Proverbs

[Koontz John E]

On Tue, 18 Dec 2001, Pamela Munro wrote:
> Like John, I am often asked for proverb-analogues in the (Siouan and
> non-Siouan) languages I work on, and I actually feel that this is definitely
> a genre that is not highly represented in the Americas.

I'm relieved that this impression is not entirely an matter of oversight
on my part.  .

> One of my students has been getting some aphoristic things in Pima, but they
> are mainly of the form "Marry a ___ (fill in tribe) and your ____ (fill in
> body part) will _____ (fill in verb with negative consequences)" -- this
> doesn't seem completely like a proverb to me!

I've run into a comment (in English) in the past about the inadvisability
of having KkaNze clan members on councils, with the explanation that they
were the wind clan and would therefore tend to talk endlessly without
coming to any conclusion, but it wasn't presented in any sort of formula.
It was as if the proposition was proverbial, but not the form.  On the
other hand, I'm not sure if the now forgotten source was necessarily
fluent in Omaha, and I assumed at the time that it might be a case of
factional politics invoking a perhaps traditional canard.  Another
somewhat comparable belief might be the proposition that a boy excessively
exposed to female speakers will probably use female speech forms in error,
though this actually comes from Dakota and Osage contexts.  Again, I don't
know of any formulaic expression of this.

> But some non-European exotic languages are very rich in proverbs (the best
> case I know of being Wolof).

I think proverbs and proverb-like formulas are fairly well distributed,
but I don't have any distributional information.