Folk Wisdom in Oral Cultures: A Linguo-Cultural Analysis of Punjabi and Nigerian Indigenous Knowledge Systems about Hospitality

Abstract

The present study intends to highlight the cultural norms regarding the tradition of hospitality in Pakistani and Nigerian cultures as manifested in their proverbs. The data is collected from the collections of Punjabi and Yoruba proverbs using purposive quota sampling and analyzed taking insights from the Linguo-Culturology Approach (Petrova, 2019). Cultural informants are consulted for the validation of the interpretation and cultural inferences. Proverbs mentioning recommendable norms for hosts as well as visitors revealed that both linguo-cultures encouraged the tradition of hospitality and ascribed great responsibility to hosts to serve the visitors in the best possible manner. African (Yoruba) proverbs have significantly emphasized the control and agency given to the host from multiple perspectives in several sayings, while the predominant focus of the Punjabi proverb is the appropriate code of conduct on the part of visitors. The analysis confirmed that both cultures are prone to collectivism as per Hofstede’s binary dimensions of the world cultures regarding Individualism versus the Indulgence continuum (Hofstede, 2011). It is concluded that Punjabi and Nigerian proverbs revealed not only the central significance attached to this tradition, but also prescribed preferable norms and expected conventions to be performed by the hosts and guests.