The Best Book on Somali Proverbs
Aliqeyr M. Nur
September 21, 2018
‘He who forgets the past, trails back to his ancestor’s vestige’. Relating to language, this saying imparts the impossibility of development once the archaic portion is lost. The significant stage of human intelligence and his ability of domination lie on the combination of rhetoric and wisdom. That is why Napoleon said “we rule men with words.”
When the wisdom shrinks, the knowledge of the word declines and the moral principles of the language stray, it means a clear degrading of the nation’s civilization. However, the Somalis are bestowed with a rich language and the ability to utilize it. That is why they are portrayed by Richard Burton as ‘a nation of poets’. Unfortunately, during the last few decades the Somali language and its oral literature were on the margins of public attention. In regard to the Somali proverbial treasures the situation has been improved by the Russian scholar Georgi Kapchits. In June in 2012 Ponte Invisible issued his book “Somalis do not lie in proverbs”. Following the example of the Prophets, Georgi said ‘thou shalt not stray again’ and saved a large number of Somali wisdom.
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