to people who do the real work, right?
We’ll give credit to the front man.
Like, let’s say you go to a concert, and Barbara Streisand is singing,
And we’ll say, oh, Barbara’s concert was great.
But there were 400 roadies who helped Barbara do it.
Exactly.
So I love that.
The proverb is just a really great way of summarizing the lessons that we all eventually get around to learning.
Exactly.
Although I didn’t see one of my favorites, which is don’t do your deep fat frying in the nude.
I don’t know why that was not in there.
How long did it take you to learn that lesson, Martha?
It’s true.
It’s true.
Trust me.
And I thought those were freckles.
Believe you me, it’s true.
Well, if you’d like to talk about language, old sayings, new words, grammar, slang, you name it, call us.
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