Paremiology of Palestinian Month-Related Proverbs: Inimitability and Translatability

Abstract

Proverbs are deemed to be the products or by-products of the culture, a predominant type of which is, what we may term, Month-Related Proverbs (MRPs). The present article examines sociolinguistic (MRPs) utilised by the doyen(ne) of Palestinians, consisting of a corpus of thirty MRPs which are drawn from ṣaḥīfat al-Quds (Al-Quds Daily Newspaper), Dictionary of Palestinian Proverbs (1999) by Lubani and A Dictionary of Modern Lebanese Proverbs, with conflated Arabic proverbs with English translation by Freyha (1995). The article shows the functions of MRPs are mainly (1) to take great pride in their cultural heritage that seemed to have passed from one generation to the next; (2) to recapitulate various aspects of peasant life— memories of a bygone age; (3) to warn against unfavourable weather conditions over a year. The article examines the translations in view of Nord’s (1991 and 1997) documentary translation and instrumental translation. The findings of the article show that documentary translation seems to be considered the most appropriate translation method opted for to inculcate the values of Palestinian culture in Target Language (TL) audience.