Words of wisdom

By Amina Elbendary
You must have experienced the gratification some time, that instant feeling of fulfilment at the end of a heated or even moderate debate with a particularly persistent colleague, the moment at which you instinctively decide to bombard her with age-old words of wisdom that prove your point better than anything she could have put together. After all, discretion is the better part of valour. End of discussion. Ah, the blessing of proverbs -- if only you could remember the appropriate ones at the necessary time!
Colloquial Egyptian Arabic -- like many living languages and dialects -- is blessed with thousands of proverbs and sayings to suit almost every conceivable situation. But how are these words of wisdom surviving in an age of globalisation and (let's face it) Westernisation? Where do they come from and where are they going?
The value of traditional proverbs and sayings has long been hailed, particularly by academics interested in folklore and popular culture. And as with folkloric studies in general, the approach to such proverbs is almost always an attempt to save some venerable part of the cultural heritage from extinction. This has prompted numerous dictionaries of proverbs, the most famous of which remains Ahmed Taymour Pasha's nineteenth-century classic Al-Amthal Al-Amiyya. The effort to record popular proverbs and expressions and analyse them has also continued with subsequent generations of scholars including Ahmed Amin and Sayed Oweiss.
Inherent in attempts to analyse them has also been a presumption that these traditional cultural expressions are keys to understanding an authentic, unchanging, almost primordial Egyptian character. It is this spirit that was alive at a seminar held this Tuesday at the Cairo Library where Ibrahim Shaalan, professor at the Faculty of Arts, Cairo University, discussed "The Historical Roots of Popular Egyptian Proverbs." Shaalan compared contemporary proverbs with their ancient Egyptian and medieval Arabic equivalents. He argued for the persistence of certain traits and moral values espoused by a generic Egyptian.
It was interesting to hear that proverbs like lisanak husanak, in suntuh sanak, wa in hintuh hanak (your tongue is your horse, if you keep it away from trouble it will protect you, if you insult it, it will insult you) have their roots in ancient Egyptian ones like man builds and destroys with his tongue. Similarly, don't talk behind walls for walls have ears (al-hitan laha widan) and patience is the key to success (al-sabr muftah al-farag) are proverbs that survive to this day. Shaalan also traced some common expressions to their medieval counterparts that survive in Al-Maydani's Magma' Al-Amthal written in the eleventh century.
While Shaalan self-consciously follows the school that views this unchanging Egyptian character as a "traditional" one, he did make a case for studying proverbs in their cultural contexts. A popular saying is that al-sign lil-gid'an, that is "prison is for courageous men." And while at the face of it this seems like a passive proverb urging people to acquiesce to their fates, or even suggesting, as Shaalan joked, that most Egyptians are criminals, studying the context reveals another dimension. This proverb is prevalent in Upper Egypt in particular, where persisting moral codes promoting honour and courage (especially in crimes of revenge) are often in contradiction to the law. In these cases it is the men who abide by the moral codes of the community who end up in prison. It was also used a lot in reference to the nationalist fida'iyin who partook in para-military operations against the British occupation prior to the 1952 revolution. This was another case where prison was for the courageous.
The persistence of certain authentic Egyptian mores notwithstanding, many proverbs have their echoes and even word-for-word equivalents in other languages and cultural traditions so even in English the son of a duck is a floater; out of sight is out of mind; and actions speak louder than words. In fact, proverbs concerning a variety of topics ranging from justice to beauty to love abound in every language. Does this not suggest that many of those traits and moral values, these expressions of collective wisdom, are almost universal? And how does one distinguish between those universal recurring ideas and ones that are particularly context-specific?
Azza Ezzat in her book Al-Shakhsiyya Al-Misriyya fi Al-Amthal Al-Shaabiyya delineates six main characteristics of this Egyptian personality that are evident from studying popular proverbs. These are: cynicism, religiosity, kindness, love of stability, artistry and intelligence.
The comprehensive nature of proverbs also means that they often include seemingly contradicting maxims. Which you choose to be more relevant in a particular situation is more often than not an arbitrary decision of personal preference. I personally tend to favour the notion that absence makes the heart grow fonder rather than ponder the discomforting idea that perhaps out of sight, out of mind. But when the proverbs are ones promoting or admonishing certain behaviour what do you do? If ya bakht min wafa' rasein fil-halal (Lucky is him who matchmakes) but imshi fi ganaza wala timshi fi gawaza (Join in a funeral but don't join in a match), which do you follow? Do these proverbs point to inherent contradictions in Egyptian culture as some scholars have argued? And are proverbs then just a way to legitimise one's own behaviour and give authority to preconceived ideas?
Unfortunately, it is very difficult to study the evolution of proverbs and see which tend to prevail at which particular junctures in time (which, as the English world knows, waits for no man). So for example, traditionally it has been argued that dhill ragil wala dhill heta (The shadow of a man is better than the shadow of a wall) to promote the idea that any marriage is better than being single, an idea firmly rooted in a culture that almost sanctifies the family. But changing socio-cultural realities lead many women to retort that al-wihda khayrun min galis al-sou' (Better alone than in bad company).
With the modernisation that has swept through Egyptian society, many popular Egyptian proverbs are falling out of use, expressions our grandmothers used on a daily basis have become just that: grandmothers' talk. Many have become archaic. In some circles it has become almost a faux pas to use such expressions and proverbs in one's own speech. It is telling that in TV series it is most likely women from poorer or more traditional backgrounds that are made to utter such proverbs. In the popular series Lann A'ish fi Gilbab Abi where the famous star Abla Kamel personified the wife of a scrap metal merchant who rises up the social ladder, she repeated proverb after proverb in what often sounded like litanies out of the Book of Wisdom. This reaffirms the general conception that Egyptians are more Egyptian down the social ladder, and that this genuine Egyptianness finds authentic expression in popular proverbs.
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