Traditional Jamaican proverb · taught in St. Andrew and St. Catherine
Nyuu bruum swiip kliin, bot uol bruum nuo evri kaana.
A new broom sweeps clean, but the old broom knows every corner.
New people and things impress, but experience knows the hidden spots.
two-clause contrasting parallelism
The same noun appears twice, broom and broom, with opposite adjectives in front of it; but is the hinge, and the second half runs longer than the first.
This one is taught in St. Andrew and St. Catherine.
The grammatical categories this description uses — clause type, mood, and the sound patterning noted where it carries the proverb — follow Unseth's framework for describing a proverb rather than only translating it.
The proverb is folk material. The description of how it is put together follows the framework in the work above; the translation and the commentary are mine.
Hear it, and collect the rest →