Category Archives: Proverbs

Are you something to write home about?

Nationality: Polish
Age: 25
Occupation: Medical Student
Residence: Poznań, Poland
Performance Date: 04/18/21
Primary Language: English
Language: Polish

Main Performance:

  • “Jak cię widzą tak cię piszą”
    • Transliterated Proverb
      • Jak = How
      • cię = you
      • widzą = they
      • tak = see
      • piszą = they write
    • Full Translation: How they see you is how they write [perceive] you
      • Explanation: The proverb refers to how one presents themselves outwardly are what people will think of them as a whole. One should endeavor to try and make themselves presentable not in a way to impress others but to more accurately reflect who they really are on the outside lest they give off a negative impression of themselves.

Background:

The informant, JK, is one of my close friends from my Catholic high school who I maintain contact with after graduation. He hails from a devoutly Catholic Polish family. Among most of the families that I knew of while attending, most of my classmates did not speak their family lineage’s mother tongue except for most of the my Polish and Hispanic classmates. No German and definitely not any Irish being spoken there.

Context:

My informant is currently attending medical school in Poland and I reached out to him through social media to ask if he had any traditional/folk-things he could share with me given his actively apparent and practiced Polish heritage, doubly so now that he is back in Poland.

My Thoughts:

How one outwardly appears is what people will consider him on the inside. The proverb tells me that it was said for people to act more honestly with themselves to other people instead of putting on fronts to pretend to be who they are not. It comes off as sound advice but has a judgmental tinge to it by how it seems to suggest that “what you see is what you get” sort of denotations from it as well. I think the quote is another that can be used on the youth to promote honest growths in personality and accepting others, to present the best version of themselves so that the good person that an individual knows that they are inside can shine forth without any misrepresentation or misinterpretation. It is rather beautiful in a way despite being simple suggestion to present oneself as best as they can be as to not have any wrongful slander made against them.

Fickle in Luck, Fickle in Love

Nationality: Polish
Age: 25
Occupation: Medical Student
Residence: Poznań, Poland
Performance Date: 04/18/21
Primary Language: English
Language: Polish

Main Performance:

  • “Te który maja miłość w kartę nie ma miłości”
    • Transliterated Proverb
      • Te który = Those who
      • Maja = Have
      • Miłość = Love
      • w kartę = With cards
      • nie = No
      • ma = Has
    • Full Translation: Those who have love in cards have no love.
      • Explanation: The proverb refers to how those who have fair luck in life do not have love in their lives.

Background:

The informant, JK, is one of my close friends from my Catholic high school who I maintain contact with after graduation. He hails from a devoutly Catholic Polish family. Among most of the families that I knew of while attending, most of my classmates did not speak their family lineage’s mother tongue except for most of the my Polish and Hispanic classmates. No German and definitely not any Irish being spoken there.

Context:

My informant is currently attending medical school in Poland and I reached out to him through social media to ask if he had any traditional/folk-things he could share with me given his actively apparent and practiced Polish heritage, doubly so now that he is back in Poland.

My Thoughts:

What comes to my mind is that whoever has luck or whoever flaunts their luck is hiding the fact they have no love in their lives. Humility is a rather enormous concept in the Catholic faith so it only makes sense that those who are prideful about themselves, their fortune, and their lives are rather empty beneath it all and have no genuine love. Love also goes without saying as another key concept in Christianity as a whole and a life without love, or God’s love, is probably not life at all. Since this still Catholicism we’re discussing, it is never too late to renounce those prideful ways to become more humble so there isn’t a permanently accusatory tone there but there isn’t technically a suggestion for repentance, only pointing out an observation. Also seems to be another version of “lucky at cards, unlucky in love”.

A Liar is Forgetful

Nationality: Persian, American
Age: 27
Occupation: Associate Banker, Chase
Residence: Laguna Niguel
Performance Date: 3/15/2021
Primary Language: Persian
Language: English

Context:

This is a proverb that is commonly used among the family and friends of my informant. My informant is a coworker from my job. She immigrated to the United States from Tehran, the capital of Iran, when she was 16 years old and has a lot of family here that she enjoys continuing her traditions with.

  • “doruygu kam hafeze ast,” or “دروغگو کم حافظه است”
    • Transliterated Proverb
      • “A liar is forgetful”
    • Full translation: A liar tends comes up with a lot of fake stories, and so they need to have a good memory to keep up with all of them. So a translation of the true meaning of the phrase would be along the lines of, “a liar should have a good memory.”
    • Explanation by my coworker: “Let’s say you lie to someone about something and then you go and forget about it, and then at a later time you come back and accidentally tell them the actual truth, then that person figures out that these stories don’t match or don’t go together. So that’s why they say that if you lie to much, then you don’t have a good memory becuase you don’t remember what you lied about before.”

Thoughts: I found this proverb/maxim to be quite interesting and it kind of added a new perspective to how I think about someone who has told lies in the past and tries to cover them up. At first, I didn’t really understand the maxim, but with some thoughful explanation from my coworker, it started to make a lot more sense. I may be wrong in my interpretation of its use but it seems as though it is used by someone who has been lied to, which may open to door to the negative perspective that people of Perisan culture have towards lying.

Did you see the camel? No you did not!

Nationality: Persian
Age: 27
Occupation: Associate Banker
Residence: Laguna Niguel
Performance Date: 3/15/2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Persian

Context:

This is a proverb that is commonly used among the family and friends of my informant. My informant is a coworker from my job. She immigrated to the United States from Tehran, the capital of Iran, when she was 16 years old and has a lot of family here that she enjoys continuing her traditions with.

  • “šotor didi? nadidi,” or “شتر دیدی؟ ندیدی”
    • Transliterated proverb:
      • “Did you see the camel? No you did not!”
    • Full translation: This maxim is essentially indicating that if you see something that is obvious that you were not meant or supposed to see, then you should act as if you didn’t see it. Put in other words, its true meaning is along the lines of, “you see nothing, you hear nothing.”
    • Explanation by my coworker: “So lets say you’re trying to hide someone from knowing something that they see or hear. We use a camel in this maxim because it’s a large animal and easy to spot, obvious basically, just like something that you may have just seen or heard. So basically, you obviously saw or heard something that is as obvious as a camel, but you’re making the concious decision to hide that information.”

Thoughts: I thought it was really interesting that a camel was used as an obvious sight. It shines light on the regional uniqueness of the maxim and perhaps illustrates that the saying goes far back in history. In modernity, there a lot more large, obvious things that could be used to replace the role of the camel in the maxim, yet it persists because of its place in the history of the region.

“Kes hiljaks jääb, see ilma jääb.” – Estonian Proverb

Nationality: Estonian/Canadian
Age: 68
Occupation: University Professor
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 5/2/2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Estonian

Informant’s Background:

The informant, in this case, is my mother, M, who was a first generation immigrant born to an Estonian family in the North-East of Canada. Her family had escaped from occupied Estonia, and had settled in Canada before she was born. She moved with my father to Los Angeles, in the United States, to take a job as a university professor. My brother and I were born a few years after.

Context:

I mentioned collecting folklore to my mother, who I regularly call on the phone now that I have moved out of our house, and she told me that she wanted to help. I told her yes, and she emailed me the following.

Translation:

  • Original: “Kes hiljaks jääb, see ilma jääb.”
  • Translation: He who is late, will go without.

Informant’s Context:

M: “My mother used to say it all the time when we were kids and taking our time about coming back inside when she rang the dinner bell to summon us to dinner. She sometimes added an extra line of her own – “ja raua rohtu saab” – which meant “and will get cod liver oil” (a vile-tasting medicine that used to be given to children as a vitamin D supplement).”

Informant’s Thoughts: 

M: “This is harsh, but reasonable in some circumstances. Even though she often said it, I can’t remember my mother ever actually enforcing it. She understood that we were busy playing and that we had often wandered quite far away from home, so it took time to get back.”

Thoughts:

This seems like a pretty standard proverb to me. It gets across a lesson, in this case in the form of a warning, about being punctual, most likely aimed at children, as seen by it’s use in my mother’s example. It also contains a threat, that if one is not punctual one will be denied something, in this case food. Denial of food was a fairly common means of punishment for children throughout history, and even in some stricter households to this day, so this makes sense as well. In this case it seems more like a light warning intended to get the message across without really intending to enforce the punishment.