Proverbs in Language Teaching: Using the Example of Let’s Speak Tigrinya (2018)

Proverbs have been used in language teaching for centuries. Nowadays, language learners associate mastery of this traditionally oral genre to a certain level of fluency and regard it as an access key to a deeper understanding of the native speakers’ culture. The recently released Tǝgrǝñña coursebook Let’s Speak Tigrinya (2018) contains almost fifty proverbs, and provides students with an insight into this old and rich tradition. However, owing to the lack of commentary or translation, the paper here seeks to compensate for this deficiency. In comparison with several Tǝgrǝñña proverb collections, it becomes apparent that the expressions listed in the textbook are common in Eritrea as well as in the Tǝgray region, in several alternative variations, some of which have been attested to in earlier European research works. A few examples even have an Amharic equivalent. The proverbs focused on here cover a wide range of both grammatical and everyday life topics and should be implemented in a more effective manner than the textbook provides. However, due to the lack of translations and occasional misprints, their accessibility is radically reduced and of little use for the individual language learner unassisted by a classroom situation.


Introduction
The present article discusses the proverbs used in Issayas Tesfamariam's recently published Tǝgrǝñña textbook, 1 and investigates the role of proverbs in language teaching in general and the teaching of Tǝgrǝñña as a foreign language in particular. The article aims at presenting the necessary analysis, translations, and annotations of the proverbs in question, which are crucial from a pedagogical perspective, but not covered in the textbook itself. Another objective pursued here is to link the proverbs used in the textbook to existing works on Tǝgrǝñña proverbs, to trace them back to proverb collections, and to provide, where possible, alternative versions attested elsewhere. The article intends not only to serve as a mere addendum to the textbook by filling an important gap, but intends also to make a significant contribution to the study of the Tǝgrǝñña oral tradition, going towards applying a more rigorous approach or methodology than that employed thus far.
The Tǝgrǝñña textbook examined here is the latest (twenty-second, in fact) issue in the "Let's Speak" African Language Series by the National African Language Resource Center (NALRC) at Indiana University Bloomington. Based on the communicative approach to language learning, the series, which started in 1993 with the Yoruba textbook, sets out to offer Filip Busau Aethiopica 23 (2020) 222 students authentic conversations embedded in real life situations. The author of the Tǝgrǝñña issue, Issayas Tesfamariam, has been teaching Amharic and Tǝgrǝñña at Stanford University since 1994, where he also heads the microfilm department at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives. He has also produced several documentaries on Eritrea and runs the cultural blog kemey.blogspot.com and the website Kemey.net. The book came out more than ten years after the publication of textbooks on other major languages of the Horn of Africa, Amharic and Somali. Unlike numerous other titles in the series, it lacks an accompanying audio CD. In tune with the series' concept, the textbook contains numerous exercises, conversation situations, and cultural notes. Interestingly, alongside the traditional foreign language teaching forms such as monologues, dialogues, and texts, students are offered several poems and a wide range of proverbs, amounting to forty-four such expressions. Their importance is explained in the Preface (p. xvi): 'These are common […] proverbs that serve as mnemonic devices or teaching virtues valued in the culture. Learning these [proverbs] exposes students to authentic materials.' Nine lessons of fifteen have a proverb section at the end, with four to six proverbial units in each. Most of the selected proverbs are related-content-wise or grammaticallyto the topics dealt with in the immediate or previous lessons, containing, for instance, numerals, infinitives, or subordinate clauses, namely subjects already covered in the book up to that point. In some cases, words from the vocabulary lesson are used in these proverbs in their secondary meaning, or the vocabulary is expanded by synonyms.
By talking of 'learning' proverbs the author describes the approach used in the textbook quite precisely. Namely, they are not provided with translations, or even pronunciation aid such as gemination marking. Just as elsewhere in the book, misspelt words are not uncommon in the proverb sections. Although the present contribution is not intended as a review, 2 the following requires comment. With the exception of the introductory part, the work refrains from the use of transliteration or any other references on pronunciation, and the little transliteration that is used is defective. The book is apparently designed as a course book, with most exercises requiring the involvement of a teacher, rendering it barely suitable for self-learning. This applies particularly to the proverbs, since a mere 'learning', or, as the students are advised to do, 'reciting', is not nearly enough to learn to appreciate their cultural value. While the criticism on the chosen format is worth Aethiopica 23 (2020) 223 a separate review article, an annotated overview of all forty-four proverbs used in it will be presented here according to the scheme outlined below.
Proverb quotations in fidäl strictly following the writing in the textbook are given along with the corresponding transliteration, highlighting the detected misspellings. In the fidäl text, the author's use of the former word separator (፡) as a comma instead of the correspondent mark (፣), following the contemporary punctuation practices in Eritrea and Tǝgray, is noteworthy. This is also the case in some proverb collections cited here, along with the use of the semicolon (፥) in the same function. It also should be pointed out that the consistent employment of ፀ in preference of ጸ to represent ṣ in the sources published in Tǝgray is used here for comparison. In transliteration, the assimilation of ä to w is marked as å. The transliteration is followed by a translation that may be close to the Tǝgrǝñña original, supplemented in some cases by literal translations parenthesized and marked by double quotes. Square brackets indicate complements not given in the original, but which the context makes apparent. This is followed by explanations and interpretations of the meaning as well as other commentaries or grammatical notes. Appropriate references are provided for the expressions documented in other works, or possible lexical or dialectal variations. All translations and interpretations are by the author of the article unless stated otherwise.

Using Proverbs in Language Teaching
Proverbs constitute an important element of any language, penetrating various spheres of human life including literature, mass media, politics, social sciences, and education. 3 Not only do they serve as a mirror of social norms, but they may also justify-to an extent-or even reinforce existing stereotypes. 4 In terms of foreign language teaching, proverbs are seen as a dooropener into a new culture as well as the mindset and history of the native speakers of the relevant language. This may be one of the reasons why proverbs have been used in language teaching over centuries. 5 Moreover, the mastery of proverbs is associated with language fluency and regarded as having a positive impact on communication between language learners and natives. 6 Nowadays, proverbs not only remain a crucial part of instruction in group language courses, but are often included as 'useful phrases' in lan-guage textbooks. The following textbooks containing proverbs, adages, and sayings exemplify the proverb's significance: Swedish for Russian speakers (265 units), Lithuanian for English speakers (73 units), Icelandic for English speakers (34 units), as well as Modern Standard Arabic (103 units) and Syrian Arabic (15 units) for German speakers. 7 The use of proverbs in foreign language teaching has recently become an independent research field, investigating, among other things, methods and the paremiological minimum applied in this process, as well as its impacts. 8 Little is known about the use of proverbs in teaching Tǝgrǝñña as a foreign language, not least due to the sparsity of relevant teaching materials in the West European or Anglo-Saxon context. One of the few examples is Documents tigrigna by Wolf Leslau,9 in which, following the major trend of including annotated proverb lists into own linguistic works, he presents a selection of twenty Tǝgrǝñña proverbs with commentaries. At the same time, the importance of proverbs and other related genres, such as riddles, is often emphasized in Tǝgrǝñña language education materials aimed at young people both in Tǝgray and Eritrea. In numerous proverb collections, the authors express the hope that their work will contribute to the younger generations' appreciation of their own oral heritage, as well as to its preservation. 10 A number of scholars of Semitic and Ethiopian studies have contributed to the study, translation, and annotation of Tǝgrǝñña proverbs, among them Franz Praetorius, Wolf Leslau, Carlo Conti Rossini, and Enno Littmann. Most of the respective works in European languages were published in the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth century, of which the major works were the annotated Italian language collections of 489 and 432 proverbs. 11 Nonetheless, the many smaller papers are by no means of lesser importance. The collections published in Ethiopia, Eritrea, or the Tǝgrǝñña-speaking diaspora usually constitute mere alphabetical lists, with barely a single publication explaining the proverbs, and but few organized by subject. All are monolingual with the exception of the collection by Ṣǝgeräda Täḵlä, ʾAsmällaš Wäldä Maryam, and ʾAsmärom Gäbrä Sǝllasä, that features an Amharic 7 See for Swedish Žukova 2009, 246-250; for Lithuanian Paulauskienė and Valeika 1994, 494-497;for Icelandic Glendening 1979, 109-110 Leslau 1941, 368-378. 10 Yǝtbaräḵ Gǝdäy 1998Gǝdäy /1999ʿAndä Mikaʾel Sälomon 2008/2009, ix. 11 Conti Rossini 1942Di Savoia-Genova and Simonini 1943. Aethiopica 23 (2020) 225 translation. 12 The same proverbs or variations thereof frequently appear in a number of collections, providing fertile ground for dialectological research. It is worthwhile noting that verb negations in Tǝgrǝñña proverbs often lack the suffixed marker -n and are thus easily mistaken for jussive mood at first glance. 13

Proverbial Corpus of Let's Speak Tigrinya
Activities, personal information, numbers, and infinitive (p. 71): 1) ሓደ ዓመት ብወዝ፡ ሓደ ዓመት ብደሞዝ, ḥadä ʿamät bǝ-wåz, ḥadä ʿamät bǝ-dämoz, 'One year with sweat [in the face], another ("one") year with wage'. One is rewarded after having first worked hard. Used in a language teaching class, this proverb might be a suitable motivational motto for students. While the main meaning of wåz is 'shine', 'beauty', 'clearness of the facial skin', it is derived from the concept that a healthy, beautiful face has a glossy sheen. Conversely, another meaning is 'perspiration', 'sweat', 'tiredness'. 14 Both wåz and dämoz are to be seen as original Amharisms, extremely common in Tǝgray, while the latter contains the former (the Semitic däm, 'blood' + wåz). The equivalent Tǝgrǝñña root for wåz would be √wḥz.
2) ሓደ ጊዜ ካብ ምዝራብ፡ ሰለስተ ጊዜ ምሕሳብ, ḥadä gize kab mǝzzǝrab, sälästä gize mǝḥsab, 'Better than to say once is to think thrice'. This expression has a regional variation urging to think twice, advising one to carefully consider decisions in advance to avoid unwanted consequences and is present in similar forms in other languages.

Filip Busau
Aethiopica 23 (2020) 226 reference book: ሓደ ከም ዘይተወልደ፡ ክልተ ክንድሓደ, ḥadä käm z-äy-täwåldä, kǝlǝttä kǝndǝ ḥadä, 'One is as if he was not born, two equal one'. 16 Theoretically, instead of a brother, a child in general could be meant. 5) ወላዲኻ ከሎ ጕያ፡ ጸሓይ ከሎ ዕያ, wåladi=ḵa k-ällo g w ǝya, ṣäḥay k-ällo ʿǝya, 'Hit the road ("run") as long as your father lives, work as long as the sun shines'. The words g w ǝya and ʿǝya here are rather misspelled imperative forms g w ǝyä and ʿǝyä: although g w ǝya could be interpreted as a noun (in this case, g w ǝyya), it would not explain the form ʿǝya. Besides, other collections have these forms as imperatives: guyä, ʿǝyä. 17 Compare in Amharic, አባት ሳለ አጊጥ፥ ዠምበር ሳለ ሩጥ, ʾabbat s-allä ʾagiṭ, žämbär s-allä ruṭ, 'As long as your father lives, adorn yourself [with nice clothes]; as long as the sun shines, run'. 18 The proverb underlines the necessity of acting as long as the conditions are favourable, similar to the expression carpe diem and the like.
Talking about plans and future; subordinate clauses (p. 137): 12) ዝጠመየ ዝሓመመ፡ ዝሓመመ ዝጠመየ ይመስል, zǝ-ṭämäyä zǝ-ḥamämä, zǝ-ḥamämä zǝ-ṭämäyä yǝmässǝl, 'The one who is hungry resembles the one who is sick, the one who is sick resembles the one who is hungry'. No misfortune is better or worse than another, and, in their suffering, people troubled with differing hardships, nonetheless, resemble one another. 13) ዝመጽእ ክትፈልጥ፡ ዝሓለፈ ፍለጥ, zǝ-mäṣṣǝʾ kǝ-tǝfällǝṭ, zǝ-ḥaläfä fǝläṭ, 'In order to know the future know the past'. We must learn from history in order to avoid the same mistakes made earlier.
Shopping and negotiating (p. 179): 17) ዋና ተወከስ፡ ባላ ተመርኮስ, wanna täwåkkäs, balla tämärkos, 'Consult the owner, lean on the forked cane'. In order to stand firmly on your feet, lean on a cane; in order to handle things better, consult the master. In terms of form and content, one might assume that it and the expressions that follow are most probably legal proverbs. In the textbook, they appear in the chapter discussing shopping and negotiation vocabulary. This proverb is also to be found in European collections. 25 18) ዋርሳ የዋርስ እንጀራ የቋርስ, warsa yäwwarǝs ʾǝnǧära yäqq w arǝs, 'Inheritance causes to inherit, ʾǝnǧära-bread causes to break [more] ʾǝnǧära-bread'. This expression presumably means that, if a person inherits something, they will pass it on later as their heritage, and, if there is food, it will be served, divided, and eaten up. Another plausible meaning could well be that, however much people have, they can never get enough. 21) ግዜ ዘለዎ ግዜ ኣይጽበ፡ እንካ ዝበልዎ ይቀበል ኣይእበ, gǝze z-ällä=wwo gǝze ʾay-yǝṣǝbbä, ʾǝnka zǝ-bäl=wo yǝqqäbbäl ʾay-yǝʾbä, 'The one who has time does not wait for [another] time; the one to whom one says, "Take!", should accept and not deny'. In the bilingual collection, the first verb is also in jussive (ኣይፀበ, ʾay-yǝṣṣäbä, 'should not wait'), alongside with the version where the second part of the proverb lacks completely, and an indirect object marker is added ([…] ንጊዜ ኣይፀበ, […] nǝ-gize ʾay-yǝṣṣäbä). 28 Aside from that, a version in the second person exists: ግዘ እንተለካ፣ ግዘ ኣይትፀበ, gǝzä ʾǝnt-ällä=kka, gǝzä ʾay-tǝṣṣäbä, 'If you have time, don't wait for [another] time'. 29 22) ግዜ ክጠልም መን ዘይጠልም፡ ግዜ ክፈቱ መን ዘይፈቱ, gǝze kǝ-ṭällǝm män z-äy-yǝṭällǝm, gǝze kǝ-fättu män z-äy-yǝfättu, 'When the time acts treacherously, who does not act treacherously? When the time acts suitably, who does not act suitably?' As discontent as one may be with things in life, there is always a positive and a negative side to them.

23) ግዜ ዘይብሉ የልቦን፡ ካብ ዕድሉ ዝሓልፍ የልቦን, gǝze z-äy-bǝllu yälbon, kab ʿǝddǝl=u zǝ-ḥallǝf yälbon, 'There is no one who does not have time;
there is no one who can escape his destiny'. Everyone will go through it; it is just a matter of time.

33) ዝተጻሕፈ ይውሳእ፡ ኣብ ቃል ዘሎ ይርሳዕ, zǝ-täṣaḥfä yǝwǝssaʾ, ʾab qal zällo yǝrǝssaʿ, 'What is written is listened to; what [only exists] in words is
forgotten'. Obviously, this also applies to the whole of the traditionally oral genre of the proverb, which nowadays is actually kept alive in the form of numerous printed proverb collections.
Aethiopica 23 (2020)  233 skin when it becomes dry [with age], the child when it grows up, the reputation when it is lost: the one cannot be reformed, the [other] one cannot be returned, the [third] one cannot be abrogated'. This version of the proverb appears in the German story collection published by the Arbeiterwohlfahrt Bundesverband e.V. (Workers' Welfare Association). 43 There is also a similar, shorter version: ቈርበት እንድሕሪ ነቂፁ፥ ስም እንድሕሪ ወፂኡ፥ እቲ ኣይጥ ቕለል፥ እቲ ኣይምለስ, q w årbät ʾǝndǝḥri näqiṣu, sǝm ʾǝndǝḥri wåṣiʾu, ʾǝti ʾayyǝṭǝ läl, ʾǝti ʾay-yǝmǝlläs, 'The skin if it becomes dry, the [good] name when it is lost: the first one cannot be smoothed up, the second one cannot be reverted'. 44 41) ዕድመ ንንስሓ፡ መዋእል ንፍስሓ,ʿǝdmä nǝ-nǝssǝḥa, mäwaʾǝl nǝ-fǝssǝḥa, 'A whole life for repentance, a whole life for joy'. The longer one lives, the more things one experiences in life, so that there is enough time for joy and for sorrow. To use the words of Ecclesiastes (3:1-4), 'to everything there is a season […], a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance'. 42) ከይኮነ ወግን፡ ከይተሰብረ ጸግን, k-äy-konä wåggǝn, k-äy-täsäbrä ṣäggǝn, 'Arrange before it is there, repair before it is broken'. Some collections list an alternative version, featuring a different first part, for instance ከይኮነ ለብም, k-äy-konä läbbǝm, 'consider/beware of it before it is there'. 45 43) ከይወዓሉ ይወዓዓሉ፡ ከይተኣማመኑ ይማሓሓሉ, k-äy-wäʿalu yǝwwäʿaʿalu, k-äy-täʾamamänu yǝmmaḥaḥalu, 'Without spending much time [conferring], they made a deal; without believing one another, they swore a mutually binding oath to each other'. Aside from being a nice example of the use of frequentative verb forms, the proverb warns against premature decisions and hasty agreements. 44) ከይጸገቡ ኣይዘሉ፡ ከይዘለሉ ኣይስንክሉ, k-äy-ṣägäbu ʾay-yǝzällu, k-äyzälälu ʾay-yǝsǝnkǝlu, 'They do not jump ('play', 'dance', 'have fun') before having become sated; they do not become crippled before having jumped'. This probably indicates an unfortunate person who does not wish to have fun on an empty stomach, and immediately hurts him-or herself once he or she starts having fun. Everything has a reason and a consequence and life is a sequence of unfortunate and happy events. Ignorance leads people to make silly mistakes, and silly mistakes may lead to grave dangers. As ṣägäbä also means 'to be proud/boastful', the proverb may also be a reminder of modesty, in the manner in which Leslau interprets the equivalent expression in Čaha. 46 A very similar proverb, however using affirmative verb forms, is also attested in Oromo. 47

Conclusion
The expressions presented in Let's Speak Tigrinya and discussed here embrace a wide range of topics, offering students a brief insight into the rich culture of Tǝgrǝñña proverbs. The importance ascribed to them in their use of language and the appreciation they enjoy among language speakers are reflected in the sheer number of these sayings selected for the textbook. Students may have the overall impression that there is no lack of proverbs suited, not only to any grammatical issue, but also nearly any subject or situation of life in general in Tǝgrǝñña. This runs parallel to the realization of paremiologists that proverbs in language cultures around the globe represent all aspects of human life. In turn, this realization has enabled the development of a complex universal classification of proverbs by the Finnish researcher Matti Kuusi and his daughter Outi Lauhakangas. 48 Of the fortyfour proverbs compiled by Issayas Tesfamariam for his coursebook, there seem to be expressions representing most, if not all, of the thirteen umbrella themes suggested by this classification system.
On the other hand, only few of these proverbial expressions can be understood through their word-by-word translation, whereas the vast majority requires explanations from individuals familiar with the cultural specifics, or from a language instructor, or both. The fact that proverb sections in the textbook are not provided with any commentaries, translation, pronunciation hints, explanations, or extra vocabulary, excludes all Tǝgrǝñña learners from using the book as a self-learning material. 49 The misprints noted hardly contribute to a better understanding of these proverbs. Moreover, as already stated in the Introduction, the question arises whether Tǝgrǝñña language students at Indiana University Bloomington get much beyond the simple recitation of the proverb lists with their classmates, as they are in- 46 Leslau 1949, 221, no. 21. 47 Tasgara Hirpo 1996 ('The one who has enough (or 'is sated') jumps; the one who jumps breaks something (their leg, arm, or the like)'). 48 Mieder 2004, 16-20. 49 Hardly any proverb from the proverb sections is discussed in the respective lesson or elsewhere in the textbook, as is the case with the number (10) in this list (p. 109 in the textbook). structed in the textbook. After all, as Sabine Fiedler states in her essay, 'as the time that teachers have at their disposal in language classes is limited, it seems to be a sheer luxury to teach proverbs in a context in which the pronunciation of words and grammatical structures still causes problems.' 50 However, as a great effort has been made to select proverbs appropriate to the coursebook context, it would be a waste of resources and possibilities if nothing more were to be extracted from them than mere recitation. Among other things, many proverbs contain valuable information about social norms and beliefs, which may well be interesting from a socio-cultural or historical point of view. The pictures and reading text contexts it contains show the textbook to be somewhat Eritrea-oriented, with Tǝgrǝñña speakers from Tǝgray only mentioned en passant in the Foreword; the proverbs presented in the book are quite uniform, with barely any striking phonological or lexical peculiarities, or dialectal variations. Amharisms are few, but their use is undoubtedly noteworthy. A quick comparison with the contents of the proverb collections on hand published at different times in different places reveals that the textbook uses predominantly well-known expressions which are familiar in part from earlier European research works. As is usually the case with proverbs, the ones listed here can be found in numerous other collections, frequently featuring variations implementing similar or alternative wording.
Taking the latest research findings on the role of proverbs usage in language teaching into account and the general importance of proverbs as a genre in the Tǝgrǝñña language culture, allied to the fact that they still remain insufficiently researched, one feels it is necessary to express the hope that in the future, regarding Tǝgrǝñña learning materials, greater attention be given to the annotation of proverbs and their use as well as their historical and socio-cultural background.

Summary
Proverbs have been used in language teaching for centuries. Nowadays, language learners associate mastery of this traditionally oral genre to a certain level of fluency and regard it as an access key to a deeper understanding of the native speakers' culture. The recently released Tǝgrǝñña coursebook Let's Speak Tigrinya (2018) contains almost fifty proverbs, and provides students with an insight into this old and rich tradition. However, owing to the lack of commentary or translation, the paper here seeks to compensate for this deficiency. In comparison with several Tǝgrǝñña proverb collections, it becomes apparent that the expressions listed in the textbook are common in Eritrea as well as in the Tǝgray region, in several alternative variations, some of which have been attested to in earlier European research works. A few examples even have an Amharic equivalent. The proverbs focused on here cover a wide range of both grammatical and everyday life topics and should be implemented in a more effective manner than the textbook provides. However, due to the lack of translations and occasional misprints, their accessibility is radically reduced and of little use for the individual language learner unassisted by a classroom situation.