Bu Me Bε: The Provebs of the Akan
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Description
Bu Me Be: Proverbs of the Akans is the most extensive bi-lingual Twi Proverbs Dictionary published since JG Christaller’s A Collection of 3600 Twi Proverbs (1879). Kwame Anthony Appiah’s Introduction demonstrates how these proverbs can be interpreted within the tested and contested theories of meaning and literary production to show how they compare with philosophical musings from ancient Greece to England. To understand these proverbs, one needs to understand the culture from which they come. The matrilineal culture traces the familial lineage from the mother’s side hence the Akan saying that; ‘a child may resemble the father, but he has a family’ – the family being a reference to one’s mother and others within the mother’s bloodline. The bi-lingual arrangement makes this dictionary unique and user-friendly to non-Akan speakers. A specialist African language text that will be of interest to academics and students on African history and language courses. An informed collection of over 7000 proverbs published over a century after Christaller’s book of 3600 proverbs was first published. Appiah’s Introduction contextualises the nuanced meaning of the proverbs to reveal the wit and wisdom of the Akan language and how it compares with other world languages.
Publication Date
2008
Edition
2
Recommended Citation
Appiah, Peggy; Appiah, Kwame Anthony; and Agyeman-Duah, Ivor, "Bu Me Bε: The Provebs of the Akan" (2008). Faculty Books & Edited Works. 34.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-books-edited-works/34
