Category Archives: Folk speech

The Evil Eye Proverb

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 15, 2015
Primary Language: English
Language: Romanian

Informant Data:

The informant is a 19-year old American student who was born in Santa Monica, California in 1996. She’s lived in Los Angeles County all her life with the exception of when she lived in Paris between late August 2014 and mid December 2014. Her father’s ancestry is American as far as back as the founding of the Plymouth Colony in 1621 (but before that, the family is originally from England), and her mother’s ancestry is Romanian. She is a freshman at the University of Southern California and thus currently resides in Los Angeles, California.

 

Contextual Data:

Over lunch, I was talking to my informant about her experiences in Paris for the first semester of the school year. My informant eventually began talking about how over Thanksgiving break she visited family in Romania. She eventually told me of something she thought was bizarre that happened when she was eating dinner at her Romanian grandfather’s house: that her grandfather accidentally spat on her, after which he said what could be considered a Romanian proverb. I recorded this proverb below with her permission.

 

Item:

(Audio recording transcribed)

“If you don’t spit on people that are beautiful, the evil eye will get them.”

 

Analysis:

My theory about this proverb is that it seems to be a way of saying that if you don’t teach beautiful people to not be egotistical, then they will be taken over by a mindset that lacks morals and empathy. If this is what it means, then this would speak to a valuing of having morals that holds some importance in Romanian culture.

Because the wind will come

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 15, 2015
Primary Language: English
Language: Romanian

Informant Data:

The informant is a 19-year old American student who was born in Santa Monica, California in 1996. She’s lived in Los Angeles County all her life with the exception of when she lived in Paris between late August 2014 to mid-December 2014. Her father’s ancestry is American as far as back as the founding of the Plymouth Colony in 1621 (but before that, the family is originally from England), and her mother’s ancestry is Romanian. She is a freshman at the University of Southern California and thus currently resides in Los Angeles, California.

 

Contextual Data:

Over lunch, I was talking to my informant about her experiences in Europe for the first semester of the school year. My informant eventually began talking about how over Thanksgiving break she visited family in Romania. She eventually told me about some folk speech she kept hearing when she was visiting her Romanian cousins’ house.

 

Item:

“It’s this belief that a wind can cause…so much bodily harm to a person and like kill them…so they would blame everything on the wind. I mean, they’re like ‘don’t do this because the wind will come’ or ‘don’t walk around barefoot because the wind will come.’”

 

Analysis:

This folk speech seems like it’s just another way for adults who want to tell their kids to not do certain things and want their kids to listen to them. The reason they might specifically say not to do something “because the wind will come” may perhaps be because Romania is known for having very cold winters, and so the idea the wind will come if a kid does something bad is truly a scary, ominous message in that society.

First Black Person Joke

Nationality: American
Age: 58
Occupation: Construction company owner
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 26, 2015
Primary Language: English

Informant Data:

The informant is an American who was born in Riverside, California in 1956. He owns a construction company and currently resides in Los Angeles, California.

 

Contextual Data:

My informant heard four jokes from a friend of his and he wanted to share the jokes with me. The following is one of these jokes. It’s worthy of noting that my informant chuckled after telling the joke. When asked why he found the joke funny, my informant said that he didn’t know why the joke appealed to him, but said it was just “stupid humor.”

 

Item:

“What did God say when he first made a black guy? Dang it, I burnt one.”

 

Analysis:

This seems to speak to a stigma against black people prevalent in present-day American society. The joke seems to be a negative remark on having dark skin, for it perpetuates the idea that there is something wrong with having dark skin, that having dark skin is equivalent to having been deformed. This is a good example of Blason populaire, or folklore items that play off of stereotypes.

Relevant Sayings

Nationality: American
Residence: Newport Beach, California
Primary Language: English

Relevant Sayings:

G.H.: A maxim or gnome I know, is uh, I race sail boats, and in sailboat racing, there’s a constant trimming of the sails and the rigging to go fast. And there’s many maxims regarding things to remind you, one maxim is that, regarding sail trim, “When in doubt, let it out.” When you doubt what to do, let it out, don’t harden it. Another maxim would be, uh, our race boat has a motto, uh, and how we are depicted by others, our motto is, “Overbearing in victory, surly in defeat.”

ME: How long have you had that motto?

G.H.: Eleven years. And that maxim, I’ve used it thirty years.

ME: OK, thank you.

 

G.H. describes two relevant sayings in his life. They have to do with boat racing, which likewise a significant part of his life. As a boat racer for years, he has come to find truth values in the maxim and motto he uses. I rarely have mottos or maxims in my life, and I believe I am quite adept at utilizing what I can to do the best I can try. As for mottos however, one that resonates with me, is “Live for the future.” I have always valued living for the future, and preparing in the now.

African American Oral Traditions

Nationality: American
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Primary Language: English

African American Oral Traditions:

In African-American culture, oral tradition has been passed down in the form of stories and songs. The negro spirituals would not only be songs of prayer and deliverance from sin, but also contained double meanings which other slaves would understand as prayers for literal freedoms from the bondages and miseries of slavery. When slave populations were converted to Christianity, many blacks heavily identified with the Moses and the story of Exodus, believing that they too would eventually be emancipated from servitude by the power of God. Many of these songs are still sung today, one in particular, Wade in the Water is my paternal grandmother’s favorite. According to my father, she would sing it when she bathed me as a baby. My favorite has to be one that most Americans are familiar with: When the Saints Go Marching In. E’ah explained to me how it spoke of Christ’s Second Coming. The “saints marching in” were those Christians who were to be taken up with Jesus as he brought them into heaven. “Lord, how I want to be in that number” was the singer’s expression of hope that they would be among the saints to attain eternal life. I would always be puzzled by a certain verse she would sing: “Oh when the moon shines red with blood”. Later I would come to find out that this refers to the eclipses St. John writes about in the Book of Revelations. I have fond memories of mother and maternal grandmother (Nana) singing hymns such as Leaning on the Everlasting Arm and The Lord is Blessing Me. I like to think foundation of my deep Christian faith is built in part on the words that my grandmother used to sing with such joy: “He woke me us this morning, and started me on my way. The Lord is blessing me right now. Oh! Right now!”

 

J.S. recalls the various oral traditions he is familiar with, with regards to African American culture, as well as his Christian beliefs. He mentions the songs that have a close connection in the hearts of his family members, and himself. I believe that it is a very normal phenomenon to reconcile one’s cultural beliefs with one’s spiritual beliefs, and there are few better ways to accomplish that than with songs.