Russian

Russian proverbs, at a glance

• The apple doesn't fall far from the apple tree

  Яблоко от яблони недалеко падает

  Yabloko ot yabloni nedaleko padayet

  Literally: Apple from apple-tree not-far falls

  Russian · Russia

  Set beside

  • German — the same image in the language that almost certainly carried it across northern Europe, but used colder, with the orchardist's shrug rather than the grandmother's
  • Spanish — *de tal palo, tal astilla*, the same observation moved from the orchard into the woodshed, with the inheritance becoming a violence of cleaving
  • Korean — *콩 심은 데 콩 나고*, the agricultural register pushed all the way down to the seed, with no falling involved at all

• The catastrophe you are imagining is almost certainly not coming — calm your panic and act.

  Небо не упадёт

  Nebo ne upadyot

  Literally: The sky will not fall

  Russian · Russia

  Set beside

  • Mandarin — the boat straightens at the bridge; don't panic about the obstacle before you reach it
  • Japanese — giving birth is easier than worrying about it; the anticipated ordeal is never as bad as the imagined one
  • Welsh/English — don't cross the bridge before you come to it; the same spatial deferral of unnecessary dread

• The devil isn't as scary as he's painted

  Не так страшен чёрт, как его малюют

  Ne tak strashen chyort, kak yego malyuyut

  Literally: Not so terrible (is) the devil as they paint him

  Russian · Russia

  Set beside

  • Latin (Tacitus) — the sociological version: everything unknown gets inflated into magnificence
  • Mandarin (庸人自扰) — the agent-focused version: the worry is self-made
  • Japanese — the bodily version: the imagined trial is worse than the trial itself

• Even the smallest fragment of your homeland holds more meaning than foreign abundance.

  Своя земля и в горсти мила.

  Svoya zemlya i v gorsti mila

  Literally: One's own land is dear even in a handful.

  Russian · Russia

  Set beside

  • Arabic (al-Mutanabbi, 10th c.) — my country, even if it wrongs me, is dear to me; exile's love rather than exile's fragment
  • Polish — the homeland is soil and graves; the living earth and the dead together as what homeland means
  • Hebrew — the tradition of carrying Israel's soil for burial; the smallest portion of the homeland treated as the whole

• Friends are known in trouble.

  Друзья познаются в беде.

  Druz'ya poznayutsya v bede

  Literally: Friends become-known in trouble.

  Russian · Russia

  Set beside

  • Latin (Ennius via Cicero) — the source, with its etymological wordplay
  • English — the same claim turned into folk rhyme
  • Arabic — the same claim rhymed into two words

• Measure seven times, cut once

  Семь раз отмерь, один раз отрежь

  Sem' raz otmer', odin raz otrezh'

  Literally: Seven times measure, one time cut

  Russian · Russia

  Set beside

  • English — the same caution rebuilt around a body in motion: do the looking before the irreversible move
  • German — *erst wägen, dann wagen*, the imperative cast as bourgeois prudence and bound by a rhyme that tightens it
  • Mandarin — Confucian deliberation as a moral discipline, with the number reduced from seven to three

• Mountains don't meet — but people do.

  Гора с горой не сходится, а человек с человеком сойдётся

  Gora s goroy ne skhoditsya, a chelovek s chelovekom soydyotsya

  Literally: Mountain with mountain does not converge, but person with person will converge

  Russian · Russia

  Set beside

  • Greek — the same proverb, near-identical morphology, but consolation register sits closer to the surface
  • Arabic — same skeleton, freighted with the religious obligation of *ṣilat al-raḥim* rather than with reckoning
  • Spanish — same observation about encounter, but the spatial mechanism is folded into a domestic object instead of inflated into a landscape
  • English — same inevitability, said as karma-cycle rather than as geography; meeting becomes a circular return rather than a linear crossing of paths

• One man alone is not a warrior.

  Один в поле не воин

  Odin v pole ne voin

  Literally: One in field not warrior

  Russian · Russia

  Set beside

  • Mongolian — the same predicative negation, but what the solitary fails to become is fire and a household, not a rank
  • Swahili — names the quality the solitary lacks rather than denying his category outright
  • English — the mildest position: the lone worker is still a worker, only a tired one

• Only the grave will straighten the hunchback.

  Горбатого могила исправит

  Gorbátogo mogíla isprávit

  Literally: The hunchbacked one, the grave will correct

  Russian · Russia

  Set beside

  • Mongolian — the fixity placed at the cradle rather than the grave, lodged in the skeleton
  • Spanish — the same finality, but rhymed and worn lightly, a temperament carried gracefully to the tomb
  • Korean — the gentlest version: a habit audited from age three to eighty, no death required

• The slower you go, the farther you'll get

  Тише едешь — дальше будешь

  Tishe yedesh' — dal'she budesh'

  Literally: Slower you-go — farther you-will-be

  Russian · Russia

  Set beside

  • Swahili — the same caution against speed, but rephrased as theology: haste lacks God's blessing
  • Italian — adds the body: he who goes gently goes safe and goes far
  • Japanese — replaces the warning with a piece of navigation: when in a hurry, take the long way

• Still waters hide devils — beware the calm one.

  В тихом омуте черти водятся

  V tikhom omute cherti vodyatsya

  Literally: In the quiet whirlpool, devils dwell

  Russian · Russia

  Set beside

  • Khmer — surface calm in a forest, snake not yet seen
  • Latin (Virgil) — a chill snake under bright meadow flowers
  • Italian — the quiet water that takes down the engineering
  • English — same proverbial water, but the danger softened into mystery

• A word is not a sparrow: once it flies out, you will not catch it.

  Слово не воробей: вылетит — не поймаешь

  Slovo ne vorobey: vyletit — ne poymaesh'

  Literally: Word not sparrow: flies out — you will not catch

  Russian · Russia

  Set beside

  • Mandarin — the same lost chase, run by a four-horse chariot, and later turned from a rebuke into a pledge
  • Mandarin — the irretrievable thing is water, not a bird: nothing is left alive to chase
  • Persian — the same permanence, measured where the word lands rather than where it left