2025-12-13

1930: Wit and Wisdom In Morocco

Here's another book published in 1930, thus entering the public domain on January 1 2026, which is valuable for African folklore studies:

Wit and Wisdom In Morocco
by Edward Westermarck
Internet Archive

This is a remarkable book, almost 500 pages long, very useful both for speakers of Arabic and also for people who just love proverbs but who do not know Arabic. The author, Edward Westermarck, was a Finnish sociologist; you can read more about his life and work at Wikipedia. There are just over 2000 proverbs collected here, arranged thematically. In the text of the book the Arabic is presented in English transliteration so you can get a sense of the sound-play in the sayings, and then the Arabic texts are all in the back of the book, keyed to the proverbs by number. The proverbs have some commentary to help situate them in their cultural context; here's a screenshot of a typical page (marriage was one of his main topics of interest):





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