Kurdish Proverbs: The Mind of a People

At a Glance

In Kurmancî a proverb is called gotinên pêşiyan: the words of those who came before. Michael L. Chyet's large Kurdish-English dictionary records this term and its synonym, mesel.
A proverb is the distilled mind of a people, refined over centuries. Inside the short saying stands long experience.
Every proverb in this article was verified one by one. Our source is the examples Chyet gives inside his dictionary entries; not a single saying was written from memory.
Kurdish proverbs speak from five great channels: mountain and geography, guest and neighbor, agha and villager, woman and home, patience and time.
These sayings are the product of oral culture. In the centuries when writing was far off, kilams (long sung narratives) and proverbs carried memory together.
The labor of compilation is great: the grammar of Celadet Bedirxan and Roger Lescot, and the Celîl family's collections, put these sayings on record.
A proverb serves the historian: it documents the class order, the view of women, the mind of peace, and humor.
The sayings of peoples who share a geography flow into one another. Some Kurdish proverbs have a twin in Turkish.
The translations are approximate: rhyme and rhythm spill in translation, the meaning stays.

Picture a village room in Botan, a Kurdish region in what is now southeastern Turkey. Two brothers have fallen out over an inheritance. The room is crowded, the voices rise. In the corner an old woman has sat silent all this while. Then she says a single sentence: Dinya bi dor e, ne bi zor e. The world turns by turns, not by force.

The room settles. No one can argue with the sentence. Because the sentence is not hers; it belongs to those who came before her. Perhaps a hundred, perhaps three hundred years of experience, pressed into a handful of words, and it entered the room at exactly the needed moment.

This is the power this article is about: the proverb. The Kurds call it gotinên pêşiyan: the words of those who came before. In this article you will read twelve of these sayings, with the original, a rendering, and a short comment. A note before we begin: these translations are approximate. The rhyme and the rhythm fall away in translation; the meaning stays. And that old woman's sentence, we will come back to when its turn comes.

Gotinên Pêşiyan: The Words of Those Who Came Before

Naming is often better than defining. Kurmancî-speaking Kurds call the proverb gotinên pêşiyan. Gotin means word; pêşî, the one who comes first. The words of those who came before: the name itself tells the source of the word. Chyet's dictionary confirms this term and sets a synonym beside it: mesel.

So what exactly is a proverb? Let us try this: a proverb is the shortest form of an observation a society has tested a thousand times. It is like distilling. A hundred years of experience is put in the pot; it boils and boils, and a single sentence is left. That sentence is no longer anyone's property. It is everyone's mind.

The carrier of this mind was not writing. In the centuries when Kurdish was not taught in school and stayed far from the printing press, memory carried the word. The long narratives were taken up by dengbêjs (the master singers who carry a people's memory); we told this in our article on the dengbêj tradition. The short mind, everyone carried: the shepherd, the bride, the miller. The proverb became the pocket-sized form of oral culture.

How Does a Dictionary Tell a Proverb?

Let us write the method of this article plainly. Our source is not a proverb book but a dictionary: Michael L. Chyet's Kurdish-English dictionary. Chyet documents each word with an example sentence and marks the example that is a proverb with a special sign. We combed the dictionary through that sign; from the sayings that came out, we chose twelve.

Why this road? Because every saying in the dictionary rests on a recorded source. Chyet's examples come from the grammar of Bedirxan and Lescot, from Lescot's text compilations, and from recordings made from folk speech. The Celîl family's Zargotina Kurda compilation is part of the same labor: çîrok (tale), stran (song), and mesele û metelok (proverbs and riddles) gathered village by village. An invented saying cannot enter this chain.

Let us add two notes. The translations here are approximate; a proverb always loses a feather in translation, its rhyme spills. And we simplified the spelling to today's standard Kurmancî alphabet. Now to the sayings. Where to begin? Where the Kurdish word begins: with the mountain.

What Does the Mountain Teach a Person?

The mountain is both the fortress and the burden of Kurdish life. How do the sayings tell it? Let us look with three examples.

Ko agir li çiyê ket, ter û hişk tev de dişewitin. When fire takes the mountain, green and dry burn together.

Here the mountain is not only scenery; it is a shared fate. Disaster makes no distinction: the guilty and the innocent, the green and the dry, the same fire finds them all. Chyet records the plain's version of the same idea too: Li ba yên hişk, ter jî dişewitin, beside the dry, the green burns as well. How many times this saying has found its match in Kurdish history, we leave to the reader.

Çu jihelî bê jordanî nîne. There is no descent without a climb.

A saying recorded in the Behdinan region, in the Kurdish south. Whoever walks a mountain road knows: every climb has its descent. The saying works both ways. If you are in trouble, it ends. If you are at the summit, do not think it permanent. Geography here gives a lesson in philosophy.

Beriya bighêy avê, delingê xwe hilnede. Do not roll up your trouser legs before you reach the water.

The mind of a country full of rivers. You do not make a show of readiness before the work appears. It is the twin of a Turkish saying that means the same thing; who said it first no one can know, both have crossed the same water.

Why Does the Guest's Table Write a Debt?

What does a guest mean in a Kurdish home? The three sayings below can be read like the articles of an unwritten law of hospitality.

Dinya gulek e, bihin bike û wê bide hevalê xwe. The world is a single rose: smell it, and pass it to your friend.

One of the most graceful of Kurdish proverbs. The goods of the world are not a thing to be consumed but a thing to pass from hand to hand. In one sentence, an ethic of sharing: smell it, but do not use it up; hand its beauty to the next in line.

Zikê bixwe sawarê divê here hawarê. The belly that eats the bulgur must run to the rescue.

Sawar is bulgur, the daily pillar of the table. Chyet places an important note under this saying: whoever eats the food of a house is bound, if need be, to fight to protect that house. Hospitality here is not feeling but contract. The table is like a signature; whoever rises from it is counted as having signed his name beneath it. We tell the world of bulgur and the table in our article on Kurdish cuisine.

Merî xûnê pê xûnê naşo, merî xûnê pê avê dişo. Blood is not washed with blood; blood is washed with water.

The lesson a society that has passed through the blood feud gives itself. The chain of revenge must be cut somewhere, and what cuts it is water, that is, peace. This saying is the folk answer to the coarse judgment that Kurds are always quarrelsome. The people know their own wound and name its cure.

A Word Between the Agha and the Villager

A people who live in the shadow of power, how do they tell power? Not by toppling it, but by measuring it.

Axa bi deh gundên xwe ve, bawer dike Keyxosrow e. The agha with his ten villages believes he is Keyxosrow.

The agha is the local landlord. Keyxosrow is the legendary king of the Iranic epic tradition (Iranic here names an old language family, not the modern state of Iran). The saying mocks the way the holder of power sees himself: a man of ten villages in the manner of a world emperor. Notice what the proverb does here: it does not topple power, it measures it. To laugh is also a form of resistance.

Hêştir radibin hev, hêstir û ker bin lingên wan de diçin. When the camels fight, the mule and the donkey go down under their feet.

In the quarrel of the great, the small are crushed. That a people caught between two empires produced this saying is no coincidence. Most sources point the same way: when the Ottoman and the Safavid empires made war, the place that burned was most often a Kurdish village. The proverb is the one-sentence record of that experience.

The Testimony of Woman and Home

Şêr şêr e, çi mê ye çi nêr e. A lion is a lion, be it female or male.

One of the most cited sentences of Kurdish oral culture. A society that looks for worth in courage does not shut that worth away by gender. Does this have an answer in real life? It does: a line running from women who held a voice in the council of the mîr (the Kurdish ruling prince) to women who governed tribes. Those stories we tell in our article on Kurdish women in history.

Diya qîza, pirûda dîza; dîz çêkirin, xelqê birin. The mother of daughters is like a potter: she made the pots, and strangers carried them off.

This saying documents another truth. The mother who raises a daughter gives her labor to someone who will leave the home; custom sends the daughter to another hearth. Do you hear the bitter note in the sentence? Proverbs can contradict one another, because a society argues within itself. One declares the woman a lion; another says how the woman's labor is carried off. For the historian, both are valuable witnesses.

The Mind of Patience, Time, and Season

What is left in hand against hardship? The Kurdish answer to this question is two words: patience and season.

Dinya bi dor e, ne bi zor e. The world turns by turns, not by force.

The old woman's sentence from the opening. Force is the tool of the one who breaks the order; but the turn, in the end, comes around. A neighboring saying completes the same patience: Se diewte, kerwan diçe, the dog barks, the caravan moves on. Chyet himself notes the Turkish twin of this saying. Peoples who lived along the same caravan roads shared the same words; words travel with the caravan too.

Adar e, dew li dar e. March has come, the buttermilk is on the churn.

Adar means March; dew is buttermilk, and dar here is the churn. The end of winter, the milk grown plentiful, the churn beginning to work: a whole season's economy in one sentence. This saying is like a calendar; it shows by what a herding people measured its year. It also whispers, quietly, why Newroz, the spring new-year festival, falls so large in the month of March.

What Does a Proverb Tell the Historian?

Now let us step back and look at the whole. From these twelve sayings, what portrait of a people emerges?

A people who speak with mountain and river, who have known disaster as a shared fate. A society that counts hospitality a contract and names its own cure against the blood feud. A humor that laughs at its agha and measures power. A conscience that argues within itself about women. And a mind that, against force, waits for patience and for the turn to come around.

None of this is written in a state archive. The official document records the tax, the campaign, the decree; it does not record what the people thought. The proverb fills exactly this gap. Long narratives like the epic carry the events; we saw this in our article on Kurdish folk epics. The proverb carries the worldview behind the event. For the historian, one is a chronicle, the other a register of conscience.

Let us not hide a weakness of the proverb either: it has no date. A kilam often carries the year and place of its event; the proverb does not. We cannot know when it was born; we know how long it lived. So the proverb is not a point but a line; it shows not a single day but the average mind of a long stretch of time. The historian uses it this way: for the event, the chronicle; for the mentality, the proverb.

Let us add one warning. The proverb carries prejudice as it carries wisdom; not every saying is a lesson in virtue. What makes it a document is not its rightness but its spread. If a saying has been spoken for a hundred years, it had a match in that society. We do not have to like the match; we have to record it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a proverb called in Kurdish? In Kurmancî it is called gotinên pêşiyan: the words of those who came before. Chyet's dictionary also records the synonym mesel. In the Celîl family's compilations the heading mesele û metelok (proverbs and riddles) is used.

Where were the proverbs in this article taken from? All of them were taken from the in-entry examples of Michael L. Chyet's Kurdish-English dictionary and verified one by one. Chyet's sources include the Bedirxan and Lescot grammar and recordings from folk speech.

Are Kurdish proverbs counted as a historical source? They are, but as a source of mentality, not of events. They document the class order, the law of hospitality, the view of women, and the mind of peace. Read together with the written document, their value grows.

Why are Kurdish and Turkish proverbs so alike? Because of shared geography, a shared herding order, and centuries of neighborhood. Chyet's dictionary plainly notes that sayings like "the dog barks, the caravan moves on" live in both languages. In which language a saying was born often cannot be known.

Are the translations exact? No; they are approximate. A proverb's power is in its rhyme and rhythm, and these are lost in translation. This is why we gave the Kurmancî original of every saying too.

Sources and Further Reading

Primary sources (from the Bedel Boseli Collection):

Michael L. Chyet, Kurdish-English Dictionary; the source of every proverb in this article, the in-entry examples and proverb marks.
Celîlê Celîl and Ordîxanê Celîl, Zargotina Kurda I; the frame of Kurdish oral-culture compilation, the mesele û metelok records.
Dr. Mehrdad R. Izady, The Kurds: A Concise Handbook (4th edition); for the historical context of oral culture.

Social Media Summaries

The following summaries are ready to share; copy and use them.

In Kurdish a proverb is gotinên pêşiyan: the words of those who came before. A hundred years of experience, distilled into a single line, entering the room at exactly the needed moment. Twelve verified sayings: bedelboseli.com/en/kurdish-proverbs-wisdom-of-a-people
Ko agir li çiyê ket, ter û hişk tev de dişewitin. When fire takes the mountain, green and dry burn together. This is how a Kurdish proverb names disaster: a shared fate. bedelboseli.com/en/kurdish-proverbs-wisdom-of-a-people
The belly that eats the bulgur must run to the rescue, says a Kurdish proverb. The table is not feeling but contract: eat a house's food, and you are bound to defend it. Hospitality law in one line. bedelboseli.com/en/kurdish-proverbs-wisdom-of-a-people
The agha with his ten villages believes he is Keyxosrow. The Kurdish villager could not topple power; but he measured it, laughed, and wrote it into a sentence. The proverb is the people's register. bedelboseli.com/en/kurdish-proverbs-wisdom-of-a-people
Şêr şêr e, çi mê ye çi nêr e: a lion is a lion, female or male. A people's inner argument about women stands, like a document, in its proverbs. bedelboseli.com/en/kurdish-proverbs-wisdom-of-a-people