PROVERBS

This study explores the sociolinguistic significance of animal-related proverbs in the Edo language, examining how they reflect the cultural values, social norms, and worldview of the Edo people. Proverbs that involve animals often serve as tools for communication, moral instruction, and conflict resolution, offering insight into traditional beliefs and human behavior as understood through animals’ traits. Using a qualitative approach, the study combines descriptive analysis with ethnographic methods, including interviews and observation, to gather authentic proverbs and their meanings from native speakers. The findings reveal that animal proverbs in Edo culture are rich in metaphor and symbolism, portraying animals such as the tortoise, dog, lion, and bird as representations of wisdom, cunning, strength, or foolishness, depending on context.

The aim of this study was to examine selected Igbo proverbs with a view to understanding how cultural and thematic meanings are embedded within them. The objective of the study is to identify common themes in Igbo proverbs, and explore the cultural messages they convey. Using semiotics and ethnography of communication approaches, the data for this study were collected by oral interviews with native Igbo speakers. The findings of the study reveal that Igbo proverbs are rich in cultural values, moral teachings, and traditional wisdom. The study shows that the themes embedded in the proverbs reflect societal beliefs on truth, social control, wisdom, hospitality and patience. It concludes that Igbo proverbs serve as linguistic tools for preserving culture and transmitting moral values across generations. Most of the proverbs carry deep meaning that comes from the Igbo culture and are used in everyday interactions to teach, correct, and advise, thereby reflecting the worldview of the Igbo people.

This study looked at several selected Yoruba proverbs that were translated into English. For the selected proverbs, the researcher used a contextual and functional analysis. According to the results of the contextual study, despite the proverbs serving various contextual purposes in our daily interactions, the English translation reflected some lexico-semantic qualities, such as meaning distortion, meaning substitution, meaning modification, meaning constriction, and sometimes, the meaning is actually kept. However, the study found that the poetic elements embedded in Yoruba proverbs were not well disseminated through translation practice in the use of proverbs in communication.