The Routledge Book of World Proverbs invites the reader to travel the globe in search of the origins of such words of wisdom, experiencing the rich cultural traditions reflected in each nation’s proverbs. This collection contains over 16,000 gems of humour and pathos that draw upon themes from our shared experiences of life. And we are not just invited to learn about other cultures; proverbs are ‘bits of ancient wisdom’ and thus teach us about our own history. Drawing together proverbs that transcend culture, time and space to provide a collection that is both useful and enjoyable, The Routledge Book of World Proverbs is, unquestionably, a book of enduring interest.

The Routledge Book of World Proverbs draws together proverbs that transcend culture, time and space to provide an enduring collection that is both useful and enjoyable.

This Dictionary contains over 50,000 proverbs, in some 70 European languages and dialects, arranged in 2,500 sets. It is the fruits of over 40 years of collection and research, the only collection of proverbs on anything like this scale ever to be published anywhere in the world. Emanuel Strauss has trawled through innumerable collections of proverbs in all languages, from early printed books and rare items to the latest theses and journals, and grouped together many thousands of proverbs in sets of equivalent meaning. Comprehensive indexes for each language provide access to any proverb by way of its key words. A critical bibliography musters some 500 items, from incunabula to the current decade.

The field of paremiology is traditionally an interdisciplinary one starting with folklore, paremiology, language, literature, history, and other fields, their mutual influence being a peculiar and highly valued feature for all. This book is linguistic in nature, offering a number of aspects of contemporary languages and their proverbs studied, though mostly on lexical, semantic and pragmatic aspects, based on language corpora findings, subsequently leading to proverb minima. Apart from selected proverb data excerpted from tens of languages, there is an effort to arrive at a system of proverbs having a wider orientation based on the goal set to map proverbs in a language in a systematic and reliable way, showing proverbs and their use in large, multimilion language corpora. Next to its academic goals covering proverb theory of use and system, the book may be used by lexicocographers, monolingual and comparative, and language teachers in their textbook compilation.

This book explores the significance of gender in shaping the Portuguese-speaking world from the Middle Ages to the present. Sixteen scholars from disciplines including history, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, literature and cultural studies analyse different configurations and literary representations of women's rights and patriarchal constraints. Unstable constructions of masculinity, femininity, queer, homosexual, bisexual, and transgender identities and behaviours are placed in historical context. The volume pioneers in gendering the Portuguese expansion in Africa, Asia, and the New World and pays particular attention to an inclusive account of indigenous agencies. Contributors are: Darlene Abreu-Ferreira, Vanda Anastácio, Francisco Bethencourt, Dorothée Boulanger, Rosa Maria dos Santos Capelão, Maria Judite Mário Chipenembe, Gily Coene, Philip J. Havik, Ben James, Anna M. Klobucka, Chia Longman, Amélia Polónia, Ana Maria S. A. Rodrigues, Isabel dos Guimarães Sá, Ana Cristina Santos, and João Paulo Silvestre.

This study explores the sophisticated understanding of the formation of the moral self that emerges in the poetry of Proverbs, which many have wrongly dismissed as simplistic. Anne W. Stewart analyzes images and metaphors to illuminate the Book's views on the role of emotions and desires in shaping moral imaginations.

Gathers more than eighteen thousand proverbs from around the world arranged alphabetically by key subject word and identifies the national, ethnic, or cultural origin of each proverbT.