Story: “There is this proverb in Hindi that my mom used to say to me to let me know that I wasn’t smart enough to appreciate certain things. Basically she would use this proverb to roast me. The proverb is: Bandar kya jaane adrak ka swad. Which in English translates to “What would a monkey know of the taste of ginger?” But yeah, basically my mom would say this to me if I wasn’t appreciating something she did for me. If I didn’t love the dinner she made for me one night, she would say “What would a monkey know of the taste of dinner?”

Analysis: This is a phrase that really means a lot to this informant. Growing up they said, it kind of annoyed them, hearing their mom yell this at them, but now when they hear it, it carries a sense of nostalgia for them. Cultural folk phrases carry such deep meaning already, but its the people who use it that increase that meaning tenfold. Without context, “What would a monkey know of the taste of ginger?” is a totally random question–but to this informant, they know exactly what this means. This is the importance of cultural folk phrases: they create bonds amongst families, they bring nostalgia, and they have much deeper meaning than what meets the eye.