A curious question about language
Here is the overriding question that led to the creation of the Proverbs Project:
Does the culturally accepted wisdom embedded in a Spanish proverb have an equivalent in other widely spoken languages?
53 random Spanish proverbs
The Proverbs Project began with 53 Spanish proverbs selected randomly from those commonly used in colloquial Spanish.
Why Spanish proverbs?
The fundamental question of the project was initially posed by Vicente Capell, a Madrid native and an aficionado of anthropology. He is also one of the principal collaborators of the Proverbs Project.
Phase 1: Search begins with English
Next, Vicente explained the meaning / wisdom behind all 56 proverbs to his English language teacher Jim Solan, and they translated them literally into English.
Why translated into English first?
English would be the common language in every facet of the project.
English provides early answer
Then, Jim searched for and found the proper English equivalents for all 53. Thus, at this early stage, having found the English equivalents for all 53 proverbs, one could conclude that the project was on the right track to answering the fundamental question mentioned above.
Phase 2: Russian & Chinese
With English completed, the second part of the project began. Two additional foreign languages were selected – Russian and Chinese – with the goal of finding the equivalent proverbs in those languages as well.
Why Russian and Madarin Chinese, and not French, Italian or Portuguese?
Since Spanish represents the romance languages, Russian was chosen since it is the most spoken Slavic language, another family of languages. Mandarin Chinese was chosen to represent the Asian family of languages.
The first step was to contact, in English, several Russian and Chinese language teachers using various online platforms for teachers.
They received a brief email explaining the main project goals and their two tasks: find an equivalent proverb for all 53 in their native language and provide an English language translation below each proverb.
From those who responded with interest, a brief online meeting was scheduled to discuss further the project and its methodology.
A Russian / Finnish woman agreed to collaborate, as well as two Chinese women. Each collaborator would be renumerated 15 – 18 euros/ hr for their work. They worked on the honor system, logging their own hours.
Once they produced a list of at least 15 equivalent proverbs, another online meeting was scheduled to check the quality and validity of their work and confirm that their suggested proverbs conveyed the same wisdom as in the English proverb.
How did you know if the proverb provided in Russian and/or Chinese was authentic?
At this phase of the project, the main way was through the online meetings with the collaborators. After which, various online resources were used to check further the validity and authenticity of the collaborators’ work.
53 proverbs in 4 languages
At that moment, Russian and Chinese were finished, providing a rich body of proverbs in three broadly spoken world languages.
How much time did it take to arrive to that moment?
It took around one full year.
Phase 3: Analysis & Reflection
The Proverbs Project then entered into a period of analysis and reflection because there was enough information to answer the fundamental question of the project:
Does the culturally accepted wisdom embedded in those 53 Spanish proverb have an equivalent in 3 other commonly spoken world languages? (English, Russian, and Chinese)
The answer was a resounding yes.
Phase 4: Arabic & Hindi
To build on the initial success of Russian and Chinese, two more languages – Arabic and Hindi – were added. The same methodology as with Russian and Chinese was employed.
Why add Arabic and Hindi?
The goal was to cover as much of the world’s population as possible, Arabic being the 4th most spoken first language in the world and Hindi the 5th.
Final Phase: From six languages to seven
Some months after completing Arabic and Hindi, Kiswahili was added. It is the most spoken language on the African continent, the lingua franca of East Africa.