English proverbs that don’t exist

European studies blog siez la Bibliothèque Britannique a bliodgi entouor l'înfluenche des collections multilîngues dé ditons:

The British Library European studies blog discusses the influence of multilingual proverb collections:

How English is an English proverb? Paremiologists generally agree that the same proverbs occur in many languages. It’s often assumed that popular proverbs, like folktales, in Max Müller’s phrase, migrate. And migration is assumed to be by word of mouth. All of which is probably true. But some popular proverbs were written down in the manuscript period (see Morawski for French examples), sometimes with Latin translations (...) Around the 1540s collections began to appear which juxtaposed not vernacular with Latin but vernacular with vernacular. (...) So, what of the authenticity of English proverbs? The Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs (ODEP) from 1935 onwards includes a good number of English proverbs that were never said by any Englishman. These are garnered from bilingual and multilingual collections, or vocabularies and phrasebooks in which the English is merely a translation from French, Spanish or Italian.

Il en est d'même auve nos Mille Ditons. Nou-s'înventit des "ditons" en Angliais! Né v'chîn chein qu'nou-s'êcrivit dans la préfache:

The same thing happened with the Mille Ditons book. English proverbial equivalents got made up! Here's how it was explained in the preface:

I’ voulaient lus asseûther qué l’idiome du diton Jèrriais èrsembliéthait pus ou même à l’êtchivalent en Français et Angliais. Lus înmaginnâtion fèrtile et lus êfforts à ch’t êgard ont produit partitchuliéthement des ditons Angliais tchi, seux et cèrtain, n’es’sont pas trouvés dans autcheune autre publyicâtion ailleurs!

Their aim was to ensure that the idiom of the Jersey “diton” was conveyed as far as possible in equivalent French and English versions. Their fertile minds and efforts in this respect have particularly produced some English proverbs that
they feel sure will not be found in any publication elsewhere!

Leur but était d’assurer que la tournure du “diton” jersiais serait communiquée aussi fidèlement que possible dans des équivalents en français et en anglais. Leurs esprits féconds et leurs efforts à cet égard ont produit des proverbes anglais qu’on ne trouvera, de leur avis certain, dans aucune autre publication ailleurs!