Paper short abstract:

This paper examines sundry characterizations of the African proverb and its continued relevance to development in a contemporary, multipolar, world.

Paper long abstract:

The proverb is a rhetorical universal and as such shares features across linguistic, ethnic and culture boundaries, thus making typological distinctions along ethnic or regional lines a daunting task. Further complicating this scenario within the African context is the relentless hybridization and subversion of the African proverb consequent on colonial contact and sundry postcolonial interventions. This twin trajectory, the conceptual universalism of the proverb and the relentless absorption of proverbs from diverse sources into contemporary global and hybrid contexts, has often raised the question whether it is possible to pinpoint the 'African' proverb or the Africanness of a proverb with any sense of authority. This paper examines sundry characterizations of the African proverb, with Yoruba proverbs as exemplar, and proposes a number of linguistic and literary parameters by which what we have described as the African protoproverbial may be distinguished from both western and certain contemporary African varieties. The question: how relevant is the African proverb to development in a contemporary multipolar world is also germane to this presentation.