گرگ زاده عاقبت گرگ شود، گرچه با آدمی بزرگ شود.
Transliteration: Gurg-zaada
aaqebat gurg shawad, gar che baa aadamee bozurg shawad.
Translation: The child of a wolf will become a
wolf, even though if it grows up with human beings.
Meaning and usage: The wild
nature and habits of a wolf which can be harmful to human beings will be
genetically inherited to the child of the wolf even though if the child of the
wolf grows up with human beings, someday it will attack human beings and will
harm them. This proverb is used to express that evil nature of human beings and
bad habits of fathers or parents can be transferred to the children. It shows a
historical fact that criminals are born and raised often in the criminal
families. Those who do something bad to other fellow human beings, they most
probably lack good parenting care and they represent their family values. It simply means that bad parents give birth
to bad children. It also expresses an idea that the good education sometimes
fails to change the nature of a bad person. This proverb is used when somebody
whose family does not have a good background, he hurts or harms other fellow
human beings and then this proverb is used to notify that this person is doing
the same mistakes as his / her parents did. This proverb shows the linkage
between the criminal backgrounds of a person to his / her parents’ background
to compare if they were also the same criminals.
………………………………………
صد دوست کم است و یک دشمن بسیار.
Transliteration: Sad doost kam ast wa yak dushman besyaar.
Translation: Hundreds of friends are less and
one enemy is too many.
Meaning and usage: This proverb
is used when somebody is doing something wrong which may hurt others and they
may seek revenge or they will turn to enemies. It is an advice not to make
enemies for yourself, but you have to do good things to make friends. It simply
means increase the number of your friends and decrease the number of your
enemies by doing good deeds.
………………………………………
به حال آن کسی باید گریست،
که عایدش نوزده و خرج بیست
Transliteration: Ba haal aan kasi baayad gereest, ki aayedash
nuzdah –o-kharj beest.
Translation: We have to cry for the situation
of that person, whose income is nineteen but his expense is twenty.
Meaning and usage: This proverb
is about financial management. It expresses the idea of a balance sheet
currently studied in master of business administration. But this proverb comes
heart by heart from thousands of years ago and it has served as an economical
advice for an individual, a family, a company or a government. It says if your
expenses exceed your income, you are in trouble. It suggests that your income
should always be more than your expenses and you will get a financial problem
when your income decrease in comparison you’re your expenses and you should
find a problem perhaps you should increase your income or you should decrease
your expenses. It explains an economical balance between income and expense
(currently studied in MBA as crossing the breakeven point in business means
bankruptcy to an enterprise). Here “to cry for a person’s situation” means to
look for a solution or to help that person’s problem. Cry is literary used as a
warning or a symbol of attention. This proverb looks at the life from an
economic perspective and gives advice for economic sustainability and warns
about a major economic pitfall or an economic indicator to prevent an economic
crisis or bankruptcy no matter whether we talk about an individual, a firm, an
industry, a financial or economic institution or a country as an economic
agent.
………………………………………
مربی داری، مربا بخور.
Transliteration: Murabee daari, murabaa bokhur.
Translation: If you have an instructor
(teacher, leader), you eat the jam.
Meaning and usage: “Eating jam”
is a symbol used to express an ideal life having the best of everything. It
says if you want to eat jam, you should have an instructor to show you have to
make it or how to get it. This proverb comes from the villages of Afghanistan
where there are many trees of different kinds of fruits but the people eat less
than 10% of fruit during the summer while they are fresh on the trees and other
90% of fruit is wasted because of lack of fruit processing infrastructures. If
a person has a good instructor to know how to make jam out of these fruits,
they make lots of jam and lots of money out of it. But now this proverb is used
to show the importance of “know how” knowledge and the importance of a person who
can lead, instruct and show the way to others to prosperity and to a good life.
This proverb is used at all levels when you see a person got rich because of instructions
of another person or because a person got wealthy due to another person’s help,
then you use this proverb to tell others that it was because of that particular
third person which made him so rich. This has also a negative usage to show
corruption in the government offices and nepotism when you see that a person
got to a high position because he is the relatives of a minister. This proverb
can be equal to the English one “Bob is your uncle”. Be careful about using
this proverb because when you say it directly to a person, you really tell him
that you don’t deserve all this wealth or position, but you got it because
someone else is supporting you.
………………………………………
گره را که با دست باز میشود، نباید با دندان باز کرد.
Transliteration: Gereh raa ke baa dast baaz meshawad, nabaayad
baa dandaan baaz kard.
Translation: A knot which can be untied by the
hands, should not be untied by the teeth.
Meaning and usage: This proverb
is used when you see a person is suffering because he does not know how to
solve a small problem and you solve that problem for him and then tell him this
proverb. This proverb means that there is always an easy way to solve all the
problems but when people don’t know how to do that, they suffer and choose the
wrong ways to solve it and they harm or break their own teeth by solving the
problem.
………………………………………
هیچ پیشکی (گربه) به خاطر رضای خدا موش نمی گیرد.
Transliteration: Hich peshakay
(or gurba) ba khaatere rezaai khuda moosh namegerad.
Translation: There is no cat which hunts a
mouse for the sake of satisfying God.
Meaning and usage: This proverb
is used when you see a person doing something and you don’t know the real
reasons why he is doing that. You guess about the reason of his actions but you
are wrong and there comes another person and tells you this proverb to help you
understand the real reasons behind the actions of that person, group or any
entity. It helps you find the motivations behind human behavior and why they do
what they are doing. It gives you a cat as an example and tells you that the
cat hunts a mouse and you have to find the real reasons and motivation
behind this hunting, it is not because the cat want to make his God happy but
it is his self interest which motivates him in that hunting. He wants to
eat the mouse and he is hungry, that is why he wants to hunt a mouse.
………………………………………
گاله گنجشک خورد، لته بودنه.
(گال
را گنجشک خورد، لت را بودنه) .
Transliteration: Gaala gunjeshk
khurd, latta bodana.
Translation: Birdseed (Gaal) was eaten by the
sparrow but the quail was beaten for it.
Meaning and usage: It is
difficult to translate this proverb because in Dari we can use the verb “eat”
for both birdseed as well as for the “beat”, hit, strike or punches. Birdseed
was eaten by the sparrow but its strike was eaten by the quail. We can also say
that “Birdseed went to the sparrow and its’ punishment to the quail”. In order
to understand the meaning of this proverb, you need to understand the cultural
aspects of keeping birds at home as pets in Afghanistan. There are several
birds which are worthwhile keeping as pets at home for different reasons. Some
birds are kept in the cages at home as pets for their beautiful musical and
melodious songs such as canary and Saaira (bullfinch) … etc. There are many
songbirds in Afghanistan. Some others are fighting birds which are kept at home
as pets by some people who are interested in fighting of birds such as
partridge (Kawk or Kabk) and quail (bodana). People buy quails and partridges
and train them for years to be a good fighter and it should be champion to win
the matches because they bet big money on the fighting bird’s success. The
training for birds, in order to be a good fighter includes running every day,
eating little food but energetic for many times in a day. If they eat too much,
they get lazy and they can’t fight and they cannot win. These birds are
valuable to their owners because they are fighters and champions. But on the
other hand, there are sparrows who are not valuable and they fly freely and sometimes
they come and eat the food of the fighting quails under the cage in a training
who are supposed to eat less but the owner is not there to see who ate the
birdseed “Gaal” which is mostly a kind of millet from the Poaceae, or Gramineae
family. The owner thinks that the quail has eaten too much and punishes the
quail for the food eaten by the sparrows. Quails are insiders and sparrows are
outsiders to the circle of those who are interested in quails. Quails are
valuable and sparrows are not.
This proverb is used when you see a wrong person being punished for the
mistakes or crimes that he/she did not commit it but cannot speak or prove that
he/she has not committed the crime under consideration. It has a very wide implication because it
means win and gain for one person and all the trouble and punishment for the
other one.
This proverb is a critique of the current status of individual judgments, the judicial system of the country and the punishment of the innocent people instead of the guilty and the criminal.
………………………………………
نه کل بانه نه کدو، خاک ده سر هردو.
Transliteration: Na kal baana
na kadoo, khaak da sar hardoo.
Translation: May not the bald remain nor the pumpkin,
may they both disappear under the soil.
Meaning and usage: This proverb
is about neutrality in the war between two parties. It is mostly used by an
angry grandmother or an angry grandfather who is disappointed of the behavior
or actions of two persons or two parties at the same time. He talks about the
two persons heads, one is a hairless (bald or scald) and the other is a person
whose head resembles a pumpkin. The person who says this proverb shows that he/she
is fed up of both of them and does not want to see them anymore. Pumpkin is
mostly used in this context to resemble a head which is empty and there is no
brain in it. This proverb is used nowadays without considering a person being
bald or not, having hairs or not or without considering if the head resembles a
pumpkin or not. Grandparents use it when they are fed up of two persons at the
same time and more particularly when they are asked to express their opinion
about comparing those two persons or choosing one of the two, but instead of
choosing one of them, the person uses this proverb to say that he does not like
any of the two parties. This can be used by a person who does not like the two
presidential election candidates and thinks that both candidates are a useless.
………………………………………
ترحم به گرگ تیز دندان، ستمگاریست به حال گوسفندان.
Transliteration: Tarahom ba gurg-e-teez dandaan, setamgaarist ba
haal-e-gosfandaan.
Translation: Commiseration with a sharp
toothed wolf means ravage and tyranny to the sheep.
Meaning and usage: This proverb
is used to explain a war between two parties. In this war one is stronger and
attacks the weak one and kills the weaker one in order to continue its life.
The stronger party is wild and unjust and violating all rules. The other party
is weak and being vulnerable to all attacks of the other party. Now if you
sympathize and be kind to the first party which resembles wolves, then you are
the enemy of the second party who are weak and vulnerable and need your
support. For example, anyone who supports the Taliban in Afghanistan, they are
being cruel and enemy of all people of Afghanistan, men, women and even
children who lose their lives every day in the suicide attacks of the Taliban
in Afghanistan.
This proverb is an advice for the people to be good and always support
and right, the just, the weak and those who are living under the tyranny and
suppression and never support or sympathize with the cruelty and those who
resemble the wolves who attack the sheep.
………………………………………
عیسی به دین خود، موسی به دین خود.
Transliteration: Eesaa ba deen
khud, Musaa ba deen khud.
Translation: Jesus to his religion and Moses
to his.
Meaning and usage: This proverb
is used to express the idea of freedom of religion in a multicultural society.
It describes the situation that peace can only be achieved among the different
people with different ideas and with different cultures and religions if we
accept and appreciate the differences and find some common basic platform of
humanity and move on leaving behind all hatreds and hates for different
cultures and religions. Afghanistan has different religions in it. Afghanistan
has a majority of Muslims including Sunni and Shiite as well as Wahabi while
there are Hindu and Sikh minorities as well. There are a great number of people
who are not religious at all but they respect all these other religions and
cultures. Afghanistan had a Jewish community which travelled to USA during the
Taliban regime. Previously Afghanistan was center of different civilizations
like Buddhism and Zoroastrianism. The people of Afghanistan appreciates all
these cultural heritages and as we see in this proverb which has existed in the
literature for thousands of years, the people of this area believed in freedom
of religion and has preached for religious tolerance and brotherhood among all
people who believe in all these different religions. This proverb had a very
deep meaning while it is said by very simple words. It means let Jesus be in
his religion and let the Moses be in his religion. If we look back at the
history, all the problems began when one religion wanted to remove others to
dominate. This proverb solves that big problem and suggests that all the people
should accept each other’s differences and live happily together in the same
territory. We have many great philosophers and writers in the history of
Afghanistan who has said the same issue in their books sometimes in poetry and
sometimes in prose and fiction.
………………………………………
به راه کسی سنگ مینداز.
Transliteration: Ba raah-e-kassi sang ma-yandaaz.
Translation: Do not throw stone on someone’s
way.
Meaning and usage: In every
society there are some people with bad habits who like to make the life much
more difficult to others by creating problems for them. This proverb gives
advice to people not to create problems for others and asks them to help other
people if they can but if they can’t help, they should not bother other fellow
human beings. Putting stone on someone’s way is an expression meaning creating
problem for others.
………………………………………
من ترا از آب نیافتیم که به این زودی از دست بدهم.
Transliteration: Man turaa az aab na-yaftaym ke ba een zoodee az
dast bedeham.
Translation: I did not find you from the water
to lose you so easily.
Meaning and usage: In this
proverb you have to understand the meaning of the finding someone from the
water means finding someone easily without any trouble and without any bother. If
you find someone easily, you give up on him / her easily but if you earn a
person’s heart, then you don’t easily give up on him / her. Everybody likes to
maintain the things they earned by hard work. What you get by hard work seems much
more valuable and precious to you than someone which you find without hard
work.
………………………………………
زیر پای کسی آب راست مکن.
Transliteration: Zer-e-paai kassi aab raast makun.
Translation: Do not lead water under someone’s
foot.
Meaning and usage: This proverb
is used when you see a group of people are planning to bring a person down from
his position to take his position or to make him look bad in the media … or
lose money in business … etc. This proverb is used to encourage people not to
be bad to others and not to plan for others to fall in the pitfalls. There are
many people who are looking forward to make traps by a sort of deception to
achieve their personal or group objectives. This proverb prohibits people from
deception and from creating difficulties for others.
………………………………………
با ماه نشینی ماه شوی، با دیگ نشینی سیاه شوی.
Transliteration: Baa maah
nesheenee maah shawee, baa dig nesheenee siyaah shawee.
Translation: You sit with the moon, you’ll
become the moon, you sit with the pot, and you’ll become black.
Meaning and usage: It is a
matter of two colors "Black and White" and what these tow colors mean
and represent in the Afghan culture ... and also two symbols "Moon and
Pot" ...
Moon represents the face of the beloved for its
beauty
Pot represents black color and back color means
tragedy, agony and grief.
………………………………………
تا جان به تن است، جان بکن است.
Transliteration: Taa jaan ba tan ast, jaan
be-kan ast.
Translation: Till the soul is in the body, there is separation of soul from the
body.
Meaning and usage: This proverb has a very deep philosophical meaning. Before I explain
the meaning, you should know the meaning of some expressions in order to be
able to understand the real meaning of this proverb. There are two expressions
used in this proverb which are the key to understand the meaning of this
proverb. The first one is a simple word “jaan” ( جان ) which has different meanings in different
contexts. The most common different meanings of this word are usually as dearest,
lovely, honey, sweetie, self, body and life when is ordinarily used. It is also
used as reflexive pronoun to refer to a person. Mostly people in Afghanistan
use this word after a person’s name to express respect, love and affection or one
of the above mentioned meanings. Sometimes when people in Afghanistan see
something lovely, they use this word as a long sound to express their nice
feeling about a kid, or a cute thing. It is also used by the students after the
names of their female teachers at school to show respect and honor for the
teachers. Sometimes it has the meaning of “heart”. But here in this context, it
means “soul”. This proverb is based on the dualism philosophical idea which is
believed that human beings are made of two separate parts, the soul and the body.
The word “tan” means body. The second expression used in this proverb is “Jaan
kandan” which means the pain of the last moments of life just before a person
dies. In this context, it means the pain of separation of a soul from the body
while they both struggle to stay together but they can’t. In the conversational
literature of the people of Afghanistan, there are many allegories, metaphors, comparisons,
similes and symbolism which literally mean something but in reality it means
something else. A person can only understand the whole complete meaning of a
proverb if he or she understands both literal meaning as well as its real
meaning as a metaphor. Here in this context the expression “jaan kandan” means
struggle for existence which is used in daily conversation as unbearable “Hard
Work” that can be very painful and in an exaggeration of tiring, destructive
and consumptive side effects of this type of hard work makes the soul apart
from the body (gradual death). Keeping in mind all the meanings of these two expressions,
we go back to the meaning of the proverb. Now this proverb means like this
“Until the soul is in the body, there is always the idea of separation of soul
from the body (pain and miserable conditions) at the same time it carries a
hidden meaning of struggle for existence as a hard work.”
Now the question is “when to use it?”
This proverb is used when someone is hardly working
and getting undesirable results. For example an illiterate farmer is working
alone on a farm of 100 acres of wheat without any required machineries and he
knows that he can’t handle it properly and he will not be able to utilize this
farm at a maximum level. When his friend comes to his farm and asks him “how
are you?”, as far as he is disappointed of his hard work and he is sure of
undesirable results. He says this proverb to answer his question and to express
his hard work which kills him, but he can’t get good results out of it anyway.
By using this proverb he somehow also complains of his continuous and
consecutive hard work which will never finish and that is a kind of suggestion
for himself too, to stop for while and take a refreshment break with his newly
arrived friend, most probably to drink a cup of green tea together with some
candies or chocolates.
………………………………………
باد آورده را باد می برد.
Transliteration: Baad aworda
raa baad mey-barad.
Translation: Brought by the wind, will go by
the wind.
Meaning and usage: This proverb
is about losing something. When you lose something like wealth, property or
money that you found it easily out in the first place, then others might use
this to tell you that don’t worry about losing it, because you did not work
hard for it to get it. This proverb is somehow similar to the English proverb “Easy
come, easy go”. Make sure to use it in the right position and place, otherwise
if someone loses something precious that he / she loved it very much and you
are not sure if he / she got that thing easily or not, then this proverb is not
appropriate in that case and you may annoy that person by using this proverb.
The appropriate usage would be in a situation where somebody wins a lottery and
loses all the money back in a casino.
………………………………………
پیشکه (گربه را) نگهبان گوشت مقرر کردن.
Transliteration: Peeshaka (or
Gurba raa) negah-baan-e-gusht muqarar kardan.
Translation: To employ a cat, to watch out for
meat.
Meaning and usage: This proverb
explains the employment paradox. It shows the conflict of interests and
selecting the wrong person for a wrong position. The cats in Afghanistan are
usually free and living their own lives. People rarely keep them as pets. When
they live as free animals, they are looking for food in every house and they
come and steal almost any kind of food they can eat. They love to eat meat. If
someone has got meat in the kitchen, there will be some cats waiting for it
somewhere behind the kitchen window or inside the kitchen or in the yard.
Usually men go to butchers in Afghanistan to buy meat and when they bring it
home, they give it to the ladies at home and they have to take it to the yard
near the water well to wash it and then cook it in the kitchen. Sometimes when
the ladies return to the kitchen to pick up some extra dishes and when they
return, the meat is already stolen. The cats steal the meat. In such cases, the
children are asked to watch out for the meat not to be stolen by the cats. If
you employ a cat to watch out for meat, when you return, there will be no cat
and no meat because the cat will eat it the meat and will leave the scene. He
will never do the job right. This proverb is used in Afghanistan, in a
situation where there is a person who has a corruption background being
employed as a finance minister or in some other important position like that.
………………………………………
هم خدا را میخواهی و هم خرما را.
Transliteration: Ham khuda ra mekhaahee
wa ham khurma ra.
Translation: You want both, the God and the
date.
Meaning and usage: This proverb is about having two options where you have to lose one
of the options to get the other one. The dates are the fruit which is mostly
used for charity to give food for the poor. This charity is done to make the
God happy. If you want to make the God happy, you have to lose the dates to
help the poor. This proverb is used when you see that people are trying to keep
two different things at the same time which seems to be possible and requires losing
one in order to be able to keep the other one.
………………………………………
زورت به خر نمیرسه، به پالانش می زنی؟
Transliteration: Zooret ba khar
na-merasa, ba paalaanesh mezani?
Translation: You have no power over the donkey,
you hit its saddle?
Meaning and usage: This proverb is not a polite one. You resemble a person to the
donkey. Donkey is an animal which is very famous for its ignorance, stupidity,
not listening to others and not following orders of its owners in the Afghan
literature. Sometimes when you hate someone who is powerful and stupid and you
want to tell others that he is stupid, you resemble him to donkey. Once upon a
time the robbers and rebellions kidnapped the son of a Minister and took him to
a place where the government did not have access to that area. They asked for
the money instead from the father. They elders and community civilian leaders
travelled to that area to negotiate the issue. The elders asked the rebellions
to release the boy and why they kidnapped him. They said that the minister is
not doing anything good for Afghanistan but he receives high salary every month
and there is nobody to punish him, robbers said. “We need to do something to
punish him”. The elders told the robbers this proverb “Zooret ba khar namerasa,
ba paalaanesh mazani?” (You have no power over the donkey, you hit its saddle?). The boy has nothing to do with what his
father is doing. Why do you punish a child because of his father? Release the
child and do what you want to do with his stupid donkey father that we all
agree upon his uselessness for the country and his inappropriate appointment in
that position. The robbers listened to the elders and released the boy.
………………………………………
از ترس موش، خوده ده قفس شیر انداخت.
Transliteration: Az tars moosh,
khuda da qafas shair andaakht.
Translation: From the fear of a mouse, threw
himself in the cage of a lion.
Meaning and usage: This proverb is used to show that some people escape from small risks
and put themselves in bigger troubles or dangers that can certainly kill him. Some
people particularly ladies are afraid of the mice and they escape from a mouse
when they see it. This proverb says that you have to be careful to escape from
the disasters and troubles in the right direction so that you will not face
even bigger problems
………………………………………
از زیر چکک خیست، ده زیر ناوه شیشت.
(از زیر چکک برخواست، در زیر ناوه
نشست).
Transliteration:
Az zer chakak khest, da zer naawa sheesht. (Literally:
Az zer chakak bar khaast, da zer naawa neshast.)
Translation: Standing out of the ceiling
drops, under the spout.
Meaning and usage: This proverb is used to explain a situation where a person escapes a
small problem and unknowingly faces a bigger one.
………………………………………
از کوزه همان تراود که در اوست.
Transliteration: Az kuza hamaan taraawad ke dar oost.
Translation: What is inside the pitcher will
come out.
Meaning and usage: This proverb comes from hundreds of years back when people used to make
different sauces and drinks available and they usully kept them inside the same
size different pitchers. The pitchers where kept inside a natural cold
underground away from sunshine to maintain it in a good temperature and to
extend the lives of the edible products inside the pitcher. While serving for
the guests, they would not remember what is inside each pitcher. They would
bring them out and only know what is inside when they take it out. Now this
proverb is so common that every person uses it in different directions. It can
be used for an unexpected and unknown result of something and it can also be
used to express the idea that a person is hidden behind his mouth.
………………………………………
هر سخن جایی و هر نقطه مکانی دارد.
Transliteration: Har sukhan
jaaye -o- har nuqta makaanay daarad.
Translation: Every word has its place and every
point has its location.
Meaning and usage: This proverb seems to have evolved from a grammar instruction lesson
by a teacher in a Dari literature class but now it is widely used in every
aspect of life to remind someone that he or she has brought up an issue to
discuss in an inappropriate time or condition. It looks like a punctuation
lesson but it is not. It teaches you the right and the wrong. It teaches you
the manners. It teaches you to be polite. It says that you don’t have to ask
the money you borrowed to someone when he or she is sobbing in the loss of his
father standing at the funeral. It teaches you not to expect money from a poor
refugee who lost his family in the sea to get to a safer place and he came out
of the sea by wet clothes failing to save his family and you are telling him to
pay for the taxi to take him to the detention center.
………………………………………
تا احمق در جهان است، مفلس در نمی ماند.
Transliteration: Taa ahmaq dar jahaan ast, mufless dar
na-maymaanad.
Translation: Until there is stupid in this
world, the broke won’t be destitute.
Meaning and usage: This proverb shows the fact that most broke people find stupid people
to misuse them and to take their money and all what they have. The broke people
misuse stupid people and they take their advantage.
………………………………………
آدمی شیر خام خورده است.
Transliteration: Aadamee sheer khaam khurda ast.
Translation: Human beings have drunk crude
milk.
Meaning and usage: This proverb indicates the immaturity of human beings and the fact
that human beings are subject to making mistakes at any time and at any stage.
………………………………………
از پهلوی چپ برخواستن.
Transliteration: Az pahlooy
chap barkhaastan.
Translation: To wake up from the left side.
Meaning and usage: This proverb shows that the former generations in Afghanistan
believed in some sort of traditions like good omen and bad omen. If something
bad happens continuously to a person in one day, people around him usually tell
that person that maybe you woke up from the left side. Waking up from sleep in
the left side was considered as a bad omen in the past. The new generations do
not believe in such things.
………………………………………
دنیا به هیچ کس وفا ندارد.
Transliteration: Dunyaa ba
heech kas wafaa nadarad.
Translation: The world is not faithful to
anyone.
Meaning and usage: This proverb tells you a secret in order to reduce your greed for
properties, wealth and money. It basically means that everybody has to leave
this world. Does it really matter if you have more or less? You can’t carry it
with you anyways.
………………………………………
اگر عقاب نفسش را بشناسد، برای غذا به هوا پرواز
نمی کند.
Transliteration: Agar uqaab
nafsash ra beshnaasad, barai ghezaa ba hawa pawaaz namekunad.
Translation: If the eagle gets to know his own
greed, he won’t fly for food in the sky.
Meaning and usage: The human greed is unsatisfiable. The more you have, the more you’ll
desire to have. The greed wastes the lives of people putting them in search of
wealth and property. If people get rid of his / her greed, he / she can do much
better things for the human beings and humanity.
………………………………………
از گرگک قتی، از روباه جدا !
Transliteration: Az gurgak qatee,
az roobaah judaa !
Translation: The prey of the wolf is shared,
but the one of the fox is apart!
Meaning and usage: The fox is very famous for being deceitful and trickery in the Dari
literature of Afghanistan. The wolf is famous for being dull and stupid. This
proverb comes from a short story in which the two animals become friends in
forest and they promise each other to hunt together and share their prey with
each other. They go to two different directions to hunt and every time the fox
comes without any prey and says sorry for the wolf but shares what the wolf has
got. One day the wolf follows him and finds out that he actually hunts everyday
but hides it somewhere to eat it alone. That is where when this proverb was
said for the first time. The prey of the wolf is shared but the prey of the fox
is not shared and it is eaten apart.
It is usually used between two friends in a
friendship when one of them is dishonest and uses his own resources alone but
still expects his friend to share his resources with him.
………………………………………
از آدم بیکار، خدا بیزار.
Transliteration: Az aadam bay-kaar,
khudaa bay-zaar!
Translation: God is indisposed to an
unemployed (jobless) man!
Meaning and usage: The proverb aims a very big problem of today’s world, the problem of
employment. This proverb wants to solve the issue of unemployment by the
metaphysical theory of God and theology. It uses religion as a motivation for
the employment not on the employers’ side but it encourages the employees to
find jobs and start working. This proverb says that God does not like you if
you are jobless. In a society where people respect religion so much and take
the messages of religion very seriously and pray five times a day and wash
their hands and faces each time before praying, this message can be very useful
to decrease unemployment rate but still there is a huge effort and system to
HRM is needed intertwined with a social security program to solve the issue of
unemployment in that country. If you ask the young generation in Afghanistan to
go and find jobs for themselves, because God likes those who have jobs, then it
will help the employment rate decrease. Despite the fact that Afghanistan lacks
an overall “Job Opportunity Management System” where everybody can go and
register and ask for a job which can easily provide them with the required
jobs, such kind of messages can be the only way to decrease the unemployment
rate in such a post war country without any proper human resources management
systems. The word “man” here means human beings without gender considerations,
so it can be both man and woman.
………………………………………
آدم بیکار، یا غر شود یا بیمار.
Transliteration: Aadam
bay-kaar, yaa ghar shawad yaa bay-maar!
Translation: An unemployed (jobless) man
either gets spoiled or gets sick!
Meaning and usage: This proverb explains the impacts of unemployment on an individual
and warns all the people specially the government authorities who are responsible
for employment rate and the parents to increase job opportunities for the new
young generation. It says most of the crimes in each society have their roots
in unemployment. If you interview the criminals, most of them are the
unemployed who did not have a chance to earn a living in its rightful manners.
It says that those who are jobless and unemployed, they will either get sick
due to the psychological and mental pressure created by the financial problems
or they are forced to get spoiled or to do wrong things to earn a living. It is
a direct suggestion to the policy makers and those who are responsible for
employment to create more jobs and let the people find their food from the
rightful manners.
………………………………………
دو موش از یک غار برآمد، نام یکیش سلطان قلی!
Transliteration: Du moosh az yak ghaar baraamad, naam yakeesh
Sultaan Qulee!
Translation: Two mice came of the same hole,
but one of them is called Sultan Qulee (King Qulee)!
Meaning and usage: This proverb explains the main source of inequality which begins in
the minds of people. Do you know why one of the mice is called Sultan or King
Qulee? Because he thinks he is superior to the other mouse. There is no
difference between the two mice but only one of them pretends to be superior to
the other one. They both are equal mice but one of them tries to show that he
has the right to rule the other one. It shows the nature of the human beings
how they love to be superior to other same equal human beings. Everybody is
equal when we come first to this world and then everything changes afterwards;
it is because we people think that way.
………………………………………
اگر چرت زدن فایده می داشت، حالی فیلمرغ پاچا می
بود.
Transliteration: Agar choort
zadan faida medaasht, haalle feelmurgh paadshaah may-bud.
Translation: If catnapping was beneficial, the
turkey would have become the king by now.
Meaning and usage: In Afghanistan people have suffered decades of war and they all faced
many difficulties and problems which have created kind of psychological
problems for most of the people in that country. They usually think about how
to solve those problems and that makes them think and think for hours which end
up in catnapping. This proverb is an advice for those who often catnap. It
reminds them that catnapping is not useful and it won’t solve any kind of
problem. The turkey is a famous bird for catnapping in Afghanistan. This
proverb says as a joke that the turkey has catnapped all his life and it did
not help him in anyways. It suggests action and being awake and active at all
times. It is used when you see someone is
catnapping.
………………………………………
اگر مسلمانی به ریش می بود، بز سردمدار مسلمان
ها بود.
Transliteration: Agar musalmaanee
ba reesh may-bud, buz sadamdaar musalmaan ha bood.
Translation: If Muslimhood was in beard, the
goat would have been the leading Muslim by now.
Meaning and usage: This proverb is a harsh critique of the extreme Talibani mentality
which emphasized on unnecessary outlook, appearances and clothing of people by
forcing them to grow beard, wear a turban as a man’s clothing and burqa as a
women dress. This proverb existed there in the literature even before the
creation of the Taliban and when they came to Afghanistan from Pakistan and
other countries like Saudi Arabia, they had no idea that the people of
Afghanistan had totally other understanding from Islam with a moderate and
friendly nature towards arts, music and appearance of people. The Taliban
forced people to grow beard but this proverb exactly refuses that idea and says
that growing a beard does not mean being a good Muslim. Being a good Muslim
means having good ideas, higher education, being helpful and generous to
others, caring for the environment and cleanliness of environment, having high
measures of ethics and respect for laws, respect for other religions, believing
in equality and justice for mankind regardless of skin color, race, language,
tribe, country of origin or amount of wealth and money owned by someone. This
proverb explains the current situation of underdeveloped Islamic societies
where people have received wrong interpretation of religious basic principles
and ideas due to language problem or poverty or low quality of education which
has created the recent social, political, cultural and economical problem for
major Islamic societies and causes the murder of hundreds of people every day
in the Islamic countries. This proverb suggests a fundamental change in the
religious education all over the world in order to remove those interpretations
which can create social, cultural, economical and political problems. You can
use it when someone gives a wrong interpretation of a religious decree to
someone else and you want to correct him.
………………………………………
هرچیزی را که به خود نمی پسندی، به دیگران نیز
مپسند.
Transliteration: Har cheze ra
ke ba khud na-may-pesandee, ba digaraan neez ma-pesand.
Translation: Whatever you don’t like for
yourself, do not like it for others either.
Meaning and usage: This is a study of human behavior and an evaluation of its pros and
cons for other fellow citizens. This proverb suggests that the best criterion
for self-evaluation is to put yourself in the place of other people who will be
affected by your behavior. If you don’t like to be hungry, don’t make other
people stay hungry. If you don’t like to cry, don’t make other people cry, if
you don’t like to be murdered, don’t murder other people. If you don’t like to
be insulted, do not insult others. If you don’t like to be a slave, do not
behave with others as if they are your slaves. This proverb can be used when
you see someone is doing bad things to others, and then you can advice him/her
by this proverb.
………………………………………
از کمالات شیخ ما این است، قند را می خورد شیرین
است!
Transliteration: Az kamaalaat sheikh maa een ast, qand raa
mekhurad shereen ast.
Translation: One of the sings of the
perfection of our patriarch is the fact that he eats a sugar cubes and it is
sweet!
Meaning and usage: This proverb targets the leaders. The political leaders, the
religious leaders and the aged men in the village who have grey beards and show
themselves as if they are the perfect men in the village while they are not
perfect and they are not better than any other ordinary persons in that village.
They can’t do anything better than others but they pretend and show it to
others as if they can do everything in a better way. It actually criticizes the
unprofessionalism in the leadership level and says that most of the guys who
are in the top high ranking positions have no special skills to make them
better than others to deserve those positions but they are rather lazy and so
unskilled who even want to show it to others that they possess such kind of
miraculous skills which can prove that sugar lumps are sweet, while every body
already knows that sugar cubes are sweet and there is not need to prove that.
۲ نظر:
Thank you Sayid jan for your splendid posts in English. And especially for your translations and explanations of Afghan proverbs. They are superb and I treasure them. And I am always waiting for more. :)
So amazing
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