Thanks to an ex-coworker:
I just learned a new 4-character proverb: 동문서답/東問西答/dongmun-seodap: "eastern question, western answer." This means that you ask a question and get an answer that is completely mismatched with the question. Maybe your interlocutor is tired or distracted or just weird. My mother could be that way sometimes. While she was fluent in English, she wasn't perfect, and she'd occasionally mishear things and make utterances based on her mishearing. Something like the following happened more than once:
David (brother): Did you see that building collapse on the news?Mom: Who?
Mom could've said something more rational like, "Who died?" or "Did anyone get hurt?" or "Where?" (as in, "Where did this happen?") or "When?" (same deal). Instead, she took the left-field route and said the bizarre "Who?"
That's not exactly the same as the dongmun-seodap situation, but it's close. A closer example might be something like this:
Grandson: What war did you say you fought in, Granddad?Granddad: Your mom said eggplant casserole.
These communication breakdowns happen sometimes.
I'm not sure this is really a proverb so much as it is an idiom. The four-character idioms do occasionally take the form of proverbs (or at least 속담), such as 一石二鳥. I suppose there is a discussion to be had about whether, for example, the famous 塞翁之馬 (a favorite of yours, I know) is technically even a proverb, at least in the sense that most people understand the term. Proverbs don't generally require any background knowledge to understand, even if there is a story behind them. That's kind of the whole point of a proverb: It is a concise and often pithy expression of common wisdom. Many 四字成語, though, are merely references to a story that contains a lesson; without knowledge of the story, the phrase itself is meaningless. They require a certain level of cultural literacy. (All that being said, it occurs to me that you might just be using "proverb" as a translation of 四字成語, since we don't really have a good analog for it.)
ReplyDeleteHJ has been watching a lot of Chinese dramas lately, and she tells me that the characters use a lot of 四字成語, even in modern dramas (that is, not period or historical dramas). Apparently cultural literacy in China with regard to 四字成語 is quite high, as even the humblest of characters will walk around spouting 四字成語. Or maybe it's just the writers who have high cultural literacy.
On an unrelated note, here's another East/West 四字成語 for you that will no doubt be of absolutely zero use in everyday conversation: 東道西器. This was actually a slogan during the Enlightenment Period in Korea that represented a middle path between those who blindly wanted to adopt everything Western and those who stubbornly refused to accept anything Western. These middle-pathers said, "Hey, let's keep our Eastern ways but take advantage of the clearly superior Western technology." (History has not been kind to them, but it was a nice thought.)
Like I said, extremely useless, but 東問西答 got me thinking along those lines. (Also, I'm kind of surprised you haven't heard that one before, given your interest in Chinese characters. Have you ever thought of just getting yourself a book of 四字成語? I bet you'd have a blast.)
I expect there are a lot of four-character expressions that get labeled "proverbs" without actually being proverbs. As usual, I'll leave the hair-splitting to you.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I can see, though, a "成語" is literally words or an utterance that comes true, whatever that might mean. Maybe something like a "truism" or an "aphorism"?
Agreed: 塞翁之馬 is more of a shorthand reference to a popular story than a self-contained proverb, per se, but I imagine it still falls under the category of 四字成語, given its 四字.
All that being said, it occurs to me that you might just be using "proverb" as a translation of 四字成語, since we don't really have a good analog for it.
Yes, and I can say this: if I do buy a book of four-character expressions and discover 東問西答 in the book, I'll feel comfortable using proverb-language to describe it.
Out of curiosity, I asked the local deity, ChatGPT, about the matter. It said:
ReplyDeleteThe Sino-Korean expression "四字成語" translates into English as "four-character idioms" or "four-character proverbs." In Chinese characters, "四" means "four," "字" means "character," and "成語" means "idiom" or "proverb." This term refers to a type of traditional East Asian idiomatic expression composed of four Chinese characters, often conveying a moral or philosophical lesson. These idioms are commonly used in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese languages.
I think ChatGPT gets it right with "traditional East Asian idiomatic expression." Some are proverbs in the traditional Western sense, and some are... something else.
ReplyDeleteAnd just to clarify something I said in case I wasn't entirely clear about it: 塞翁之馬 is most certainly a 四字成語. I was just wondering if it qualified as a traditional "proverb" in the Western sense. It is all just splitting hairs, though, as you said.
You should totally get a book on 四字成語, by the way. I have one that I got many years ago, titled . It doesn't call them 四字成語 because some of them have three, five, six, or even seven characters, but most of them are indeed four-character idioms. I haven't looked at it in years, but it's still on my shelf here in my office; I just pulled it down to flip through it. It is obsolete as a reference, what with the internet and all, but I imagine you could open to a random page and point to a random idiom each day, just for kicks.
I have one that I got many years ago, titled .
ReplyDeleteThat's going to be a bit hard to find. I don't speak or read " ."