Main Piece: Mexican Proverb

Original – “El burro sabe más que tú”

Transliteration – “The donkey knows more than you”

Translation – “The donkey knows more than you”

Background:

This proverb is also from my Mexican nanny, Mirna, and this one is more of an insult. My nanny says she likes to use this one especially in America because more often than not people do not understand Spanish and it is easy to offend them without even knowing. Donkeys are a large part of Mexican culture in agriculture and just life in general. They tend to be more of a source of power for hauling goods or farm equipment, and aren’t necessarily thought of as being the brainiest.

My nanny says that this was your generic grade school insult, and it was never really meant for too much harm, sort of an elaborate version of just telling someone their stupid. She and her siblings would use it on each other, and there is no profanity used in it so it was never really frowned upon by elders when they heard it.

Context:

My nanny has actually been saying this to me for a long time now, as she would talk to me and my siblings in Spanish at a young age to give us an understanding of another language while we were still apprehensive to it. Of course we would get into our usual shenanigans and she would say this to us and we would think it was funny not really knowing what it meant, but now knowing what it means it only really seems fitting as something you would say to a child, as an adult would think you were being childish if you just said “a donkey knows more than you.”

I was just told this in a face to face conversation so the real context of using it is not there, but I can see how it would be more so used between childhood friends on the playground or in instances like that.

My thoughts:

It is interesting to see how a culture’s lifestyle has an effect on how they insult each other, and even though it may be seen as something not very effective in offending someone, it can be thought of as more playful banter because obviously a donkey is not a smart animal. I doubt there is much of a real world application for this insult but it is interesting to me how it is more of an intellectual insult as opposed to simply telling someone the