Proverbs from the Viewpoint of Translation

Undoubtedly passing the world of translation opens new windows toward getting familiar with literature, language and culture of those who think, behave and look at the world in a similar and/or different manners. Although going through many linguistic features seems much less problematic, catching what is going to be transferred through non-linguistic ones is the most problematic to deal with. Among those nonlinguistic features, including figurative devices, proverbs are going to be examined in this paper. First some definitions are represented, then proverbs' characteristics and classifications are given and at the end we examine strategies suggested for translation of proverbs by different theorists. Examples of English and Persian proverbs are presented and compared in order to clarify language differences and/or similarities and translating strategies.