A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

OF ENGLISH PROVERB LITERATURE (1400 – 2000):

EVIDENCE FOR THE KARMIK LINGUISTIC THEORY
Chilukuri Bhuvaneswar, CIEFL, Hyderabad

A Review by Roumyana Petrova, University of Rousse, Rousse, Bulgaria

In this most valuable read for scholars interested in proverbs and in the philosophy of
language the well-known Indian paremiologist Chilukuri Bhuvaneswar presents us with
an extensive, comprehensive, inclusive and – what is most important - holistic account of
the six centuries of proverb literature in the English language in the light of a unique
linguistic theory.

This sixty–page detailed study should be viewed as part of a much larger body of works
whose main theme is the argumentation of the pioneering Karmik linguistic theory
formulated for the first time by Professor Bhuvaneswar. As the first part of a series of
bibliographical reviews it is a critical analysis of the proverb literature in the English
language that has been created since the beginning of the fifteenth century down to the
present day. Both earlier and contemporary works of truly impressive scope are discussed
from the perspective of a holistic view of a proverb theory inspired by Sri Samkara
Bhagavatpudjyapada’s interpretation of the Vedas and Upanishads in the light of the
advaitha siddhantha philosophical doctrine and scientifically established through
empirical evidence from paremiology and linguistics. From this perspective, it is primarily
a dispositional socio-cognitive linguistic theory which also finds support in the basic
concepts of cognitive science and advaitha theory of creation.

The study opens with an abstract of 16 points (2 pgs) followed by an introduction (3 pgs)
and continues with a concise literature review (4 pgs), a much longer bibliographical
review and analysis proper (37 pgs) and a conclusion (2 pgs). The Literature section lists
157 titles, a number that in itself testifies to its impressive scope and thoroughness.
Part I. INTRODUCTION gives a brief historical account of the major proverb collections
and proverb studies in the English language. The next part – II. LITERATURE REVIEW
– discusses the major works in 20th century English / Anglo-American proverb literature –
the three editions of the Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs and the works of Janet
Heseltine, Joana Wilson, Bartlett Jere Whiting, Roger Abrahams, and Wolfgang Mieder –
and argues for the need of a unified proverb theory that should be capable of supplying the
missing elements in the current methods for proverb analyses as well as of explaining
much of the controversy stumbled upon by many older and modern proverb scholars.

Part III. A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REVIEW OF ENGLISH PROVERB LITERATURE is

divided into Part 1. PROVERB COLLECTIONS IN ENGLISH, and Part 2. PROVERB
LITERATURE IN ENGLISH. Part 1. lists chronologically the 29 major proverb
collections in the English language - from paremiographer John Heywood (1546) to the
world-renowned paremilogist and paremiographer Wolfgang Mieder (1992) while Part 2.
deals with some common problems that surface in the process of collecting and arranging
the proverb texts. Professor Bhuvaneswar attributes many of them to the inconsistency
and inadequacy of the hitherto existing proverb definitions and proposes a solution within
the framework of his unified proverb theory that accounts not just for any specific aspect
or aspects of the study of language, but, as the author repeatedly stresses, for all of them:
formal, cognitive, or functional, synchronic / diachronic, monolingual / multilingual, oral /
written.

Part 2. PROVERB LITERATURE IN ENGLISH consists of Part A. A Historic Overview

of Proverb Literature in English (2 pgs) and a much longer Part B. A Linguistic Review of
the Proverb Literature in English (27 pgs). Part A outlines in chronological order the
theoretical writings on proverbs in the English language, from Isaac D’Israeli (1823) to
Richard Trench (1853) to Tilley (1926) to Heseltine (1963) to Wolfgang Mieder (1989,
1992, 2004) while Part 2. provides in-depth analyses of the existing theoretical proverb
studies from various aspects – 1. Formal linguistics (phonetics, phonology, figures of
speech, syntax, lexis, semantics, metaphoricity, synonymy, etc.); 2. Functional linguistics
(sociolinguistics, pragmatics, discourse analysis, speech act theory, cultural
anthropological linguistics) and 3. Cognitive linguistics. The discussion continues with
4.The Proverb and Its Definition; 5. Generic Analysis of Proverbs; 6.Individual Proverbs;
7. Proverbs as Literature; 8. Methodology of Collecting Proverbs; 9. Taxonomy of
Proverbs, and 10. Ontogenesis of Proverbs. This last part is further subdivided into
i.Causality and Structuration of Proverbs, ii. Standardization and Application of Proverbs,
iii. Variation and Adaptation of Proverbs, and iv. Transmission and Preservation of
Proverbs. Bhuvaneswar comments on the great disparity in proverb studies, a situation
frequently observed and discussed by others in the field. The author rightly observes that
some aspects of proverbs have already been given a lot of attention, while others,
metaphoricity for example, are only scantily researched. Metaphoricity needs to be re-
examined critically because “the formal linguistic understanding of metaphor fails
woefully in the case of proverb-metaphors” (p. 24). And here Professor Bhuvaneswar
offers a new, ka:rmik linguistic definition of proverbial metaphor that is specifically
designed to integrate all of its distinctive features and next arrives at a definition of the
proverb that takes into account its most specific, uncommon and distinctive characteristics
leaving out those features that appear to be redundant or purely descriptive, such as formal
markers (length, alliteration, syntactic structure, etc.) and even traditionality - unless the
latter is incorporated into a new theory of language.

The core of Bhuvaneswar’s basic argument is the completely new (at least as far as
proverb studies in the English language I am aware of are concerned) concept of
SVABVAHAM, or the personal / social disposition, attitude, the likes or dislikes, which,
stresses Bhuvaneswar, are at the very root of all linguistic phenomena. Proverbs - and
indeed any other language - are generated via a chain: the disposition transforms itself into
a function into a meaning into a patterned structure - the proverb (p. 43). Another
completely innovative idea proposed in part ii. Standardization and Application of
Proverbs, is the hypothesis of the evolutionary nature of the process of proverbialization
involving nine stages – from “Naming of [a certain]experience, […] or its Semiotic
Representation” to “Commenting on human behaviour by the use of a prototypical text
(proverb) to categorize a particular social action.” Further, new terms are proposed that
most fittingly integrate the applied aspect of proverb studies (Applied Paremiology)
within the umbrella term PROVERBIOLOGY (its two other members being the
traditional subdisciplines of Theoretical Paremiology and Paremiography).

As an original attempt at arguing for a holistic, integrated theory of proverb studies and
language this REVIEW opens new and exciting horizons for proverb scholars and
researchers across cultures other than those represented in the English language and in
Telugu. Some of the ideas expounded in this and in other major works of the author have
already received their specific interpretations in Slavic languages such as Russian and
Bulgarian. Further cross-cultural contrastive analyses will no doubt lead to even more far-
reaching generalizations about the nature of language with recourse to the elegant Karmik
theory proposed in this and in other works of Professor Bhuvaneswar. And if I am asked
to quote a contemporary example of a scholarly work where inspiration, art and logic
cross to produce a rare, strikingly beautiful blend, I will immediately think of this
REVIEW.

Roumyana Petrova, Ph.D.

20 May 2007
University of Rousse, Bulgaria