英语谚语的来源

英语成语是英语词汇中的重要精华部分（part and parcel）。社会生活的各个方面是英语成语取之不尽的源泉（Idioms from Society），当代英语中最常用的成语有4000余条。许多常用的英语成语来自《圣经》(Bible)和莎士比亚（Shakespeare）等文学名著。英语成语主要是口语，而汉语成语主要是书面语；English idiom 字数不固定，而汉语成语多为四字词组。下面分广义和狭义来论述英语成语。 一、 英语成语的理解 （一）广义的英语成语的理解 从文体学来说，广义的英语成语（idiom）包括谚语（proverb）、俚语(slang)、俗语（colloquial）、成对词（twin words）、三词词组（trinomials）、熟语（catchphrase, lexical phrase ）和习惯搭配（habitual collocation, restricted collocation）等。现举例如下： 1. 谚语、格言(proverb)，警句(sentence idiom)。 英语谚语常有缩写形式，类似汉语的歇后语。例如： 1) Proverbs are children of experience.谚语是经验的产物。 2) It' s no use crying over spilt milk.倒翻牛奶，哭也没用。缩写形式：Cry over spilt milk. 含义：覆水难收。 2. 俚语（slang）。 俚语为某些人群和地区所特有，适用范围有严格限制，使用时要注意其使用的得体性和意义的准确性。例如： 1）screw up 弄糟、一塌胡涂He screwed the whole thing up from start to finish. 他自始至终一塌胡涂。 2）Pay off 贿赂 chat up 与异性搭讪 3. 口语（colloquial）。例如： snake in the grass 暗箭 hit below the belt \ stab in the back 暗箭伤人 cut the ground from under sb. 在某人背后搞鬼 4. 成对词（twin words, irreversible binomials 或 words in pairs）。英国学者福勒(H.W.Fowler) 把它比作“连体双胞胎”(Siamese twins)，称为重言法（hendiadys）。例如： beer and skittles 吃喝玩乐，wax and wane 盛衰，weal and woe祸福。 5. 三词词组（trinomials）。有些固定的三词词组也被归为成语，因为它们大都也是一些固定的讲法。例如： 1）sun, moon and stars 日月星on land, on sea, and in the sky 海陆空 2）Eat, drink and be merry. 及时行乐Wine, woman, and song. 吃喝玩乐 (二) 狭义英语成语的理解 狭义的英语成语有以下几个特点(The Characteristics of English Idioms): 1. 长期的习用性（Idiomaticity）。有些谚语有上千年历史。例如： 1）Time flies like an arrow. 光阴似箭。 Art is long, life is short. 人生苦短，艺术长久。 2）A friend in need is a friend indeed. 患难之交。 2. 结构的固定性（Structural Stability, Syntactic Frozenness）。 英语成语的固定性（fixity）取决于它们的习用性（idiomaticity），其习用性越强，结构越固定，就越为人们所接受。 例：sword for sword 剑对剑, tit for tat 针锋相对。 Diamond cut diamond. 棋逢对手。Like cures like. 以毒攻毒。 3. 语义的整体性（Semantic Unity）。 英语成语（idiom）也称为混合词（fused words），理解英语成语的意义要从整体上去把握，因为英语成语的语义是一个独立和完整的内在统一体。例如： 1）rain cats and dogs (meaning: rain heavily) 倾盆大雨 2）wear one's heart upon one's sleeve (meaning: show one's feeling plainly) 心直口快

ARCHER TAYLOR THE ORIGINS OF THE PROVERB*关于英语谚语起源与发展的文章! THE definition of a proverb is too difficult to repay the undertaking; and should we fortunately combine in a single definition all the essential elements and give each the proper emphasis, we should not even then have a touchstone. An incommunicable quality tells us this sentence is proverbial and that one is not. Hence no definition will enable us to identify positively a sentence as proverbial. Those who do not speak a language can never recognize all its proverbs, and similarly much that is truly proverbial escapes us in Elizabethan and older English. Let us be content with recognizing that a proverb is a saying current among the folk. At least so much of a definition is indisputable, and we shall see and weigh the significance of other elements later. The origins of the proverb have been little studied. We can only rarely see a proverb actually in the making, and any beliefs we have regarding origins must justify themselves as evident or at least plausible. Proverbs are invented in several ways: some are simple apothegms and platitudes elevated to proverbial dignity, others arise from the symbolic or metaphoric use of an incident, still others imitate already existing proverbs, and some owe their existence to the condensing of a story or fable. It is convenient to distinguish as "learned" proverbs those with a long literary history. This literary history may begin in some apt Biblical or classical phrase, or it may go back to a more recent source. Such "learned" proverbs differ, however, in only this regard from other proverbs. Whatever the later history may be, the manner of ultimate invention of all proverbs, "learned" or "popular," falls under one or another of the preceding heads. It is not proper to make any distinction in the treatment of "learned" and "popular" proverbs. The same problems exist for all proverbs with the obvious limitation that, in certain cases, historical studies are greatly restricted by the accidents of preservation. We can ordinarily trace the "learned" proverb down a long line of literary tradition, from the classics or the Bible through the Middle Ages to the present, while we may not be so fortunate with every "popular" proverb. For example, Know thyself may very well have been a proverb long before it was attributed to any of the seven wise men or was inscribed on the walls of the temple of Delphic Apollo. Juvenal was nearer the truth when he said it came from Heaven: "E caelo descendit " (Sat., xi, 27). Yet so far as modern life is concerned, the phrase owes its vitality to centuries of bookish tradition. St. Jerome termed Don't look a gift horse in the mouth a common proverb, when he used it to refer to certain writings which he had regarded as free will offerings and which critics had found fault with: "Noli (ut vulgare est proverbium) equi dentes inspicere donati." We cannot hope to discover whether the modern proverb owes its vitality to St. Jerome or to the vernacular tradition on which he was drawing. St. Jerome also took The wearer best knows where the shoe wrings him from Plutarch, but we may conjecture that this proverb, too, was first current on the lips of the folk. Obviously the distinction between "learned" and "popular" is meaningless and is concerned merely with the accidents of history. PROVERBIAL APOTHEGMS Often some simple apothegm is repeated so many times that it gains proverbial currency: Live and learn; Mistakes will happen; Them as has gets; Enough is enough; No fool like an old fool; Haste makes waste; Business is business; What's done's done. Characteristic of such proverbs is the absence of metaphor. They consist merely of a bald assertion which is recognized as proverbial only because we have heard it often and because it can be applied to many different situations. It is ordinarily difficult, if not impossible, to determine the age of such proverbial truisms. The simple truths of life have been noted in every age, and it must not surprise us that one such truth has a long recorded history while another has none. It is only chance, for example, that There is a time for everything has a long history in English,--Shakespeare used it in the Comedy of Errors, ii, 2: "There's a time for all things,"--and it is even in the Bible: "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven" (Omnia tempus habent, et suis spatiis transeunt universa sub caelo, Eccles. iii, I), while Mistakes will happen or If you want a thing well done, do it yourself have, on the contrary, no history at all. The full text of this article is published in De Proverbio - Issue 3:1996 & Issue 4:1996, an electronic book, available from amazon.com and other leading Internet booksellers. PROVERBIAL TYPES New proverbs have often been made on old models. Certain frames lend themselves readily to the insertion of entirely new ideas. Thus the contrast in Young . . ., old . . . in such a proverb as Young saint, old devil yields a model for Junge Bettschwester, alte Betschwester. A methodical comparison would probably reveal the proverb which gave the original impulse to the formation of the others; but no one has ever undertaken a study of this sort. Martha Lenschau conceives the development as follows: Young angel, old devil (Jung Engel, alt Teufel, thirteenth century); Young soldiers, old beggars (Junge Soldaten, alte Bettler, seventeenth century). The first form made no distinction for sex. When the substitution of "knight" or "soldier" made the distinction, a by-form for women was invented on the same model: Junge Hure, alt Kupplerin appears to have been the first of such by-forms, although Jung Hure, alt Wettermacherin must also be ancient, since the notion involved in "Wettermacherin" reaches far back. The most recent development is probably the Low German Young gamblers, old beggars (Junge Späler, ole Bedler), and the corruption Young musicians, old beggars (Junge Musikanten, alde Beddellüde), which arises from the misunderstanding of "Späler," 'players' (i. e. gamblers), as 'players of music' and the later substitution of a synonym. It is not always easy to recognize or identify the earliest form which provided the model for later developments; and until several proverbs have been minutely examined from this point of view and our methods of study have been improved, it is hard to say which arguments are safe to use and which are unsafe. In all probability, we may trust to the general principles which have been worked out for märchen, i. e. those employed in the so-called Finnish or historico-geographical method. The relative age and distribution of the various forms of a proverb will throw much light on the development. In the present instance, for example, we might regard the old and widely known Jung gewohnt, alt getan ('What one is accustomed to in youth, one does in old age') as a possible model, even of the whole group. Certainly it has given us Jung gefreut, alt gereut (' Rejoiced in youth, repented in age') and as a secondary development: Jung gefreit, alt gereut ('Married in youth, repented in age'). Since, however, Young saint, old devil is even older and more widely known, I am inclined to consider it the parent of all later forms. Often other arguments than age and wide currency may be brought into court. Usually, a dialectal variation which is essential to a particular form and which limits it to a narrow area is secondary in origin, e. g. Jung gefreit, alt geklait ('Wed in youth, bewailed in old age') can have arisen only in a region where 'geklagt' is pronounced "geklait." So, too, Jung gefreit, alt gereut originated in a region--somewhat larger, to be sure, than the one just mentioned--where the dialectal pronounciation of "gereut" made the rhyme tolerable. A few more illustrations of the creation of new proverbs on the model of old ones will suffice. A familiar German proverbial type employs the notion that the essential qualities of an object show themselves the very beginning, e. g. Was ein Häkchen werden soll, krümmt sich beizeiten (' Whatever is to be a hook, bends early'). English representatives of this type are rare, but we may cite Timely crooks that tree that will be a cammock (i. e. 'gambrel,' a bent piece of wood used by butchers to hang carcasses on) and It pricketh betimes that shall be a sharp thorn. A German derivative of the type is Was ein Nessel werden soll, brennt beizeiten ('Whatever is to be a nettle, burns early'). This proverb has found rather wide currency. Although the evidence is not all in, the type or at least its ready employment in new proverbs is German. The form characteristic of Es sind nicht alle Jäger die das Horn blasen ('They are not all hunters who blow horns'), a form which appears to have been first recorded by Varro ('Non omnes, qui habent citharam, sunt citharoedi'), enjoyed a remarkable popularity in mediaeval Germany and gave rise to many new proverbs, e. g. They are not all cooks who carry long knives (Es sind nicht alle Köche, die lange Messer tragen); They are not all friends who laugh with you (Zijn niet alle vrienden, die hem toelachen). Outside of Germany and countries allied culturally, the form appears to have had no notable success, except in All is not gold that glitters, which refers to a thing and not a person. Seiler thinks that" Many are called, but few are chosen" (Multi enim sunt vocati, pauci vero electi, Matt. xx, 16; xxii, 14) was the ultimate model for these proverbs, but the similarity is one of thought and not of form. Possibly one could imagine a class based on simple balance and contrast, of which the young-old type and the called-chosen type might both be derivatives, but the fundamental differences in syntactical structure speak strongly against a development of this sort. Young saint, old devil is an old proverbial form which has no verb; Many are called, but few are chosen consists of balanced, antithetical sentences; All is not gold that glitters uses a subordinate clause. The syntactical differences are so great that an influence from one of these types on another does not seem likely. The full text of this article is published in De Proverbio - Issue 3:1996 & Issue 4:1996, an electronic book, available from amazon.com and other leading Internet booksellers.

1.英语谚语的形成及渊源起源于 民间口语，也有一部分源于 文化典籍或 宗教文献。它们源远流长，在历史长河里兼收并蓄，得到不断的丰富和发展。经过千锤百炼，终成为简洁生动、意味深长、富有哲理的英语的精华。本文主要从 民间口语、文化典籍和 宗教文献3 个方面对英语谚语的 起源进行了探讨，旨在揭示谚语所反映的社会的发展进程、人民群众的思想观念、价值取向及其超越时空的价值和意义。恩格斯在《自然辩证法：劳动在从猿到人转变过程中的作用》中指出：“语言是从劳动当中并和劳动一起产生出来的⋯⋯”[1 ]语言是一种社会存在物，是随着人类的实践而形成发展起来的交流系统，是人类社会实践的共同创造物。作为日常口语的一部分，谚语的 起源十分悠久。其源头是人类先民的生产劳动，他们的实践、感知和经验，经过漫长的历史进程，不断积累、概括和提炼，并随着社会的发展和人们活动范围的扩大，传播开来。始于 民间口语的英语谚语，在传流的过程中，伴随文字的出现，逐渐进入到书面文献中。 文化典籍中的“雅谚”有些可追溯到民间流传的“俗谚”，有些已不可考，但萌生于 民间口语或是由某些大众化说法提炼而来应是不争的事实。本文主要从 民间口语、文化典籍、宗教文献3 个方面对英语谚语的 起源进行探讨，旨在揭示谚语所反映的人类生产、生活历程和超越时空的价值和意义。一、民间口语谚语是在群众中流传的固定语句，用简单通俗的话反映出深刻的道理。英语谚语绝大多数来自民间，是人民群众生活经验的总结，凝结着人民大众的智慧。英语谚语中有大量关于农业生产、气象、渔牧、狩猎的谚语，如气象谚语、节令谚语、农事要诀等，通常称为“农谚”。Evening red and morning grey are the signs of a fineday. （晚霞红，晨雾蒙，天会晴。） A red sky at night is the shepherds'delight . （向晚天发红，羊倌喜盈盈。）Rain from the east ; wet two days at the least . （风雨东方起，至少两天雨。） 这几个谚语反映的都是气象常识，如热冷的交替，晚霞、晨雾主晴等，都是从事农业生产的先民长期的经验积累形成的对天气的认识。Ill weeds grow fast . （杂草长得快。） Out of old field comes new corn. （老田出新谷。）A year of snow , a year of plenty. （瑞雪兆丰年。） After a rainy winter follows fruitful spring. （今冬雨水足，来春果满枝。）这几条谚语反映了人民群众对田地、庄稼特点的认识，还表达了他们对五谷丰登的祈盼。先民们生产工具落后，生活条件恶劣，随时面临着毒蛇猛兽的侵袭和疾病带来的死亡，加之当时交通不便，隔山隔水，交流少，活动范围窄，所以“家”的观念在人们心中非常强。面对严酷的大自然，他们唯有在“家”里才能得到慰藉，找到安全感。下面的几条谚语正是“家”或乡土观念的反映。East or west , home is best . （东好西好，家里最好。） There is no place like home. （没有什么地方能像家里一样。）Better at home than a mile away from it . （在家万般好，出门时时难。） Every one seeks his own house. （家是自己的好先民们除从事繁重的农业生产劳动外，还会打猎或捕鱼以弥补生活的匮乏，这方面的经验在英语谚语中也有所反映。Hunger drives the wolf out of the woods. （饥饿引狼出森林。） Great fish are caught in great waters. （要抓大鱼，就下大海。）The fish will soon be caught that nibbles at the everybait . （爱咬钩的鱼逃不掉。） A bird in hand is worth two in the bush. （一鸟在手胜过二鸟在林。）An old fox is not easily snared. （老狐狸难上圈套。） Two dogs will kill a lion. （两狗可杀一狮。）If you run after two hares , you will catch neither.（一人追二兔，难免两手空。） 人类早期的生产劳动，由于生产工具原始，完全靠体力，靠长时间的辛苦劳作，翻土、播种、收割都有时间、季节限制，耽误不得，正所谓“农时不可误”；又由于渐渐意识到生命无常，生命短暂，因而感叹时光短促、劝人珍惜时间的英语谚语不少。All time is no time when it is gone. （光阴一去不复返。） Time is money. （时间就是金钱。）Time flies. （时光如梭。） 早期的人类势单力薄，无论是农耕或狩猎，都以群体出动、集体协作为主，有些英谚正是反映集思广益、共同协作这方面生活的。So many heads so many wits. （三个臭皮匠，抵个诸葛亮。） Many hands make light work. （人手多，好办事。）Two eyes see more than one. （两只眼睛比一只眼睛看得清。） Drop by drop the oceans are filled ; stone by stonethe walls are built . （涓滴之水汇成海；一石一石筑成墙。）英语属于印欧语系，印欧语系的原创型文化滥觞于古希腊文化。古希腊所处的地理位置正居于尼罗河、两河、小亚细亚和南欧之“要冲”，生活在希腊半岛和爱琴海诸岛的先民从海中取食，靠海吃海，久而久之，便形成了海洋型文化特点。后来的英伦三岛又为大海环抱，受之于古希腊的海洋文化因子得以传承、光大。英语谚语中有大量涉及海上航行、经风受雨、捕鱼捉蟹的内容，这正是英语民族，以及整个西语民族地理位置和海洋型文化的反映。