Languagle #45: Cantonese
牛唔飲水唔撳得牛頭低
ngau4 m4 jam2 seoi2 m4 gam6 dak1 ngau4 tau4 dai1
"If the ox won't drink, you can't push its head down."
What it means
You cannot force someone to do something they do not want to do. If an ox is not thirsty, pushing its head into the water will not make it drink. The English equivalent is 'you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink'.
What kind of saying it is
Oral tradition. Passed down by word of mouth. Sayings like this have no single author.
About the Cantonese language
Cantonese is a Sinitic language spoken by around 85 million people in Guangdong province, Hong Kong and Macau, and across the Chinese diaspora. It has six to nine tones, depending on how they are counted, and keeps final consonants that Mandarin lost, which is why classical Chinese poetry often rhymes better in Cantonese. Written Cantonese uses traditional Chinese characters plus a set of its own characters for words that Mandarin does not have.