Read by the tongue
Más sabe el diablo por viejo que por diablo
más sabe el diablo por viejo que por diablo
Why Spanish says the devil knows more from being old than from being the devil — and how the same claim about age-as-wisdom carries a theological joke that Mongolian, Japanese, Mandarin and German all decline to make.
El mundo es un pañuelo
el mundo es un pañuelo
Why Spanish-speakers say the world is a handkerchief — and how Greek, English, Japanese, and Russian arrive at the same observation about encounter from inside very different cosmologies.
A caballo regalado no le mires el diente.
a caballo regalado no le mires el diente
Why one of Europe's most-traveled proverbs is about a horse's teeth — and what each language's small, telling preference reveals about how it wants gifts to be received.
Más vale pájaro en mano que cien volando.
más vale pájaro en mano que cien volando
Why Spanish says one bird in hand outweighs a hundred flying — and what the inflated arithmetic reveals about a culture's relationship to certainty.
Camarón que se duerme se lo lleva la corriente
camarón que se duerme se lo lleva la corriente
Why a Mexican proverb against complacency picks the smallest creature in the sea — and how Italian, Swahili, and Japanese reach for an idle fisherman, a sleeping lion, and a samurai's four-character compression to argue the same case.