Abstract

A proverb is an important aspect of orature that serves as an instrument of transmitting the cultural norms and values of a society from generation to generation. Ful~e are among the people who are blessed with proverbs. They attach much importance to proverbs and use them most often in their conversations to instruct, admonish or show mastery of the language. This instruction and warning are used in teaching the younger ones the etiquettes of life as contained in their code of conduct called pulaaku. The data was collected by random sampling of Mbororo‟en, Ful~e Na‟i and Ful~e Saare who live within the area where the central northern Nigeria and the Adamawa dialects of Fulfulde are spoken and was analyzed using a theory called Content Analysis. The research identifies proverbs that relate to the tenets of pulaaku: semteende (shyness), munyal (patience),   goongaaku    (honesty),   ngorgu   (courage),    en]am   (compassion),    ne]]aaku (dignity), hakkiilo (caution), ndimu (purity) and marugo na‟i (cattle possession)

CHAPTER ONE: GENERAL INTRODUCTION

1.0 Introduction

Fulfulde is the language of the Ful~e (singular: Pullo) who live mostly in West Africa. They are known in Hausaland as Fulani, in Sierra Leone and the Gambia as Fula and in Sudan as Fellata. They are found throughout West African sub-region roughly between 10th and 15th parallels and extending from Senegal, Gambia, and Guinea on the Atlantic through Mali, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon eastwards. They are also found in Benin, Ghana and Mauritania. They are the major tribe among African pastoral nomads (Arnott, 1985:1 and Tomfafi, 1991:293).

A proverb is usually a true statement of the folk obtained from experience. It is enriched with wisdom, morals, traditional views and commonly held ideas and beliefs of the society. It serves as a means through which a society preserves its culture and passes it to generations. A proverb is characterized with diversity of meaning. In other words, it can be subjected to various meanings. There is a surface or denotative meaning and a deeper or connotative meaning of a proverb. Whereas the surface meaning can be understood by many, the deeper meaning is normally understood and revealed through analytic study of the proverbs which requires deep thinking and reasoning. Study of proverbs requires knowledge of the culture of the society concerned. (Baldick, 2004:208, Amin, 2004:14, Amin, 2013:2 and Bugaje, 2014 :19-20)

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