Russian proverbs originated in

oral history Oral history is the collection and study of historical information from people, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews. These interviews are conducted with people who pa ...

and written texts dating as far back as the 12th century. The

Russian language Russian is an East Slavic languages, East Slavic language belonging to the Balto-Slavic languages, Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. It is one of the four extant East Slavic languages, and is ...

is replete with many hundreds of

proverb A proverb (from ) or an adage is a simple, traditional saying that expresses a perceived truth based on common sense or experience. Proverbs are often metaphorical and are an example of formulaic speech, formulaic language. A proverbial phrase ...

s (пословица ) and

saying A saying is any concise expression that is especially memorable because of its meaning or style. A saying often shows a wisdom or cultural standard, having different meanings than just the words themselves. Sayings are categorized as follows: * ...

s (поговорка ). The

proverbs A proverb (from ) or an adage is a simple, traditional saying that expresses a perceived truth based on common sense or experience. Proverbs are often metaphorical and are an example of formulaic language. A proverbial phrase or a proverbial ...

express a universal concept, have a

moral A moral (from Latin ''morālis'') is a message that is conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader, or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim. ...

lesson and provide an insight into many aspects of

history History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

culture Culture ( ) is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and Social norm, norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, Social norm, customs, capabilities, Attitude (psychology), attitudes ...

, and national

character Character or Characters may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk * ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to Theoph ...

of the people who created them. By the 17th century, the proverbs were collected and documented. They were studied in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Vladimir Dal Vladimir Ivanovich Dal (, ; 22 November 1801 – 4 October 1872) was a Russians, Russian Lexicography, lexicographer, Multilingualism, speaker of many languages, Turkology, Turkologist, and founding member of the Russian Geographical Society. Du ...

was a famous

lexicographer Lexicography is the study of lexicons and the art of compiling dictionaries. It is divided into two separate academic disciplines: * Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionary, dictionaries. * The ...

of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

whose collection was published in

in the late 19th century as ''The Sayings and Bywords of the Russian People,'' featuring more than 30,000 entries. They continue to endure in modern literature and

folklore Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as Narrative, tales, myths, legends, proverbs, Poetry, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. This also ...

. Evidence of this is seen in the collection of Russian

anti-proverb An anti-proverb or a perverb is the transformation of a standard proverb for humour, humorous effect. Paremiology, Paremiologist Wolfgang Mieder defines them as "parodied, twisted, or fractured proverbs that reveal humorous or satirical speech ...

s collected by Reznikov.Reznikov, Andrey. 2009. ''Old Wine in New Bottles. Modern Russian Anti-Proverbs.'' Proverbium Supplement Series, Volume 27.

References

Bibliography

*Anikin, V. P. ''Russian proverbs and sayings.'' Khudozhestvennaya Literatura, Moscow (1988). * Dal, Vladimir I. ''Proverbs of Russian People.'' М.: Russian Book (1993). *Danko, S. G., et al. "Comparison of the effects of the subjective complexity and verbal creativity on EEG spectral power parameters." ''Human Physiology'' 35.3 (2009): 381-383
link to article
*Gibian, George. How Russian Proverbs Present the Russian National Character. ''Russianness: Studies on a Nation’s Identity''. Ed. Robert L. Belknap. Ann Arbor (1990): 38-43. *Gluski, Jerzy. ''Proverbs: A Comparative Book of English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Russian Proverbs with a Latin Appendix''. Elsevier Science Limited, 1989. *Guershoon, Andrew. ''Certain aspects of Russian proverbs''. F. Muller ltd., 1941. *Krylov. C. A. ''Russian Proverbs and Sayings in Russian and English''. US Army Russian Institute, 1973. *Langna, I. A. ''1200 Russian proverbs''. Philosophical Library, 1960. *Mertvago, Peter. ''The comparative Russian-English dictionary of Russian proverbs & sayings'': with 5543 entries: 1900 most important proverbs highlighted: English proverb index. Hippocrene Books, 1995. *Permiakov, Grigoriĭ Lʹvovich. ''From proverb to Folk-tale: Notes on the general theory of cliche''. Nauka, 1979. *Politis, Vera, Richard Robert Sheldon, and Alan A. Reich, eds. ''Russian Proverbs: 100 Favorites of Professor Nadezhda Timofeevna Koroton.'' Dartmouth Triad Associates, 1998. {{DEFAULTSORT:Russian Proverbs Proverbs by language

See also

References

Bibliography