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КУЛЬТУРОЛОГИЯ
Kuban folk proverbs and ethnic peculiarities of the region
Буряк Н.Ю.
Буряк Наталья Юрьевна /Bouriak Natalya Yurievna - кандидат культурологии, доцент кафедры технологий сервиса и деловых коммуникаций, факультет маркетинга и туризма, Академия маркетинга и социально-информационных технологий (ИМСИТ), г. Краснодар
Аннотация: статья посвящена лексическим и фонетическим особенностям Кубанского диалекта в пословицах и поговорках. В статье так же рассматриваются вопросы происхождения Кубанских пословиц.
Abstract: the article is about the lexical and phonetic peculiarities of the Kuban dialect in the proverbs. The study of the origins of the Kuban proverbs are presented as well.
Ключевые слова: Кубанский диалект, лексические особенности, фонетические особенности, пословицы, Запорожские казаки, фольклор.
Keywords: the Kuban dialect, lexical peculiarities, phonetic peculiarities, proverbs, the Zaporozhian Cossacks, folklore.
The Zaporozhian Cossacks, whose fate willed to settle them in Kuban region (now - Krasnodar Krai, Russian Federation) over two centuries ago, as well as those later resettled from Ukraine, brought with them all of their Cossack customs. Their mother tongue has survived in Kuban stanitsas (Cossack settlements) until today, especially in the Western part of the region. The repertoire of the famous Kuban Cossack Choir consists mostly of Ukrainian folk songs, including the most popular tunes sung at family gatherings, like the well-known Varenychky.
In the middle of the 19th century, Ivan Popka, a Kuban historian and ethnographer, wrote about the Kuban (at that time the Black Sea) Cossacks that they had preserved «all traits of the Little-Russian [Ukrainian] national character beneath their Caucasian military appearance - in their customs, morals and manners, and popular beliefs [2]. The chants from church choirs, spring season songs, Epiphany carols in the streets, courting at evening parties, the whitewashed huts, a dike with a green pussy-willow growing hearby, the yoked ox, and a saddled horse - all these in that faraway Caucasian Ukraine will remind you of the Cossack Ukraine and its leaders Nalyvaiko and Khmelnytsky».
They say that a nation is alive as long a mother sings its songs above her baby's cradle. Folk fairy tales, with its language and images help a child take its first steps to perception of the world's diversity. It can be added here - a nation is alive also as long as folk proverbs and sayings, elements of folk embroidery, clothing, architecture, and family life are alive. Today, with the global trend to wash away the peculiarities of ethnic cultures, there remain few people who know authentic folklore genres. However, interest is growing in learning about ethnic roots and culture.
Proverbs, similar to other phraseological units, are known to be very hard to translate, because of their vivid national (ethnic) character. They contain realia and associations unique to the given ethnic group that often makes them incomprehensible when transferred to other languages. The language style and semantic variations also complicate adequate translation of proverbs into foreign languages. There is not a commonly accepted distinction between the terms «proverb» and «saying». The Cambridge International Dictionary of English defines a proverb as «a short sentence, etc., usually known by many people , stating something commonly experienced or giving advice», whereas a saying is defined as «a well-known and wise statement, which often has a meaning that is different from the meanings of the words it contains» [1]. The Ukrainian book, «Proverbs and Sayings», defines both proverb and saying as «folklore prose genres», and «constant figurative expressions». Yet, if the proverb is stated to be «a logically complete judgment (sentence) with a conclusion that prevailingly consists of two parts and is as a rule used in figurative sense», the saying
is defined as «an expression of ascertaining character having one-member composition, often being part of a proverb, but without a conclusion, and used in figurative sense».
Every ethnic and cultural group has its own unique associations. For instance, the proverb «Let the buckwheat be poppies!» when used during a quarrel, does not simply indicate that a party yields to the counterpart's argument, though not changing viewpoint (for buckwheat, as an agricultural crop, can never become a poppy). Buckwheat has long been one of the most important crops for Ukrainians, even to the extent that Ukrainian peasants have been called hrechkosii ('buckwheat growers'). That is why calling «buckwheat» and «poppy» would diminish the significance of something that is essential. Naturally, for the English readers, these two plants have no such connotation whatsoever, and they would hardly understand why the called buckwheat might be called poppy.
Semantically close proverbs may variously interpret the same notion. Therefore, to establish inter-language parallels, it is also important to adequately correlate proverbs in the given languages. With this reason, the proverbs, apart from being literally translated, are accompanied by the English semantic equivalent. Russian equivalents are shown less often, for, as a rule, Russian-speaking readers would understand the word-for-word translation of the proverb, because they would comprehend its qualitative assessment.
It was not easy to translate the proverbs with human names, for the anthroponyms are mainly used for the sake of the rhyme. However, they sometimes also bear secondary nominative functions pointing to the gender of the proverb's personage and highlighting some behavioral characteristics attributed to that gender and therefore to the carrier of the gender-colored name. In other words, within a proverb, names are semantically simplified, with their role to replace a pronoun «somebody» with a person (And you, Marco, keep on playing!). Formal English transcription of proper names, especially of their diminutive variants (Panko, Savka), or their spelling according to the principle of etymological correspondence (Sabas) hardly help the English reader. Therefore, sometimes with such proverbs, proper names are substituted with either a name used in the equivalent English proverb, or with an etymological corresponding frequently used English name (Tom, Thomas), or with a different frequently used English name with a secondary nominative function similar to that of the name in the original proverb (Such Ted such his coat, with Ted, previously widely used among peasants, associated with the social status of the carriers of these names) [3]. Naturally, in that case, the translation would not reflect the national feature of the proverb's personage.
The study of the diverse folklore of the Kuban region is very important. It raises a number of questions for researchers - from universal (will the Kuban region preserve its deep rooted culture from the archaic family lives and customs of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, enriched and interwoven with the cultures, customs and traditions of the Russians, Adygei, Armenians, and other ethnic groups living in that land) to purely linguistic problems of origin, translation, and similarity of proverbs as one of the folklore genres that contain a nation's wisdom.
Literature
1. Cambridge International Dictionary of English. Cambridge. 1995. 520p.
2. Green Gr. Our Man in Havana. London.: Melbourne, Toronto. 1958. 380p.
3. Subtelny O, Ukraine: A History - Toronto. 1998. 410p.
