The analysis of Spanish and Ukrainian proverbs characterizing everyday life

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Kiev National Taras Shevchenko University

Foreign Languages Department

The analysis of Spanish and Ukrainian proverbs characterizing everyday life

Shevchenko Liudmyla PhD, associate professor

Abstract

The article considers Spanish and Ukrainian adages characterizing everyday life. Specific adage units are interpreted on a basis of metaphorical images. The metaphor as the most common figurative means presented in Spanish proverbs and sayings is analyzed in the article. Attention is focused on mapping behavior, character traits and a person's appearance through the prism of the image of the animal.

Key words: an adage, an idiom, a metaphor, metaphorization, a conceptual sphere.

Аннотация

Анализ украинских и испанских паремий, характеризующих повседневную жизнь

В статье проведено исследование украинских и испанских паремий, характеризующих повседневную жизнь. Конкретные паремиологические единицы объясняются на основе анализа метафорических образов. Проанализирована метафора как самое распространенное образное средство, которое присутствует в испанских пословицах и поговорках. Внимание сосредоточено на отображении поведения, черт характера и внешности человека через призму образа животного.

Ключевые слова: паремия, идиома, метафора, метафоризация, концептуальная сфера.

paremia proverb saying metaphor

When studying the language and culture of different peoples the reference to folklore genres must be done. Our grandparents and great grandparents gave us rich spiritual folklore heritage. Ukrainian lyrical songs, fairy tales, myths, legends and folk witty jokes are famous all over the world. Adages (a complex world of proverbs and sayings) occupy one of the leading places among the folk heritage. Great Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra called a saying "a short expression generated by long experience". Analyzing the development of this quintessence of folk wisdom you can find out the most typical national characteristics of different peoples, their traditions, customs, features of material and spiritual culture.

The Ukrainian people nurtured carefully these precious pearls for centuries, changing them under the influence of historical events, personal experience, and nowadays it is difficult to imagine a Ukrainian who does not use these short, precise expressions in everyday life.

Spanish proverbs and sayings are quite known in Ukraine. There are their literal ingenious translations into Ukrainian and Russian (M. Zherdynovska, P. Grushko, A. Kiselyov and others). This article sets another goal. It is dedicated to compare the semantic value of precious jewels of Spanish and Ukrainian folklore.

Why was Spanish chosen? The fact is that in the Spanish-speaking countries as well as in Ukraine proverbs and sayings are very widely used in everyday life, their knowledge is a measure of human intelligence. Suffice it to say that perhaps the oldest collection of proverbs and sayings in the world dated 1545 was published in Spain (Don Pedro Luis Sanz. 300 proverbs and sayings / Trezientos proverbios compuestos por el noble, don Pedro Luys Sanz, Valencia).

The Spanish loved proverbs so much in ancient times that often wrote small prose works, especially letters, using only proverbs. The oldest collection of such letters dated 1553 is called `Processo de Cartas de amores que entre dos amantes passaron'.

The respectful attitude to this genre is reflected in many Spanish proverbs:

• "Quien refranes no sabe que es lo que sabe?" ("Who doesn't know sayings, what does he know then?");

• "Todos los refranes habian de estar escritos con letras de oro" ("All proverbs must be written in golden letters").

It was therefore interesting to study and compare adages of both nations, their attitude to work, wealth, moral virtues expressed in the substance of folklore. International contacts of independent Ukraine are constantly expanding, the citizens of our country show more interest to studying foreign languages. On the other hand, the interest to our country, its culture and language is also growing throughout the world.

In this article all adage material can be divided into three groups:

The first group includes proverbs that are in full compliance with the original and the target language both in content and form. This is not surprising because people from different countries have similar moral values and ideals. In addition, these proverbs and sayings are usually an exact copy from foreign, more ancient sources. For example:

• "A Dios lo que es de Dios y a Cesar lo que es de Cesar" ("Богу - богово, кесарю - кесарево");

• "A los vencedores no se les juzga" ("Переможців не судять");

• "Al arbol se le conoce por sus frutas y al homre por sus obras" ("Дерево пізнається плодами, а людина ділами");

• "Al buen consejo no se halla precio" ("Добрій пораді ціни нема");

• "Al caido no se pega" ("Лежачого не б'ють");

• "El infierno esta empedrado de buenas intenciones" ("Добрими намірами дорога в пекло вимощена"), etc.

This group also includes a large part of proverbs and sayings, the translation and content of which are nearly identical to the Ukrainian ones and differ only in one word or shades of meaning. For example:

• "La ley es como la telarana: suelta el rato y la mosca apana" (literal translation: закон, як павутиння: миша проскочить, муха застрягне). The Ukrainian counterpart: "Закон, як павутиння - джміль проскочить, а муха зав'язне".

• "La ausencia mata el amor" (literal translation: відсутність вбиває кохання). The Ukrainian proverb: "Розлука - смерть для кохання".

The second most numerous group includes proverbs and sayings, literal translation of which matches the content of the Ukrainian ones, but does not match the image that underlies. For example:

• "El que asno fue a Roma, asno torna" (literally: хто дурнем пішов до Риму, дурнем і повернеться), the Ukrainian equivalent: "Дурень весь світ об'їздить і дурнем повернеться";

• "Entre bueyes no hay cornada" (literally: між биків немає ударів рогами), the Ukrainian equivalent: "Ворон ворону очей не виклює".

• "En buenas manos esta el pandero que lo sabran bien taner" (literally: в гарних руках і бубен гарно грає), the Ukrainian equivalent: "В умілого і долото рибу ловить";

• "El que boca lleva, a Roma llega" (literally: в кого є рот, той дійде до Риму), the Ukrainian equivalent: "Язик до Києва доведе";

• "A pan de quince dias, hambre de tres semanas" (literally: хто не їв три тижні, той і п'ятнадцятиденному хлібу радий), the Ukrainian equivalent: "Голодному і черствий хліб до смаку".

The third group includes mainly idioms that are used as metaphorical figurative expressions. This is a kind of original "word game" and their literal translation into Ukrainian makes such proverbs lose their meaning. The complexity of the translation of these idioms is in the ability to recognize their deeper meaning and find the most appropriate Ukrainian counterpart. The examples of this group include:

• "Y se queda tan campante" (the meaning: а йому хоч би що), the Ukrainian equivalent: "Хоч стріль йому в око";

• "Tirar la barra" (the meaning: продавати втридорога), the Ukrainian equivalent: "Три шкіри дерти";

• "Hacerse uno de garganta" (the meaning: пускати рулади), the Ukrainian equivalent: "Заливатися соловейком".

• As it can be seen from the examples, the expressions of the first group do not create problems during the translation process. For the second group of expressions numerous Ukrainian counterparts are chosen along with the literal translation. Set phrases, which are included in the third group, are translated descriptively, according to their meaning [1,15].

Adages originated in ancient times and include observation of man and society, the surrounding realities, the experience of many generations. During the development of the genre there was a continuous process of form grinding: some adages died out, others arose, values changed. When there was no written language, oral memorization was the only way to transmit them to future generations. Due to changes in the semantics of proverbs and sayings derivative figurative sense had been arising. The adage evolution could represent the following steps:

• the phrase acquired stability;

• the phrase expanded its figurative meaning and became vivid;

• the phrase transformed its semantic field and carried it to other similar situations or events;

• the proverb meaning was reserved for other activities;

• the proverb acquired a new meaning as a result of actualization of different text genres [2, 32].

The whole proverb or its components can be subjected to rethinking. This largely depends on the use of a particular type of tropes: comparisons or metaphorical images, hyperboles or litotes, metonymies, synecdoche, adjectives, etc. They are the most productive means for creating proverbs, changing both form and content of language structures to achieve a certain didactic purpose.

Based on Potebnya's research about external and internal word form we can observe the formation of proverbs with derivative metaphorical and allegorical meaning, the role of associative thinking in processes of such transformations. The background of proverb metaphorization is an inner connection between natural phenomena and social life. People manage to join objects and phenomena of life in contrasting pairs and put them in such phrases that violate stereotypical thinking and automatic movement of thought. That is why the regularity is that the man prefers the existing language elements to indicate new objects, relying on similarities of these objects [3, 285].

The most common are language metaphors that carry animals' quality and properties over people. On this basis, F.Litwin distinguishes the existence of two terms: zoon (zoosemism) as generic and zoomorphism (zoomorph) as a species. Under a zoon the name of the animal is understood and on its base a metaphorical meaning is developed. The zoomorphism (in ancient religions it images gods as animals) serves as figurative human characteristics [4, 81].

Therefore, limiting only by consideration of Spanish adage units containing zoon component the following conceptual areas can be highlighted:

• person + animala)appearance+animal

b) character trait + animal

c) behavior + animal

d) age + animal

• welfare + animal

• object + animal

The explanation of the conceptual sphere "man + animal" serves the proverb "Los peces grandes se comen a los chicos", where the meaning "pez" in the statement corresponds to the metaphorical one that is "power and rich people" ("peces grandes"), while "los [peces] chicos" are "poor and servants".

The proverb "^A donde ira el buey que no are, sino al matadero?" metaphorically says that the poor are doomed to work all their life. So the nominative value "buey" (a donkey) is compared with the metaphorical one "pobre" (a poor man).

Taking into consideration the proverb "Aunque la mona se vista de seda, la mona se queda" we can see the explanation of the scheme "appearance + animal". In this example the noun "mona" (monkey) metaphorically expresses the noun "man": even if a person is dressed in silk, he or she does not change inwardly. The analogy to the previous example is a proverb "Aunque muda el pelo la raposa, su natural no despoja": even changing its hair the fox do not hide its essence.

The largest group among the examples is the group "character trait + animal" with a dominant number of domestic animals. This is natural because the daily human contact with pets contributed to the implementation of their names in the vocabulary and later in adages. So they became symbols of everyday life for certain lays of society.

In particular, in the proverb "Pajaro durmiente, tarde le entra el cebo en el vientre" the nominative value "pajaro durmiente" corresponds to the notion of a lazy person. It is known that the image of the donkey "asno, burro" is a prototype of stubbornness, slowness and stupidity.

The evidence of obstinacy as a character trait is represented in the proverb "No llevaran al asno al agua si no tiene gana" (No one will force a donkey to water, if he doesn't want) [3, 415].

The picture of a mean man with very good health is given in the proverb "Bicho malo nunca muere" (A bad beast never dies) where the noun “bicho” (a beast) correlates with the "persona" (a person).

The noun "buen calamar" in the proverb "El buen calamar, en todos los mares sabe nadar" (Good squid swims in any sea) is metaphorically opposed to "astuto, habilidoso": a clever and able man will come out of any situation.

The saying "Al gallo que canta, le aprietan la garganta" (the throat of a singing rooster is covered) draws the attention to how to behave with people who cannot keep other people's secret (the scheme "behavior + animal"): in such a way the nominative value "gallo que canta" (a rooster that sings) is compared with the metaphorical one of "hombre que habla" (a talkative man).

Another example is "Can con rabia, con su dueno traba" (an evil dog will seize even his owner), which explains that like an angry dog that can attack its owner an angry person is able to splash his anger at another person: the noun "can" (a dog) vividly reflects the noun "hombre" (a man).

The saying "Cada pajarito tiene su higadito" (Each bird has its own liver) tells us that any man who seems calm and deliberate can get angry one day: there is an ancient belief that the liver was a so-called refuge for good and bad moods.

The examples of scheme existence "age + animal" include such proverbs as:

• "A burro viejo, poco verde";

• "A galgo viejo, echadle liebre, no conejo".

In the first one the nominative value "burro viejo" (an old donkey) is opposed to the metaphorical meaning "hombre viejo" (an old man): it is said about moderateness and diet for the elderly, as in the proverb "El viejo que se curra, cien anos dura" (An old man who take cares of himself will live till a hundred years). In the second proverb, by analogy with the first example, the value "galgo viejo" (an old trackhound dog) is equivalent to "hombre viejo" (an older man): the proverb advises to impose the solving of any problems to a person with experience (Vent a hare, not a rabbit to an old trackhound dog).

The scheme "animal + welfare" is represented in the proverb "Abeja y oveja y parte en la Iglesia, desea a su hijo la vieja" (An old woman wants a bee, a lamb and a place in a church for his son) and makes it clear that religious education, nurturing livestock and beekeeping guarantee the secure future. In the Spanish tradition the bee is a symbol of wealth and, consequently, welfare [3, 412]: "A quien tiene abejas, nunca le falta un buen postre en la mesa" (Anyone who has bees, never will miss a a tasty dessert on the table).

Another opposition (scheme "subject + animal") happens between the nominative value "oveja" (a sheep) and the metaphorical one "nube" (a cloud): "Ovejitas tiene el cielo, o son de agua o son de viento" (The sky has sheep, from the water or from the wind). This trope originated due to external similarity between sheep and clouds, which leads to the replacement one word to another.

Thus, metaphors containing zoon component are functionally productive. They express certain social types, animal association with certain objects and patterns of human behavior to help you estimate both external signs of man and his intrinsic properties.

References

1. Balabaieva V.H. Chym khata bahata: Ukrainski pryslivia ta prykazky ta yikh ispanski vidpovidnyky / Balabaieva V.H. - Vinnytsia: HLOBUS-PRES, 2008. - 384 s.

2. Bysykalo S.K. Ukrainskyi folklor. Krytychni materialy / Bysykalo S.K., Borshchevskyi F.M. - K.: Vyshcha Shkola, 1978. - 287 s.

3. Paziak M.M. Ukrainski pryslivia ta prykazky. Problemy paremiolohii ta paremiohrafii / Paziak M.M. - K.: Nauk, dumka, 1984. - 204 s.

4. Sborniki O.V. Markovicha i drugikh. - SPb, 1864.

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