Ahmad Taymour’s Colloquial Proverbs

Introduction

When Ahmad Taymour died in 1930, he left behind several manuscripts of his important research, one of which is The Colloquial Proverbs collection. A committee formed after his name, to publish his research, recognized the value of this collection, and published it in 1949 in the form of a book. Their judgment proved right; the book gained immense popularity among the people and was sold out in no time. The pressing demand for the book urged the committee to print a second edition in 1956. Subsequently, several editions have been published. With the predominance of digital media, the collection is now available in many formats.

The collection was not only welcomed by non-scholars but also by scholars. The reason is that Ahmad Taymour himself is a distinguished scholar who is famous for his precision and his scholarly approach. Having been a member of the Arab Academy of Damascus, the oldest academy of the Arabic language, founded in 1918, Taymour has, among others, studies in the fields of literature, language, Islamic studies and history. He is also an Arab paremiology pioneer and a leading figure in the field. According to many scholars, his phenomenal work The Colloquial Proverbs is regarded as a remarkable thesaurus that provides a substantial and comprehensive collection of Egyptian proverbs, which is fundamentally an indispensable basis for profound research. This collection is also of immense value to scholars of various other fields.

Taymour’s annotated collection includes 3188 proverbs, well explained and alphabetically ordered according to the first letter of the proverb. The explanation of those proverbs mentions a description of the lives and traditions of Egyptians, and in some cases the historical background. Cross-references within the explanation relate proverbs which are of the same, similar or opposing meaning, giving an extra edge to the book.

The collection has gained viral popularity not only in Egypt, but also in the wider Arabic speaking readership. Many Egyptians keep a copy of the book, cherishing those proverbs as a legacy dating decades back, yet still part of their ways of thinking and lifestyle. The greatest number of these Egyptian Arabic proverbs are still used today as they appear in the collection. This collection is about the Egyptians: their customs and traditions, their joys and sorrows, what they like and dislike, what they regard as ill omen or good omen, what they consider good luck or no luck; and even the way they see fate and predestination. The book also discloses their relationship with God, family, relatives, neighbors, friends, their loved ones, their enemies, the relationship between man and woman, the way they raise their children, how they treat the rich and poor, as well as their rulers. The book also refers to their jobs, their trades, their cultivation, the way they earn their bread and butter, in addition to many other aspects of their lives. The proverbs deal with many contradictions and dualities such as poverty and wealth, beauty and ugliness, good and evil, love and hatred, sorrow and happiness, contentment and discontent, righteousness and falsehood, justice and injustice, heaven and hell, life, death and the afterlife. Such a book which documents the lives of the Egyptians is worth being translated and offered to the English-speaking readership, especially those interested in learning about the traditions and lives of diverse societies and peoples.

The translation of this collection is also of interest for scholars. Taymour’s book is a source of earnest study and research. The scholarly approach of Taymour deems the translation of his book of great importance to scholars, and indispensable to various disciplines, some of which are paremiology, folklore, linguistics, anthropology, and cultural and comparative studies.

The motive for translating this book is that I am a paremiologist myself. My passion for proverbs started with my master’s thesis which is a comparative study of German and Egyptian proverbs, resulting in 1000 similar proverbs between both peoples. The study of proverbs continued within my scholarly career, publishing in various journals and also in Proverbium: Yearbook of International Proverb Scholarship, the last of which is a study about animals in Egyptian proverbs. In all those studies the collection of Taymour has been the solid base of my research. Besides being a paremiologist, I am a Professor of Linguistics at the Department of German, Faculty of Arts, Cairo University. Being both a paremiologist and a professor of Linguistics, I highly appreciate Taymour’s book and understand very well its value for research in the various disciplines.

In the following paragraphs I am going to give a brief overview of the different collections of Egyptian proverbs that have been published. Unpublished collections will be left out. I am also going to point out a few aspects that were of interest for the proverb scholarship. Only the collections or studies of Egyptian proverbs will be mentioned, as there are many other collections and studies about the Arabic proverbs in general and also about the proverbs of other regions of the Arabic-speaking world. All the titles that are going to be mentioned will be translated into English.

The interest in collecting the Egyptian Proverbs began in the early nineteenth century. The first published collection of Egyptian proverbs is the one of John Lewis Burckhardt with the title: Arabic Proverbs or The Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, Illustrated from their Proverbial Sayings Current at Cairo published in 1830. In his preface Burckhardt wrote “Many of the proverbial sayings in this volume, were collected by Sheref ed dyn Ibn Asad a native of Cairo, who lived, it is said, early in the last century.” The proverbs of Ibn Asad were found on handwritten leaves and some of them needed explanation or comments. According to Burckhardt he has added some hundred proverbs to them which he has collected himself. And so, the number of the proverbs reached 782 which were arranged alphabetically according to the Arabic alphabet. Only the first mention of the proverbs is written in Arabic followed by the translation into English. All the rest is in English. The proverbs are explained as a whole and followed by the explanation of single words that appear in the proverb. Commentaries referring to customs and traditions of the Egyptians enrich the value of the collection. This collection was also translated into German and was published in 1834. The English version was – according to Wolfgang Mieder – reprinted several times (1875, 1972, 1980, 1990, 1994, 2004). The German version was reprinted by Wolfgang Mieder in 2012 which is a proof of the popularity of the book – both the English and the German version. This book is not only popular among non-Egyptians but also among Egyptians which led the famous paremiologist Ibrahim Shaalan to translate it into Arabic in 1989.

The collection of Omar El-Bagoury The Proverbs of Common Egyptians was published in 1889 and contains more than three thousand proverbs arranged alphabetically and explained. It also refers to the occasion of quoting the proverb and also contains cross references to classical Arabic proverbs, verses from the Holy Kuran, maxims and poems. According to Shaalan El-Bagoury was not accurate in his definition of the proverbs which made him mention many sayings that were not proverbs. (See Shaalan Encyclopedia Part I, 2003, p. 41 – 44)

The collection of Naoum Shokeir was published in 1894. Its title is The Proverbs of Everyday People in Egypt, Sudan and Syria. In his collection Shokeir mixed between several genres of sayings and was not strict regarding the definition of the proverb which made him add other forms to his collection. It is also clear that the collection was not restricted to the Egyptian proverbs but also contained Sudanese and Syrian proverbs. (See Shaalan Encyclopedia Part I, 2003, p. 45 – 49) On the other hand, this collection pointed out the possibility of comparing the proverbs of different regions within the Arabic speaking world.

A Collection of Colloquial Egyptian Proverbs. by Youssef Khanky was published in 1897 in Egypt. It contains 559 proverbs collected and translated into English. He brought the proverb in Arabic then in English followed by the explanation. This collection was aimed for non-Egyptians. (See Shaalan Encyclopedia Part I, 2003, p. 50 and 51)

The first part of the collection of Fayqa Hussein Ragheb entitled The Garden of Colloquial Proverbs. Collected, Explained and Arranged has been published in 1939 and is comprised of 1330 proverbs and the second part has been published in 1943 and is comprised of 1161 proverbs all arranged alphabetically. The collection did not exceed the first letter of the Arabic alphabet. Further parts were not published. The big volume of the collection, that Ragheb collected herself is – in my opinion – due to the fact that she did not differentiate between the proverb and other similar forms, which made the proverbs beginning with the first letter exceed by far the number of existing proverbs. (See Shaalan Encyclopedia Part I, 2003, p. 67 – 71)

The collection of Ahmad Taymour The Colloquial Proverbs with the subtitle Explained and Arranged According to the First Letter of the Proverb was published in 1949. In the second edition (1956) the numbers were added to the proverbs. In a later edition an index referring to the subjects of the proverbs was added and was subsequently mentioned in the subtitle of the book. Further editions of the collection are the fourth (1986), the fifth (2007), the sixth (2011) edition which point out to its great popularity. The collection is comprised of 3188 proverbs which Taymour collected himself. Following the proverb is – when needed – an explanation of the single words in the proverb followed sometimes by a linguistic description of the word and referring sometimes to its root. An extensive explanation of the proverb follows referring to customs and traditions of the Egyptian. In some cases, the historical background is mentioned or even stories that explain why a certain proverb is said. Cross-references to other proverbs or cross-references to classical Arabic proverbs, poems, folksongs, wise sayings, and religious texts enrich the book. Ibrahim Shaalan, a known paremiologist and an author of many books and an encyclopedia in the field of proverb scholarship, has written the following words (translated from Arabic): “This book (the collection of Taymour) is the most complete and most important and the richest collection regarding its corpus and the explanation (of the proverbs). The author (Taymour) has done quite a great effort (in collecting and explaining) and especially in comparing the new proverbs with the old ones and in his precious trials in following the historical traces of some of the proverbs and looking for the same meaning expressed in poems, famous sayings and others … and so presenting material which is useful and solid for study and research.” (Shaalan Encyclopedia Part I, 2003, p. 65 and 66) The value of the collection of Taymour also lies in his strict understanding of the proverb. With quite a few exceptions Taymour only mentions proverbs in the strict sense of the word and according to the accepted definition by most proverb scholars which makes his collection reliable, and which has made his collection have an impact on all the following collections and is being considered as a base for serious studies.

The collections that I have mentioned are considered the most important proverb collections dating up to the middle of the twentieth century. These collections have arranged the proverbs alphabetically followed by explanations which varied from one collection to another. Referring to the subjects of the proverbs or dividing the proverbs according to them was no priority for these elder collectors. Another remark is that the collections were not only of interest for the Egyptians but also for foreigners, so that some collections were written in English (Burckhardt, Khanky) and in German (Burckhardt). These could serve as a basis for comparing the proverbs of different peoples. The idea of comparing the proverb of different Arabic regions shows in a collection including Egyptian, Syrian and Sudanese proverbs. (Shokeir)

Comparing the older collections with the newer collections shows that the current trend of the proverb collections is mainly collecting them according to subjects and making them more voluminous than the old collections which accounts for naming them “encyclopedias” and not collections.

The encyclopedia of the great paremiologist Ibrahim Shaalan entitled The Encyclopedia of Egyptian Popular Proverbs and Common Expressions is divided in 6 volumes (published 2003) and compiled of 3606 pages and nearly fourteen thousand proverbs and expressions. This big number that exceeds the number of the collection of Taymour is due to the fact that the collection is not restricted to proverbs. What also makes it different from Taymour is the fact that the collection of these proverbs is – according to Shaalan – restricted to a certain area in Lower Egypt (Shaalan: Introduction of the Encyclopedia, Part I, 2003, p. 18) and not collected from the whole country of Egypt like the ones collected by Taymour. Shaalan organized the proverbs according to subjects. As an example, I offer the title of the chapters of the first part of the encyclopedia which are: The countryside, trade and work, social groups and communions, the Egyptian family and its dependencies, customs and traditions, beliefs and the unknown, social classes, different items. Other subjects appear in the other parts of the encyclopedia.

The Encyclopedia of Egyptian Folk Proverbs. A Study of the Cultural Character of Egypt by Mohamed Batal published by Longmann in 2009 is comprised of 248 pages and divided into 5 chapters discussing the proverbs from different points of view, namely: the origin of the Egyptian folk proverbs and its development over the ages, dividing the proverbs according to subjects, linguistic and stylistic analysis of the proverbs, a comparison between the Egyptian and English proverbs regarding their structure and semantics, an alphabetical arrangement of the proverbs. As rich as the encyclopedia is, it is obvious that its aim is not the pure collection of proverbs.

The encyclopedia of Ahmad Ibrahim Al-Saify bearing the title Encyclopedia of Crafts – Industries and Business in Egyptian Folk Proverbs was published in 2020. This book does not only contain proverbs but also other similar forms and also the conventional words that the sellers say in order to attract the people to buy their goods. The book is comprised of 637 pages. Al-Saify explains the crafts in general then mentions the sayings related to the craft and then explains the sayings and refers to the occasions in which they are used. He also mentions the different versions of the sayings. It is apparent – as indicated in the title – that the collection is not restricted to proverbs.

To be noted is that the three modern collections or encyclopedias mentioned are published in the twenty-first century. Their aim seems to be arranging (classifying) the proverbs according to subjects, perhaps – among others – because there seems to be little to add to the collection of Taymour which is regarded as the best collection and the best base for serious study.

The study of Egyptian proverbs began in the second half of the twentieth century. Different aspects of the proverbs were being studied. I am going to mention some of them as follows:

The definition of the proverb and differentiating it from other similar forms: Ibrahim Shaalan The Egyptians in their Colloquial Proverbs 1972, reprint in 2004; Hilda Matta German and Egyptian Proverbs. A Comparison of their Structure, their Meaning together with their Cultural, Historical and Social Motivation (MA thesis 1980) and Semasiological and Onomasiological Analysis of German and Egyptian-Arabic Proverbs (PhD thesis 1986)

Extracting the character of the Egyptians from their proverbs and the philosophy of the masses: Ibrahim Shaalan The Egyptians in their Colloquial Proverbs 1972 reprint 2004; Hamed Taher The Egyptian Philosophy Extracted from the Folk Proverbs 2008.

Comparative studies: Hilda Matta MA 1980, Batal (2009)

Rhetorical and stylistic analysis of the proverbs: Fatima Hayder A Rhetorical and Stylistic Study of Folk Proverbs (Egypt as an Example) (2017)

Semantic analysis of the proverbs: Matta PhD thesis (1986)

Syntax of the proverbs: Huda Ghaly The Sytax of Colloqiual Egyptian Proverbs (2000)

Linguistic study of proverbs: Fatma Mahgoub A Linguistic Study of Cairene Proverbs (1968)

Animals in the proverbs: Ibrahim Shaalan Encyclopedia (2003); Hilda Matta Animals in Egyptian Proverbs (2021)

The family in the proverbs: Ibrahim Shaalan Encyclopedia (2003); Hilda Matta The Relatives in the German and Egyptian-Arabic Proverbs (1996)