Animals in Swahili Proverbs

Abstract

Proverbs decorate every language and Swahili as well. The specificity of the national culture determines this level of language and provides it with some images and symbols that only native speakers are acquainted with. Proverbs that include names of different animals prove this fact rather colorfully. As far as this kind of paremias exhibits a rather huge total amount of proverbs, it is very important for people learning Swahili to understand and use them in a proper way. The article investigates Swahili proverbs that include animalistic components are rather deep. It describes possible avenues of meaning among animalistic symbols in Swahili culture, mythology and proverbs. It also examines the zoototemistic character of Swahili mythology. The researched material helped to consider the main reasons why the animalistic component is so frequently used in proverbs. It also made it possible to mark the main roles of different animals in Swahili proverbs and to see which animals are used more frequently or more seldom and why. Allegorism is determined as the main mechanism building the proverbs with animalistic components and the parallels between man and animal as the main image base. Most of the proverbs mentioned have been translated from Swahili into Russian for the first time. Refs 17.