PROVERBS not only are packed with wisdom, but they also reflect the culture, society and the people who use them.
Studying proverbs may lead to analyses that have linguistic as well as cultural significance. The study of proverbs is called paremiology. Collecting and recording proverbs is known as paremiography. Many have attempted to describe a proverb and different definitions of the word proverb are found in different sources. But Prof Wolfgang Mieder has come up with a definition of ‘proverb,’ which may perhaps be regarded as one of the most comprehensive ones.
Prof Mieder is considered an authority on proverbs. He has made enormous contributions on several topics related to paremiology. In his book Proverbs: A Handbook, Mieder says: “A proverb is a short, generally known sentence of the folks which contains wisdom, truth, morals and traditional views in a metaphorical, fixed and memorizable form and which is handed down from generation to generation” (Greenwood Press, 2004, p.3).
This definition acknowledges the wisdom and truth that proverbs provide the readers or listeners with. The definition also emphasises the traditions that are carried on for centuries. We know that Pashto-speaking people come from a traditional society. The Pashto language has a vast body of proverbs, which reflects the traditions, culture and the sociological process in the Pashto-speaking societies that train individuals for a set of peculiar mores and norms — this process is referred to as ‘social conditioning’ by some sociologists. So proverbs reveal some aspects of the social conditioning and cultural inheritance of a particular people and at the same time they preserve the centuries-old vocabulary and expressions of a language.
A monumental work on Pashto proverbs was compiled by Muhammad Nawaz Tair (1934-2017). Titled Rohi Mataloona and published in two volumes by Peshawar University’s Pashto Academy in 1975, the book has over 11,500 Pashto proverbs. Contents of the book were also translated into Urdu and English.
Now two scholars — Munazza Mubeen and Naqeeb Ahmed Jan — have jointly penned an insightful article on proverbs, Pashto proverbs and Prof Muhammad Nawaz Tair’s work on Pashto proverbs. Both the scholars teach Urdu at Women’s University, Swabi, KP. The article has been published in April-June 2020 issue of Urdu Adab and it says that the use of proverbs in Pashto society is so ubiquitous that hardly any conversation may be imagined without proverbs — be it babbles at a gamblers’ party or a sermon at a mosque, be it solemn discussions at a jirga or talking of world’s problems during tillage — and no discourse is devoid of proverbs. And Pashto proverbs, say the authors, not only offer gleanings from the wit and wisdom of Pashto-speaking people but also reflect their culture and traditions.
The earliest work on Pashto proverbs was carried out by S.S. Thorburn, wrote Muhammad Nawaz Tair. Thorburn was an administrative officer in the colonial era and penned a book Bannu: Or Our Afghan Frontier (1876) (full text is available online). While recording the social life of the areas of what was known as NWFP back then — and today constitutes KP — in this book, Thorburn wrote on Pashto fables, ballads, riddles and proverbs. But the original Pashto text of proverbs is not given.
In 1372 Hijri [1953], says Tair, Muhammad Gul Noori published a book Pashto Mataloona, or Pashto proverbs, from Kabul. Though Noori had compiled some 600 more proverbs than Thorburn did, most of them were collected from the areas in and around Kandahar and Nangarhar in Afghanistan. Around 1970, Muhammad Deen Zhawaak published a new book, which consisted of about 2,500 Pashto proverbs. In 1976, Vali Muhammad Khan Khayal Kakar, a young scholar from Balochistan, compiled and published a collection of Pashto proverbs used by Balochistan’s Pashtun tribes.
Since certain portions of Tair’s book were translated into Urdu and English, the authors of the article published in Urdu Adab have given some interesting comparisons, collating Pashto, Urdu and English versions of proverbs.
Urdu Adab is a quarterly Urdu journal edited by Dr Ather Farouqui and published by Delhi’s Anjuman Taraqqi-i-Urdu Hind. It usually carries critical and research articles but sometimes autobiographical works or memoirs and pen sketches, too, are published. The current issue also carries an interesting article by Shamsur Rahman Farooqi, enlisting the rare Urdu words and idioms along with their meanings and citations for authentication. Urdu Adab is also available online and the entire text can be accessed at http://www.atuh.org/urdu-adab. The site also offers free access to many previous issues.
The current issue also includes an article by Prof Sarwar-ul-Huda, paying rich tributes to Prof Dr Muhammad Hasan, the famous critic of Urdu from India who died in 2010. Huda is of the view that Prof Hasan was not appreciated in his life the way he should have been and despite some ideological differences his works should be acknowledged and must be remembered for his intellectual and literary approach.
Published in Dawn, July 7th, 2020
Dear visitor, the comments section is undergoing an overhaul and will return soon.