The proverb refers to one of the most interesting genres of folklore. Many scientists studied it very carefully, but could not fully unravel its mystery. What is a proverb and what is its meaning?
The meaning of proverbs and sayings
The proverb is considered the sayings of people in which their opinion is traced, an assessment of current events and the people's mind. It reflects the most diverse aspects of life. If people do not accept such statements, then they simply drop out. A proverb always teaches something, and from it it is necessary to take something useful for yourself. Over time, new utterances appear, and old ones remain in the past, but the most valuable ones have come down to us from ancient times. Often the direct meaning of the proverbs was lost and acquired figurative. However, some of them immediately appeared in figurative. About what such a proverb, V.I. Dahl: "This is a set of folk wisdom and superstition, these are sighs and groans, sobbing and crying, fun and joy, comfort in faces and grief; this is the color of the mind of the people, their distinctive character; this is people's everyday truth, a kind of judge who nobody judges"
The form and composition of popular sayings
The proverb has a rhythmic organization and a peculiar sound design. It is very short, without further ado, has a capacious and accurate content. Such a statement firmly enters into speech circulation and has an instructive meaning.
Such sayings appeared even in the primitive communal system, even before the first literary monuments and works appeared. It was passed from mouth to mouth, so the content should have been concise. To convey the necessary information, the authors very carefully selected words for proverbs. Usually they consisted of two parts. The first clearly described the phenomenon or object, and the second gave them an assessment. Having found out what a proverb is, it becomes clear to us that it can have not only a direct, but also a figurative meaning. They often have a riddle that needs to be solved.
A bit of history
Such popular sayings are born from ordinary everyday life. Quite a few of them also appeared from literary works. For example, Griboedov’s comedy “Woe from Wit” has about 60 expressions that are firmly in folklore. At first they were just phrases, and then gradually turned into proverbs. And there are a lot of such works. Such popular sayings began to be recorded back in ancient times. Aristotle composed one of the very first collections many years ago.
In our country, the first records appeared in the 17th century and immediately began to be published. “Proverbs of the Russian people” is one of the most widely known collections of such wise folk expressions. It totaled more than 25, 000 texts. They were compiled and carefully assembled by V.I. Dahl. They belong to the genre of folklore.
In conclusion, I would like to once again dwell on what a proverb is. This is a figurative, grammatically designed and logically completed statement that has an instructive meaning. It has a rhythmically organized form. An example of such a statement is the following: “What you reap, you reap.”
A proverb differs from a proverb in its brevity. It almost never conceals any instructive meaning. She is considered the usual persistent expression.
