The Proverbs Project is an anthropological and sociolinguistic exploration of the diverse cultures and languages of the world using proverbs as a tool to gain insight into human nature.
Proverbs can be considered a library of common expressions most often used in a conversation to express generalized truths and/or principles. We say proverbs to assign meaning to social situations, make judgements, take decisions, and/or give advice.
Our study began with 53 commonly used Spanish proverbs chosen at random.
For example:
- Dress me slowly, I am in a hurry.
- To a skinny dog, everything is fleas.
- In the house of a blacksmith, a wooden spoon.
Then, we sought to answer a rather novel question: Does the culturally accepted wisdom embedded in a Spanish proverb have an equivalent in 6 other widely spoken languages?
English / Russian / Chinese / Arabic / Hindi / Kiswahili
Much to our surprise, the answer was a resounding yes. The wisdom contained in those 53 Spanish proverbs do indeed have an equivalent in all 6 other languages.
Thus, proverbs seem to transcend geography, culture and language, proving the indelible link between proverbs and the universality of human behaviour regardless of which language one speaks.
For example, a common human tendency is to neglect applying one’s own skills in their private life:
- In the house of a blacksmith, a wooden spoon (Spanish)
- The shoemaker’s son always goes barefoot (English)
- Shoemaker without boots (Russian)
- The woman who sells salty drinks eats insipid broth (Chinese)
- The cobbler is barefoot and the carpenter’s door is broken (Arabic)
- Kahir is a weaver, but his slippers are torn (Hindi)
- A barber does not shave himself (Kiswahili)
The Proverbs Project lays out 52 more examples like the one above for a total of 371.