The following is from an interview between me and my friend, Carlos, at Blaze Pizza. Carlos is a Catholic missionary from Colombia. We were joined, as well, by another missionary named Nicole. Carlos shared with me some Spanish proverbs. This is one of them.

Carlos: “In Spanish, it’s, ‘Más vale pájaro en mano que cientos volando’. What that means is that, ‘A bird in your hand is worth more than a hundred birds flying away.’

Me: “Oh, okay, so kind of like ‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’?”

Carlos: “I guess. I’ve never heard of that, but… (Laughs). Yeah, but I think I know… if it means what I think it means then yes.”

Nicole: “What does that mean?”

Carlos: “It means that, like, it’s better to have one solid thing than to have, like, many things kind of up in the air.”

Me: “Yeah that’s like ‘Bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’. Uh, and where did you hear that from?”

Carlos: “Uh, my mom. We just say it all the time. And my parents just say it like, yeah.”

I was immediately struck by the fact that Spanish and English have two proverbs that are so similar to each other. It is interesting that the Spanish one is more embellished with its one-hundred instead of two birds, as well as the fact that the birds are instead flying away, and just out of the person in question’s reach, whereas in the English proverb the birds are concealed from sight by the bush.