A comparison of proverbs containing animal names in Turkish and Korean culture

The language of many countries around the world contains much of the country's history, culture, traditions, and ideas. This can be found easily in vocabulary and sentences, but the most apparent reflection of this characteristic is found in the proverbs. Proverbs, which are made and written in the context of the history of their people, are a valuable linguistic inheritance that reflects people's feelings, lifestyles and habits, as a result of people's way of life. So, in order to understand a nation, we need to know their proverbs. In particular, people have created proverbs using the symbolic meaning of objects. Among them, animal proverbs can be important resource for examining the experiences people have. This study aims to examine the use of symbols in the proverbs by limiting them to animals. In this study, I explained this structure by examining the expression method of animal proverbs found in Korean and Turkish cultures and the differences and similarities in them. In this thesis, I looked at the common images in Korean and Turkish culture for each animal, and beyond the common images, how the animal is expressed in proverbs. When we look at the similarities and differences of Korean and Turkish proverbs, it can be seen that animals similar to humans are the same and have a common understanding. The most striking difference is that while Korea has many proverbs about cattle, an essential for farming, since their society is based on agriculture, there are more proverbs about sheep and goats in Turkey because they focus on livestock. Due to the religious and traditional differences in the general culture and due to their different geographical conditions, animals that are special to both cultures are seen. I thoroughly enjoyed comparing the two cultures in this thesis, and I hope it opens a path for further work through this research.