Hausa Proverbs about Marriage: Cultural Content, Meanings, and Functions

Hausa proverbs, just like proverbs in other languages, are cultural expressions in the form of set phrases that originate in oral tradition. In this article I analyze the content, meanings, and functions of proverbs encapsulating Hausa traditional views on marriage. I apply the paradigm of ethnolinguistics, specifically the linguistic worldview conception (LWV) (Bartmiński 2019, 2012), to the analysis of the lexis and meaning of the proverbs in order to uncover the conceptualization of the cultural concept of marriage in the Hausa language and culture-specific ways of thinking about marriage in the Hausa-speaking community. The data for the analysis cover twenty-five Hausa proverbs that refer to the conceptual domain of marriage. These proverbs contain numerous cultural keywords (see Wierzbicka 1997) as exponents of cultural codes. Deciphering these codes allows for the proper interpretation of the proverbs’ meanings and functions. Additionally, the interpretation is supported by grouping the data into thematic categories.