People laugh to hide pain — the heart of tek bad tings mek laugh.
How it is built
positive imperative, serial verbs
Two verbs run back to back with nothing between them, tek and kibba, and both objects are body-part compounds: skin-teeth for a grin, heart-burn for grief.
Quiet riva run deep.Still, quiet people often have the deepest feelings and strength — like quiet little Hanover itself.
Empty bag cyaan tan up.A hungry person cannot hold themselves up or do the work — feed people first.
Young cock crow after ole cock.The young one crows in imitation of the old: children copy what they see their elders do, so mind what you do in front of them.
Wata more dan flour.Too much water and not enough flour, so the dumplings cannot be made — times are hard and what you have is stretched too thin.
Sources
Peter Unseth, Proverb Studies: A Practical Manual (2025, version 1.0), p. 98 [CC BY-NC]
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.