A proverb (from ) 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.Arvo Krikmann, "The Great Chain Metaphor: An Open Sezame for Proverb Semantics?", Proverbium:Yearbook of International Scholarship, 11 (1994), pp. 117–124. 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",Wolfgang Mieder (1990), Not by bread alone: Proverbs of the Bible, New England Press, p. 12. whereas another shows that, of the 106 most common and widespread proverbs across Europe, 11 are from the Bible.Paczolay, Gyula. 1997. European Proverbs in 55 Languages. Veszpre'm, Hungary. However, almost every culture has its own unique proverbs.
Definitions Lord John Russell () observed poetically that a "proverb is the wit of one, and the wisdom of many".Wolfgang Mieder. 1993. "The wit of one, and the wisdom of many: General thoughts on the nature of the proverb. Proverbs are never out of season: Popular wisdom in the modern age 3–40. Oxford University Press. p. 25. 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",Archer Taylor. 1931. The Proverb. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. p. 3. 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."Wolfgang Mieder. 1993. "The wit of one, and the wisdom of many: General thoughts on the nature of the proverb. Proverbs are never out of season: Popular wisdom in the modern age 3–40. Oxford University Press. p. 5. To distinguish proverbs from idioms, cliches, etc., Norrick created a table of distinctive features, an abstract tool originally developed for linguistics.Neil Norrick. 1985. How Proverbs Mean: Semantic Studies in English Proverbs. Amsterdam: Mouton. p. 73. 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. proverbial phrases, Wellerisms, maxims, quotations, and proverbial comparisons."Sw. Anand Prahlad. 1996. African-American Proverbs in Context. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. p. 33. Based on Persian proverbs, Zolfaghari and Ameri propose the following definition: "A proverb is a short sentence, which is well-known and at times rhythmic, including advice, sage themes and ethnic experiences, comprising simile, metaphor or irony which is well-known among people for its fluent wording, clarity of expression, simplicity, expansiveness and generality and is used either with or without change."Hassan Zolfaghari & Hayat Ameri. "Persian Proverbs: Definitions and Characteristics". Journal of Islamic and Human Advanced Research 2(2012) 93–108. At p. 107.
There are many sayings in English that are commonly referred to as "proverbs", such as weather sayings. Alan Dundes, however, rejects including such sayings among true proverbs: "Are weather proverbs proverbs? I would say emphatically 'No!'"Alan Dundes. 1984. On whether weather 'proverbs' are proverbs. Proverbium 1:39–46. Also, 1989, in Folklore Matters edited by Alan Dundes, 92–97. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. At p. 45. The definition of "proverb" has also changed over the years. For example, the following was labeled "A Yorkshire proverb" in 1883, but would not be categorized as a proverb by most today, "as throng as Throp's wife when she hanged herself with a dish-cloth".A Yorkshire proverb. 1883. The Academy. July 14, no. 584. p. 30. The changing of the definition of "proverb" is also noted in Turkish.Ezgi Ulusoy Aranyosi. 2010. "Atasözü neydi, ne oldu?" ["What was, and what now is, a 'proverb'?"]. Millî Folklor: International and Quarterly Journal of Cultural Studies 11.88: 5–15.
In other languages and cultures, the definition of "proverb" also differs from English. In the Chumburung language of Ghana, "aŋase are literal proverbs and akpare are metaphoric ones".Gillian Hansford. 2003. Understanding Chumburung proverbs. Journal of West African Languages 30.1:57–82. At p. 64. Among the Bini of Nigeria, there are three words that are used to translate "proverb": ere, ivbe, and itan. The first relates to historical events, the second relates to current events, and the third was "linguistic ornamentation in formal discourse".Daniel Ben-Amos. Introduction: Folklore in African Society. Forms of Folklore in Africa, edited by Bernth Lindfors, pp. 1–36. Austin: University of Texas. At p. 4, 5. Among the Balochi of Pakistan and Afghanistan, there is a word batal for ordinary proverbs and bassīttuks for "proverbs with background stories".Sabir Badalkhan. 2000. "Ropes break at the weakest point": Some examples of Balochi proverbs with background stories. Proverbium 17:43–69. At p. 43.
There are also language communities that combine proverbs and riddles in some sayings, leading some scholars to create the label "proverb riddles".John C. Messenger, Jr. Anang Proverb-Riddles. The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 73, No. 289 (July–September 1960), pp. 225–235.Finnegan, Ruth. Oral Literature in Africa. The Saylor Foundation, 1982. p. 418.Umoh, S. J. 2007. The Ibibio ProverbRiddles and Language Pedagogy. International Journal of Linguistics and Communication 11(2), 8–13.
Another similar construction is an idiomatic phrase. Sometimes it is difficult to draw a distinction between idiomatic phrase and proverbial expression. In both of them the meaning does not immediately follow from the phrase. The difference is that an idiomatic phrase involves figurative language in its components, while in a proverbial phrase the figurative meaning is the extension of its literal meaning. Some experts classify proverbs and proverbial phrases as types of idioms.Lexicography: Critical Concepts (2003) R. R. K. Hartmann, Mick R K Smith, , p. 303.
Examples
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
Sources
Proverbs come from a variety of sources.Barbour, Frances M. "Some uncommon sources of proverbs." Midwest Folklore 13.2 (1963): 97–100. Some are, indeed, the result of people pondering and crafting language, such as some by Confucius, Plato, Baltasar Gracián, etc. Others are taken from such diverse sources as poetry,Korosh Hadissi. 2010. A Socio-Historical Approach to Poetic Origins of Persian Proverbs. Iranian Studies 43.5: 599–605.p. 164. Bartlotti, Leonard and Raj Wali Shah Khattak. Rohi Mataluna: Pashto Proverbs. Peshawar, Pakistan: Interlit. stories,Thamen, Hla. 2000. Myanmar Proverbs in Myanmar and English. Yangon: Pattamya Ngamank Publishing. songs, commercials, advertisements, movies, literature, etc.Doyle, Charles Clay, Wolfgang Mieder, Fred R. Shapiro. 2012. The Dictionary of Modern Proverbs. New Haven: Yale University Press. A number of the well known sayings of Jesus, Shakespeare, and others have become proverbs, though they were original at the time of their creation, and many of these sayings were not seen as proverbs when they were first coined. Many proverbs are based on stories, often the end of a story. For example, the proverb "Who will bell the cat?" is from the end of a story about the mice planning how to be safe from the cat.p. 68. Kent, Graeme. 1991. Aesop's Fables. Newmarket, UK: Brimax.
Some authors have created proverbs in their writings, such as J.R.R. Tolkien, and some of these proverbs have made their way into broader society. Similarly, C. S. Lewis is credited for a proverb regarding a lobster in a pot, which he wrote about in his book series Chronicles of Narnia.Peter Unseth. 2014. A created proverb in a novel becomes broadly used in society: "‛Easily in but not easily out', as the lobster said in his lobster pot." Crossroads: A Journal of English Studies online access In cases like this, deliberately created proverbs for fictional societies have become proverbs in real societies. In a fictional story set in a real society, the movie Forrest Gump introduced "Life is like a box of chocolates" into broad society.p. 70, Winick, Stephen. 1998. The Proverb Process: Intertextuality and Proverbial Innovation in Popular Culture. University of Pennsylvania: PhD dissertation. In at least one case, it appears that a proverb deliberately created by one writer has been naively picked up and used by another who assumed it to be an established Chinese proverb, Ford Madox Ford having picked up a proverb from Ernest Bramah, "It would be hypocrisy to seek for the person of the Sacred Emperor in a Low Tea House."Hawthorn, Jeremy, ‘Ernest Bramah: Source of Ford Madox Ford’s Chinese Proverb?’ Notes and Queries, 63.2 (2016), 286–288.