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The Female and Male World in Croatian Proverbs

351 Received for publication September 10, 2021 Introduction: Proverbs in General Proverbs in Croatian are traditionally studied within literary theory and are determined as follows: 1. they are short textual forms, 2. they are part of oral (folk) litera- ture, 3. they express universal thoughts based on individ- ual experiences that are recognizable and understandable to language speakers, i.e., the social communities in which they arose, 4. they are realized as a whole sentence (unlike idioms which, also as short textual forms, are part of a longer sentence). Although proverbs and idioms, according to the Croatian Language Curriculum, are included in the school program1 in the 4th grade of primary school and the 1st grade of high school, today’s pupils use and understand them poorly. 2 According to the Curriculum, proverbs and phrases are taught differently – proverbs are part of the literature and creativity program, and idioms are part of the Croatian language and communication program. Also, proverbs are less represented in everyday communication. Given that idioms are better known (for example, idioms Coll. Antropol. 45 (2021) 4: 351–363 Original scientific paper doi:10.5671/ca.45.4.7 The Female and Male World in Croatian ProverbsThe Female and Male World in Croatian Proverbs Goranka Blagus Bartolec, Ivana Matas IvankovićGoranka Blagus Bartolec, Ivana Matas Ivanković Institute of Croatian Language and Linguistics, Zagreb, Croatia A B S T R A C TA B S T R A C T Proverbs as concise textual structures are primarily defined as oral (folk) literary forms in which universal thoughts are expressed on the basis of individual experiences understandable to speakers of the language, i.e., of the social com- munity in which they originated. In relation to, for example, idioms, the use of proverbs in today’s public discourse is much rarer, and proverbs in Croatian are most often recorded in printed form, while online edited lexicographic sources of proverbs are rare. Folk customs, human character and physical features, social and religious values, the relation of human and nature are the most common motives in proverbs. Male-female relationships are also the subject of numerous proverbs. Given the past times when they were created, they can be considered the source of a stereotypical image of the status of women and men in society that exists in human consciousness. Based on proverbs with the component woman, grand- mother, mother, daughter, sister, girlfriend, widow, father, son, husband..., this paper will analyze proverbs with the topic of male-female relations, e.g. Ljubav daj ženi, ali tajnu odaj samo majci i sestri. (Give your love to your wife, but reveal the secret only to your mother and sister.), or proverbs referring to an individual feature attributed to a man or a woman, e.g., Kakvo drvo, takav klin, kakav otac takav sin. (Like tree, like wedge ; like father, like son.)., Ženi sina kad hoćeš, a kćer kad možeš. (Marry a son when you want and a daughter when you can.). The analysis includes the following: 1. representation of proverbs in other lexicographic (printed and online sources), 2. representation of such proverbs in contemporary public discourse, 3. structural and semantic features of proverbs motivated by male-female relationships. In conclusion, the role of proverbs on the topic of male and female in the contemporary context is discussed – what is their perspective and whether the corpus has replaced traditional recorders and word of mouth today.

corpus ; Croatian ; female ; male ; proverbs

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