The Semiotics of Kashmiri Proverbs: An Examination of the Interplay between Language, Culture, and Power

Abstract

With the significant shift in focus by historians worldwide from traditional political history to social history, the common people have assumed a central role in recent historical discourses. To put together the objective and impartial history of the people, emphasis is put on accessing and analysing the folk collective mentality. The paper will focus on the popular folk sayings like proverbs (zarb-ul-misl) and riddles (pretche) of the Kashmiri language and will highlight how these folk sayings are in themselves a repository of some particular historical context and by extension transgenerational carriers of history. A highlight will be made of how historical accounts are transmitted through these means to posteriority. Thus an active archive is established in the social consciousness of a particular community through the language they share. Kashmiri being predominantly an oral language also navigates through the dynamics of remembering-forgetting. In that context revisiting and analysing the popular folk sayings allows a fresh peep into the history of the place and language.