Traditional Jamaican proverb · taught in St. Ann and St. James
Smaal aks faal big chrii.
A small axe fells a big tree.
The small can defeat the mighty — a proverb Bob Marley carried to the world.
single-clause indicative, antithesis
Four heavy beats, one to a word, with every article and ending stripped out, which is about half the length of an ordinary spoken sentence.
This one is taught in St. Ann and St. James.
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 →