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Proverbs Essay

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The age of the proverbs and sayings, as well as the age of the folklore is very difficult to be determined. There is relatively little and seldom convincing evidence about their origin. They appeared in literary form, and are in most of the cases and adaptation of the oral communication. The proverbs have been transmitted from generation to generation, until they were recorded as being a national treasure. Each country has its own proverbs that represent the culture [16]. It is also said that the proverbs are so old that they are going out of fashion or changing into clichés but still they have a very important role for the language.
Most of the proverbs have unknown authors. It is told that the origin of proverbs can be traced back to the time when lived Aristotle. Many proverbs and sayings have their origin in Bible and other kinds of holly books. The origin of proverbs can be also traced according to the earliest Sumerian cuneiform tablets (2500 B. C. ) which gave grammatical rules in proverbs, and the philosophical writings of Aristotle. …show more content…

The collections of gnomic verse, which existed in the Anglo-Saxon literature, have at its very beginning small amounts of proverbs. But the oldest collection is “ Proverbs of Alfred” which is a collection of religious and moral precepts [http://www. britannica. com/ EBchecked/ topic/ 480608/ proverb]. In her introduction to the first edition of the “Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs”, Jenet Heseltine has pointed out that proverbial sayings can be found in religious manuscripts from the first half of the eighth century beginning with brief collections of proverbs included half in the vernacular, the whole in Latin, probably with the reason to facilitate the teaching of Latin. Some sources, however state that the proverbs appeared for the first time in the 12th or even in 14th century. [http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/proverb

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