Proverbs Attributed to Humans and Nonhumans in the Beja Language (Sudan)

The aim of this paper is to determine the social and discursive functions of Beja proverbs and the reasons why some of them are attributed to non-human enunciators. The discussion is based on oral texts of different genres (tales, poems, and proverbs) containing 214 proverbs. Animals and, more rarely, inanimate objects take part in the scenes they contain, and in 43 of them speech is attributed to non-humans. The comparison of these with texts with human enunciators points to the role played by non-human enunciators. The method followed is a descriptive and analytical one, adopting a semantic and pragmatic approach to identifying the different meanings and functions of each proverb. The study is related to the theory of proverb praxis, which focuses on the context of use and the cultural context as determining factors for the meaning of a proverb. It proposes to focus on the immediate situation of use, called the ‘enunciative context’, among other contextual elements. It shows that Beja proverbs have the power to express a personal point of view, although they are allusively attributed to the whole community by the Beja themselves. The analysis of the enunciative context, focused on examples of proverbial events, proves that the allusive style of Beja proverbs is determined by the essential metaphors of their contextual meaning. Moreover, non-human enunciators are introduced for specific contextual purposes: disapproval of a defect or a behaviour, ironical reactions, expressions of agreement or disagreement, and evaluations of events. None of these objectives can be achieved with human enunciators, and the use of non-human enunciators underlines the prudent attitude of the speaker, who seeks to maintain good relations with his interlocutors and preserve social harmony. The analysis of proverbial semantic structure in this article is proposed as a contribution to knowledge of the cultural anthropology of the speakers of the Beja language in Sudan.