Afghan proverbs

Across Afghanistan, proverbs are a valued part of speaking, both publicly and in conversations. Afghans “use proverbs in their daily conversations far more than Westerners do, and with greater effect” (Edward Zellem 2012b: i).

The most extensive proverb collections in Afghan languages are in Dari and Pashto, the two largest languages in Afghanistan. The Dari language is very similar to Persian spoken in Iran and Tajik spoken in nearby Tajikistan. A broader, more contextualized, study of Afghan proverbs would include comparisons of Afghan proverbs with Persian proverbs from Iran (for which several volumes are available in English) and with Tajik proverbs (e.g. comparing with those in Bell 2009) from Tajikistan.

A collection of recent books containing collections proverbs in three languages of Afghanistan.

Collections

So far, collections of proverbs in Afghan languages are available in English translation for at least four Afghan languages: Dari, Pashto, Pashai, and Balochi.

Dari: For Dari, there are two main published collections of proverbs, with some overlap between them. The earlier is J. Christy Wilson's collection of 100 (2002) the list having been reproduced (without credit) in other sources. The more recent source is U.S. Navy Captain Edward Zellem's collection of 151 (2012b), which has won a 2013 award from the Military Writer's Society of America.[1] From these 151 proverbs, 38 were chosen for an edition with color illustrations, intended for language learning by a more popular audience (Zellem 2012a). This edition format has been published with translations into a number of languages, including English, Russian (Zellem 2013a), German (Zellem 2013b), French (2013c), and Finnish. There are reports that Zarbolmathalhâ, a collection of 1,152 Dari proverbs collected by Mowlânâ Khâl Mohammad Khaste, was published in 1983 (Kreyenbroek 2010:317).

Pashto: For Pashto, one of the two main languages of Afghanistan, the newest available source is the collection of 151 proverbs by Zellem.[2] A larger collection of Pashto proverbs of 1,350 proverbs is by Bartlotti and Khattak (2006), a revised and expanded version of an earlier work by Tair and Edwards (1982). Enevoldsen published 100 proverbs and 100 tapas folk poems (1967). An earlier collection was published by Benawa (1979). An older source containing 406 Pashto proverbs is Thorburn's (1876), where he includes them his book on pp. 231–473. The most recent published collection of Pashto proverbs contains 151 proverbs submitted by Pashto speakers via the Web and Twitter (Zellem 2014). There are reports that Nuri published a selection of proverbs from Paśto Toləna in 1910 (Kreyenbroek 2010:151). There are about 50 pages of Pashto proverbs arranged by topic in a doctoral dissertation by Bartlotti (2000).

Pashai: Pashai is a less known language community living east of Kabul. A local committee working with Yun produced a collection of 171 proverbs (2010), each one translated into English, Korean, and Pashto.

Balochi: For Balochi, a language spoken on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghan border, Badalkan gives a number of Balochi proverbs translated into English in his article, focusing on proverbs that are related to specific stories (2000). He also cites several published collections of Balochi proverbs, all published in Balochi. Six proverbs are given on the last pages (203, 204) of Dames' Popular poetry of the Baloches.

In addition to these publications in English, there are items about proverbs in languages spoken in Afghanistan published in other languages. These include:

Commonalities

Proverbs are often shared across languages when there is significant interaction among peoples. Some examples of shared proverbs among the languages of Afghanistan include:

The proverbs of Afghanistan are not fixed, archaic expressions. For example, there is a traditional proverb in Pashto (Bartlotti and Khattak 2006: 264) and Dari (Wilson 2002:32), “The wound of the sword will heal, but not that of the tongue.” The Pashai form of this proverb reflects a more modern form of weapon, “A bad wound by a gun will be cured, but the wound by a bad word won’t be cured” (Yun 2010:159). Another example of an updated proverb is today's Pashai proverb “An unloaded gun makes two people afraid” compared with a Pashto proverb published in 1876 reflecting an older form of military technology “Of the broken bow two persons are in fear” (1876:408).

Not surprisingly, proverbs in all four of the languages documented have proverbs that mention nouns common in Afghanistan, such as "camels", "mountains", and "poverty".

It is not surprising to find proverbs that reflect Afghanistan's Islamic traditions, such as

A common element among the proverb traditions of Afghanistan is that some proverbs are linked to stories (though this is not unique to Afghanistan). Proverbs that trace their origin to stories are found in Pashto (Thorburn 1876: 314), Dari (Zellem 2012b:153), and Balochi (Badalkhan 2000).

Notes

  1. ↑ 2013 award by MWSA
  2. ↑ Mataluna: 151 Afghan Pashto Proverbs. 2014. Tampa: Cultures Direct.

References

External links