Proverbium - Yearbook

Preface

Melita Aleksa Varga — 2026-07-26

INTERNATIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF NEW AND REPRINTED PROVERB COLLECTIONS

Wolfgang Mieder — 2026-07-26

INTERNATIONAL PROVERB SCHOLARSHIP: AN UPDATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Wolfgang Mieder — 2026-07-26

THE WORD ORIGIN OF “ANTI-PROVERB”

Wolfgang Mieder — 2026-07-26

Ekaterina V. Ogol'tseva. Sinonimiya ustoichivykh sravnenii v russkom yazyke

Valerij M. Mokienko — 2026-07-26

Marcas Mac Coinnigh. Mnemonic Structure and Style in Irish Proverbs

Katie Ní Loingsigh — 2026-07-26

PROVERB - TRUE WORD

Erzsébet Drahota-Szabó — 2026-07-26

It is a well-established fact that proverbs are historically and culturally situated; they fulfill distinct pragmatic functions across different eras and cultures. Furthermore, their application is significantly influenced by the respective text genre. The Reformation period is widely regarded as the golden age of proverbs, a time when their truth value was firmly believed, and they served as essential moral compasses in everyday life. This article revisits this period by utilizing the fables of the Hungarian writer-preacher Gáspár Heltai as the basis for the investigation. Based on these fables, a collection of proverbs is compiled. The research primarily aims to identify the pragmatic roles attributed to proverbs within these fables. Secondly, the study examines the diachronic endurance of these expressions: whether they have withstood the test of time and remain in common usage, or if they have become archaic or vanished entirely from the linguistic landscape.

PROVERBS AND GENDER STEREOTYPES

Anna Konstantinova — 2026-07-26

The paper presents a cognitive-discursive study of the gendered proverb Boys will be boys with the focus on its actional and metalinguistic dimensions. The main aim is to explore the discursive dichotomy of the dictum, i.e. its role in 1) perpetuating gender stereotypes about men and reinforcing gendered expectations in Anglo-American society, and, more recently, in 2) reflecting and promoting change catalyzed by the gender equality movement. The material comprises 400 examples, including texts from online articles, opinion pieces, blogs, social media posts, and memes spanning the last twenty years. The research methods applied were Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Sociocognitive Discourse Studies (SCDS) methodology, complemented by the linguocultural method, stylistic analysis, sampling and corpus methodology. The comprehensive analysis of the linguistic, cognitive, and discursive profiles of the dictum Boys will be boys suggests that the gender stereotype embedded in the proverb is being challenged and redefined in discourse, both via canonical and recycled (modified) use, resulting in anti-proverbs. The anti-proverbial derivations attest to significant shifts in social norms and encapsulate sociopolitical change.

CONDITIONAL CONSTRUCTIONS IN PROVERBS

Nina Lanović — 2026-07-26

This study starts from two fundamental research questions: in what ways conditionality is expressed in proverbs, and how a generic interpretation is actualized in conditional constructions within proverbs. The study has been conducted on a limited corpus of Portuguese and Croatian proverbs excerpted from several collections of proverbs and sayings, with primary interest in their semantic-syntactic structure rather than their lexical or possibly figurative meaning. We focus on the relationships among propositions in proverbs with a binary structure, guided by the criterion that they are connected by some type of conditional relation. Since both genericity and conditionality are not only linguistic, but also logical and conceptual universals, we expect that a comparative analysis, in this context, will reveal a certain degree of correspondence between Portuguese and Croatian proverbial texts. Our analysis of the corpus will focus on the following research questions: a) what types of conditional constructions are the proverbs based on; b) which verb forms are used in the proverbs to express different degrees of hypotheticality, c) what syntactic features characterize non-canonical conditional constructions in the proverbs. We believe that such type of analysis can contribute, as well, to a better understanding of the actualization of generic information at the linguistic level.

PERVERBS AND DETORSIO

Marco Luchi — 2026-07-26

Since antiquity, paremias and phraseologisms have always been modified for comic purpose. Latin rhetoricians and scholars used to call this type of manipulation of proverbs detorsio. Closer inspection reveals that the stylistic devices employed by ancient authors are the same as those found in modern perverbs, a term used to collectively describe anti-,pseudo-, quasi- and twisted proverbs. The aim of this article is to show how the modern concept of perverbs and the ancient one of detorsio correspond. To prove this thesis, I will first define the concept of perverb and that of comic detorsio using a few examples. Next, I will show how certain mechanisms present in modern perverbs are also present in ancient examples of comic detorsio. To this end, I will use the comparative method, juxtaposing ancient and modern examples. Special focus will be placed on Petronius’ Satyricon: this 1st-century Latin novel abounds in proverbs and idiomatic expressions that are used for linguistic mimesis and characterization of the characters.

CULTURAL HERITAGE PRESERVED IN PROVERBS

Hilda Matta — 2026-07-26

The main aim of the study is to show that proverbs serve as a means of preserving cultural heritage. Since professions, as an example, are part of cultural heritage, the study focuses on those mentioned in the Egyptian proverbs from the 19^th.century. The source of these proverbs is the iconic collection of Ahmad Taymour. The corpus of the study focuses solely on professions of the simple working class, which resulted in the identification of 53 professions mentioned in 103 proverbs. Five of the professions referenced in 22 proverbs are now extinct, yet most of these proverbs remain very popular and are still used by Egyptians till this very day. These extinct professions include female and male slaves, the water carrier, donkey driver and mesaḥaraty (Ramadan drummer). Furthermore, the study has shown that proverbs often convey the nature of the job. They have given insight into the lives of the people practicing these professions, naming different aspects of the job such as the requirements, obstacles, materials, products and tools. The proverbs also express the perception of these professions and their value in society.

STUDY ON THE FREQUENCY OF USE OF PROVERBS

Vito Antonio Miccoli — 2026-07-26

This study examines the applicability of corpora as a computational tool for evaluating the frequency of use of proverbs. The concept of frequency of use, seemingly straightforward, is a complex variable to systematize due to difficulties in its cataloging process. To address this, in this work traditional methodologies are combined with corpus-oriented approaches. Both approaches present heterogeneous methodological aspects; however, despite their different natures, the results show a singular convergence in the frequency patterns. Aside from a few irregularities, data triangulation reveals a proportional consistency in the frequency of use of paremias across both screening methods. The corpus-linguistic approach, thus, emerges as a complementary method for extracting information that is not only quantitative but also qualitative and contextual, providing a richer and unconventional understanding of the proverbial phenomenon.

IN SEARCH OF PROVERBIALITY

Ioan Milică — 2026-07-26

The paper examines the Romanian construction A este X tuturor Y ‘A is the X of all Y’, as in Iubirea de arginți e rădăcina tuturor relelor ‘The love of money is the source of all evils’, from a corpus-based and probabilistic perspective on proverbiality. The study approaches the construction and its contextual instantiations as a productive network whose proverbial identity emerges from evaluative force, collocational strength and distributional constraint. Drawing on a small, curated corpus of 81 attestations spanning 1581 to 2008, the analysis describes and interprets the contextual syntagmatic dynamics across the three constructional slots (A, X, Y). The results show clear asymmetries: the A-slot allows controlled variation, while the X and Y slots display high degrees of lexical constraint and collocational convergence. The discussion maps the corpus findings onto a multidimensional model of proverbiality, addressing traditionality, stability, evaluativity, generality, grounding, symbolicity, and transferability. The study suggests that proverbiality is a probabilistic effect arising from recurrent structural alignment, semantic constraint and cultural reuse over time.

NATIONAL AND CULTURAL PECULIARITIES OF THE ZOONYM DOG IN LATIN AND ENGLISH PAROEMIAS

Marta Petryshyn — 2026-07-26

The article presents a comparative analysis of the connotative meanings and national-cultural specifics of the zoonym dog in the linguocultures of the ancient Romans and the British. This allows tracing the conceptualization of the animal, as well as universal and distinct stereotypes shaped by the national-cultural worldview of different ethnic groups. The metaphorical interpretation of the lexeme is grounded both in the behavioral traits of the animal and the societal attitudes towards it. The zoomorphic cultural code conceptualizes human character traits, interpersonal relations, moral essence, intellect, appearance, environmental realities, etc. In the paroemiological space of Latin and English, the image of the dog carries ambivalent evaluative connotations. On one hand, the dog is portrayed as a loyal and experienced companion endowed with intelligence and devotion; on the other, the zoonym embodies the worst human qualities: aggression, cruelty, insatiability, indifference, ingratitude, insincerity, stubbornness, shortsightedness, laziness, etc. The analysis of the zoonym dog in paroemiological traditions enables the reconstruction of different peoples’ perceptions of the animal, tracing its metaphorical reinterpretation, and identifying universal and culture-specific features of folk symbolism.

“GRATITUDE IS THE CURSE OF THE REPUBLICS”

Raymond M. Summerville — 2026-07-26

This essay explores proverbial language use of Wharton Jackson Green (1831–1910), revealing how he used it in navigating the various roles he played as a soldier, civilian, and politician. Simultaneously, it illustrates the complexities of life during the Reconstruction (1865–1877) and Victorian eras (1837–1901), highlighting the extent to which Green’s family history is connected to National history. Drawing from Wolfgang Mieder’s scholarship on the political uses of proverbs, it demonstrates that even if aspects of Green’s writing reflect the racist ideology prevalent during Reconstruction, such as “the lost cause,” it is only by examining such instances carefully, that one may develop an understanding of the complex evolution of American culture. Green’s limited corpus of writings archived at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill includes his autobiography Recollections and Reflections: An Auto of Half a Century and More (1906), an editorial commemorating his father, Thomas Jefferson Green (1802–1863), written for the North Carolina University Magazine (1892), and several Senate speeches. These illustrate that Green had a range of uses for proverbial language including engaging in political discourse, conveying life lessons, and coping with the mental and emotional traumas associated with fighting in the Civil War (1861–1865).

REPRESENTATIONS OF TEXTILE CULTURE IN SLOVENIAN PROVERBS

Katarina Šrimpf Vendramin — 2026-07-26

Textiles are not merely economic goods but also carriers of social, cultural, and symbolic meanings. Focusing on the Slovenian cultural context, this article examines how textile production and related practices are reflected in proverbs and other short folklore forms. Drawing on a semantic analysis of Slovenian paremiological material, the analysis identifies elements of the traditional textile economy that are expressed in language and explores the figurative meanings they acquire within folklore discourse. It shows that thread, yarn, flax, wool, and textile-related crafts and professions serve as vehicles for transmitting knowledge, values, and experience, as well as for articulating concepts of work, community, and social order. The article thus demonstrates how the material aspects of textile production are intertwined with social and symbolic dimensions in folklore genres, revealing their role in shaping and communicating shared meanings and values within the Slovenian tradition.

PROVERBS, SYMBOLIC CAPITAL, AND SYMBOLIC VIOLENCE

Luis J. Tosina Fernández — 2026-07-26

This article applies the fundamentals of Pierre Bourdieu’s Field Theory to the analysis of the use of proverbs in communication. According to the French sociologist, human interactions are determined by the symbolic capital held by participants in these interactions. Regarding proverbs, their anonymity and folkloric nature adds to their symbolic capital, motivating their use as a communication device believed to grant the speaker an argumentative advantage. This paper, in addition to repositioning proverbs within the Bourdieusian dichotomy of doxa and habitus, analyzes how certain proverbial uses may result in what Bourdieu termed “symbolic violence.” To prove this, and after noticing a relatively frequent use of proverbs by Elon Musk on his Twitter/X account, a search for proverbial uses that could be considered aggressive was conducted to demonstrate how such proverbial references may exemplify Bourdieu’s concept of ‘symbolic violence.’

TOWARDS AN EMIC DEFINITION OF THE PROVERB IN GREEK FOLKLORE

Georgios Tserpes — 2026-07-26

This article uses Greek metaproverbs—proverbs about proverbs—as an emic tool for defining the proverb, and then combines it with six student definitions and twenty-six popular (non-specialist) definitions gathered through fieldwork. Drawing a focused set from the Digital Repository of Proverbs (Hellenic Folklore Research Centre, Academy of Athens), the study close-reads eight metaproverbs to articulate the core properties they ascribe to the genre. It then places this emic picture alongside contemporary voices: those of emerging folklorists and informants with no folkloristic background. The comparison shows strong convergence on condensed communal speech used in situ to frame action, with divergence in the rhetoric of authority and in how form is foregrounded. The paper proposes a concise emic definition of the Greek proverb, consistent across the three corpora and argues that proverbial authority is realized primarily in use.