Traditional Jamaican proverb · taught in Westmoreland
Yong kak kruo afta uol kak.
The young cock crows after the old 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.
single-clause indicative, metaphor
Kak sits at both ends of the line with only the adjective changed. After here does not mean later; it means in imitation of, an older English sense the folk speech kept.
This one is taught in Westmoreland.
Cassidy gives this proverb — 'Young cock crow after old' — as his example of after still used in Jamaica, though obsolescent elsewhere, to mean in imitation of.
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 →