For 3000 years the Bedouin people have conveyed the wisdom of their culture from one generation to the next by means of spoken proverbs. This anthology presents 1,350 of these proverbs, almost none of which have been heard outside the Bedouin world before. Clinton Bailey has collected Bedouin proverbs and documented the life and survival techniques of this hardy people during more than thirty years of fieldwork in the Negev and Sinai deserts. His is the only extensive written record of the rapidly disappearing Bedouin culture. The rich treasury of proverbs is organised around various subjects relating to the primary theme of Bedouin life: survival under harsh desert conditions. Bailey presents each proverb in Arabic and English, situates it within Bedouin culture, and explains how it relates to economic, psychological, or social survival. He provides an unprecedented view of Bedouin life as well as insights into the wider Arab world and the Arabic language.
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Gathered over 30 years by author Bailey (Bedoin Poetry), these one-line adages reflect the communal knowledge accumulated by Bedouins over centuries of nomadic living. From camel care to the art of hospitality, the proverbs were screened for their authenticity; Bailey omitted any that appear to come from non-Bedouin (i.e. sedentary Arabs) sources, including those whose logic goes contrary to desert life. The proverbs are translated by Bailey from the Arabic and are accompanied by illuminating explanations on their meaning, context and usage. He organizes the book into nine chapters, three of which, in a culture without ready access to such settled and permanent institutions as schools and courthouses, focus on laws and social strictures. The foreword by Yale historian Hallo links the proverbs and proverb usage back to Biblical times and even earlier to the Egyptians, the Hebrews, the Sumerians and other ancient desert cultures. He thus obliquely establishes the relevance of Bedouin culture to Western culture, since many Westerners still follow that desert book of knowledge, the Bible. The only drawbacks are the printing and grammatical errors that mar the introductory texts and the poorly reproduced photographs, which fail to add visual interest to the volume.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
"Not merely an anthology of Bedouin proverbs, this book is a unique treasury of rich, oral traditional lore." Bridget Connelly, Emerita, University of California Berkeley"
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Survival Anywhere,
By
This review is from: A Culture of Desert Survival: Bedouin Proverbs from Sinai and the Negev (Hardcover)
Clinton Bailey is one of the foremost experts on Bedouin culture. The book lists 1,350 Bedouin proverbs, first in literay Arabic, followed by a transliteration into the vernacular Arabic, an English translation and a detailed explanation. Bailey rightly decided that a proverb is "a short pithy saying in common use", and thus included not only "proverbs" proper, but also idiomatic sayings, legal precepts in common use and excerpts of poems by Bedouin bards. He did not include, and here I think he is mistaken, proverbs he "deemed to be of nondesert origin, even though I had heard them from the mouths of Bedouin"(p.7), thus denying the Bedouin's total dependence on the outside world. Of course, the book still offers many sayings which testify to the nomads' reliance on the settled population. The annotations to the proverbs are the most important part of the book, for without them most of the sayings would be meaningless to the reader. And these are very well made and reveal the author's accumulated experience and insight. Just open the book at any page, and you will find fascinating ideas pithily expressed. The detailed indices assist in locating particular sayings. The bibliography is made up of 14 items written by the author and too few references to other authorities. The reproduction of the pictures, most of them by the author, leaves something to be desired.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product).
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Listmania!
So You'd Like to...
|
|
