A work of folklore, oral folk art, proverbs. Proverbs and sayings as a genre of oral folk art and their use in teaching English

The history of oral folk art goes back to ancient times. This is due to the need for people to understand the natural world around them and their place in it. Small genres of oral folk art include ditties, sayings, proverbs, teasers, fables, riddles, etc.

Oral folk art is characterized by natural folk speech, striking in its richness of expressive means and melodiousness, which cannot but develop and enrich the child’s speech. Oral folk art is accessible to a child; he enters into the world around him more easily, tries to speak, communicate with people, assimilates the people’s idea of ​​beauty, morality, introduces him to customs, norms of behavior, communication, and teaches him to be sociable. By developing a child’s speech, it gives him a new life, the ability to adapt, to overcome difficulties in the difficult path of growing up.

A proverb is a short folk saying with an edifying meaning; folk aphorism. A proverb is a short saying, a teaching, more in the form of a parable, an allegory, or in the form of an everyday sentence; this is the walking mind of the people; it turns into a proverb or a simple figure of speech.

It expresses the thoughts that the people came to in the process of their social practice. She is instructive and edifying. There is always a conclusion or something that is useful to remember and take note of. Proverbs reflect the power of folk thinking, directly related to folk practice. Proverbs are a body of folk wisdom, groans and sighs, cries and sobs, joy and fun, everyday folk truth, a kind of law book, not judged by anyone.

The form of the proverb is unique, rhythmic, has a special sound design and compositional and syntactic structure. Due to this, it improves the student’s general speech skills, clarifies, enriches, activates the child’s vocabulary, develops grammatically correct speech, its accuracy, completeness, emotionality, consistency and content when presenting its meaning. The proverb fosters sensitivity to the semantic nuances of words, distinguishes and understands the simplest cases of polysemy of words, and promotes understanding of figurative expressions in the text.

The proverb is short, there are no unnecessary words in it, each word is meaningful and precise. The people themselves gave a vivid and accurate description. He noted her accuracy: “The old proverb is not in the eyebrow, but right in the eye,” their wisdom, their truthfulness: “The proverb tells the truth to everyone.”

In “Dictionary of the Russian Language” edited by A.P. Evgenieva gives the definition of “proverb”: “A proverb is a short figurative saying that summarizes various phenomena of life and usually has an edifying meaning”

Proverbs are widely used in teaching - both for educational purposes and for speech development. In the speech of students themselves, proverbs are relatively rare and tend to decrease in older grades.

No matter how short the proverb may be, it is still a complete work of art. It pleases us not only with its apt observation, but also with how cleverly and beautifully it is expressed. It's much easier to remember.

Proverbs have a stable artistic form. They often have a rhyme, sometimes very intricate, repeated many times: The cat scratches its back.

Proverbs are poetic, widely used in speech, stable, brief, often figurative, ambiguous, having a figurative meaning, syntactically designed as a sentence, often organized rhythmically, summarizing the socio-historical experience of the people and having an instructive, didactic character.

The vast majority of sayings are figurative and emotional characteristics of people. Moreover, this characteristic is very multifaceted, and in a speech context it is always specified and individualized. According to the conclusion of the proverb, in popular speech “There is a saying for every Egor.” The artistic functions of sayings are quite diverse. First of all, through sayings, vivid external portraits of people are created. Portrait characteristics can be both positive and negative. Examples of positive portraits: “Red as a poppy flower”, “Round and white as a washed turnip”, “Sitting like a peacock floating.” Negative portraits: “He says that he will give birth,” “He grins like a mare, looking at the oats,” “A turnaround, like a cow on ice.” However, sayings depict not only the external features of people, but also figuratively speak about their inner state of mind. So, about a person who is in a joyful mood, the proverb says: “He walks like a birthday boy,” “He jumps like a goat,” and his “heart crows like a rooster.” The proverb speaks about a person experiencing deep emotion, fear, irritation, etc. in such figurative expressions: “He has reached his white knees,” “Tears out his hair,” “Climbs the wall,” etc.

Sayings figuratively convey certain qualities of a person, features of his character. About an open person: “Soul wide open.” On the contrary, about a secretive and hypocritical person: “There is honey on the face, and ice in the heart.” About a sincere, soft person: “Soft as wax.” And vice versa, about a callous and soulless person: “Not a soul, but only a handle from a ladle.” About the smart: “There is a chamber in the head of the mind”; about the stupid: “It’s sparsely sown in the head”; about the intractable: “You give him his word, and he gives you ten”; about the impermanent; “Seven Fridays in a week,” etc. The sayings figuratively characterize various actions of people: “He rode off on a stick” (i.e., he left on foot); “He drives like he’s carrying pots” (very slowly); “The matchmaker walks the dog’s path” (secretly).

Sayings give an emotional assessment of various actions and actions of people: “Not in the eyebrow, but right in the eye” (about an apt statement); “Pour from empty to empty” (about empty talk); “He aimed at a crow, but hit a cow” (about an incompetent person), “Reads a book, but sees nothing” (about a slow-witted person), etc. In sayings we find social characteristics of representatives of various classes and estates. People say about a rich man: “He doesn’t have a lot of money”; about a village kulak: “The man is as rich as a horned bull”; about the people's destroyers - the authorities and the clergy: "They will beat you out of your boots into bast shoes." The poor life of the peasants received a truthful figurative description in sayings: “Hollow as an aspen stake”, “No fence, no gateway”, “In seven yards there is one ax”, etc. The artistic form of sayings. In linguistic terms, sayings belong to phraseological units (stable, non-free combinations of words).

Some sayings are idioms, that is, expressions that cannot be translated into foreign languages. For example: “The boron cheese has flared up”, “Hit your finger in the sky”, “Buy a pig in a poke”, “Do it carelessly”. However, it should be noted that not all phraseological units and idioms are sayings. Proverbs can be considered only those phraseological units (and their varieties - idioms) that are built on allegorical imagery and perform in speech the artistic and aesthetic functions we noted above.

When distinguishing between proverbs and sayings, it is necessary to take into account, firstly, their common obligatory features that distinguish proverbs and sayings from other works of folk art, secondly, the common but not obligatory features that bring them together and separate them at the same time, and thirdly, signs that differentiate them.

Common mandatory features of proverbs and sayings include:

a) brevity (laconicism);

b) stability (ability to reproduce);

c) connection with speech (proverbs and sayings in natural existence exist only in speech);

d) belonging to the art of speech;

e) wide use.

It is often said that proverbs, unlike sayings, are rhythmically organized. Indeed, among the proverbs there are many in which the rhythm is clearly felt, but there are many in which there is no rhythm. For example: “The need for invention is cunning”; "Radish horseradish is not sweeter." But here are rhythmically organized sayings: “Neither fish nor meat, but caftan nor cassock,” “Both ours and yours.” These are the signs that were called general, but not necessary for floorboards and sayings.

And two more features that are usually considered characteristic only of proverbs. There is an opinion that a proverb is always characterized by two parts, two parts, while a saying is always one-part, indivisible into parts. Indeed, many proverbs are binary, but not all. “Take care of your dress again, but take care of your honor from a young age” is a two-part proverb, and the proverb “Eggs don’t teach a hen” is a one-part proverb.

The differentiated features that distinguish proverbs and sayings are: 1) the generalizing nature of the content of proverbs, 2) instructiveness and edification.

Some scientists put forward the features of their syntactic structure as the main feature of the distinction between proverbs and sayings. Proverbs, they believe, are always complete sentences, and sayings are only part of them.

A proverb is a short parable. This is a judgment, a sentence, a teaching. It is these two features that determine the originality of a proverb when comparing it with a saying that is devoid of both general meaning and instructiveness. Sayings do not generalize anything, they do not teach anyone. They replace direct speech with a roundabout one, the proverb does not finish speaking, and sometimes does not name things, but conditionally, very clearly hints at them.

Sayings are closely related to proverbs. Like proverbs, sayings belong to small genres of folklore. In most cases they are even shorter than proverbs. Like proverbs, sayings are not specifically performed (they are not sung or told), but are used in lively colloquial speech, by the way, on occasion. At the same time, sayings differ significantly from proverbs in the nature of the content, in the form, and in the functions performed in speech. Proverbs express generalizations and conclusions on a wide variety of life phenomena (“Truth is brighter than the sun,” “As is sown, so is it that is blown,” “Learning is light, and ignorance is darkness”). Proverbs express folk wisdom; their conclusions and conclusions have the force of an unwritten law. The proverbs themselves speak about this: “There is no trial or punishment for proverbs,” “You can’t escape a proverb.”

In form, proverbs are always completely complete sentences. Moreover, proverbial sentences, as a rule, are two-part or, in other words, two-part (“It is not the ax that amuses, but the carpenter”, “The bird is red in its feathers, but the man is in learning”). The noted qualities and characteristics of proverbs are not inherent in sayings. Sayings have their own specific genre characteristics. The difference between sayings and proverbs is clearly visible from the following examples. “Miracles are in a sieve” is a saying, and “Miracles: there are many holes in a sieve, but nowhere to get out” is a proverb. “A wolf in sheep's clothing” is a saying, and “To know a wolf in sheep's clothing” is a proverb.

In its structure, a clause is simpler than a proverb. In this regard, M.A. Rybnikova wrote: “A proverb is a verbal organism; a proverb is the “blanks” of expressive speech... A proverb gives an image; characterizes the phenomenon in a roundabout way in a figurative form...”

Depending on which specific person or action in speech the saying refers to, the sentence in which it is given also changes. Thus, the proverb “Ivan is smart with hindsight” can be included in the sentences “Ivan is smart with hindsight”, “Peter is smart with hindsight”, etc. Due to the above, a proverb, unlike a proverb, does not and cannot form a whole in speech, a complete sentence, but is only its (even the most significant) part.

A big drawback of folklore collections, as well as many studies, is that in them proverbs and sayings are published and considered undifferentiated, which does not make it possible to clearly determine their genre identity.

The collection and study of sayings went simultaneously with the collection and study of proverbs. Of the pre-revolutionary publications, the largest number of sayings included the famous collection of V.I. Dahl “Proverbs of the Russian People” (1861--1862) and the publication of P.K. Simoni “Ancient collections of Russian proverbs, sayings, riddles, etc. XVII-XIX centuries" (1899). Among the publications of the Soviet era, the most valuable publications of sayings contain the book “Proverbs, sayings, riddles in handwritten collections of the 18th-20th centuries” (ed. B.N. Putilov; 1961) and the collection M.A. Rybnikova “Russian proverbs and sayings” (1961). The scientific approach to sayings, as well as to proverbs, first appeared in the articles of I.M. Snegirev, published in the 20-30s of the 19th century.

In the works of V.I. Dahl and A.A. Potebnya gives a brief but profound definition of the genre specificity of sayings, and establishes their relationship with proverbs. At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. the syntax and metric structure of sayings are studied (P.P. Glagolevsky, I.I. Voznesensky). Sayings continue to be studied in Soviet times. The work of M.A. is of greatest interest. Rybnikova “Russian proverbs and sayings”, which reveals the genre originality of the content and form of sayings. According to Rybnikova’s correct definition, the main purpose of sayings (as opposed to proverbs) is expressed in the fact that they serve the figurative and emotional characteristics of a person and his actions.

Thus, the socio-historical experience of the people is enshrined in proverbs and sayings. They instill in a person patriotism, a high sense of love for his native land, an understanding of work as the basis of life, they judge historical events, social relations in society, the defense of the fatherland, and culture. They generalize the everyday experience of the people, formulate their moral code, which determines the relationships between people in the field of family relationships, love, and friendship. Proverbs condemn stupidity, laziness, negligence, boasting, drunkenness, gluttony, and praise hard work, modesty, sobriety, abstinence and other human qualities necessary for a happy life. The main purpose of sayings is to add color and imagery to colloquial speech. According to popular understanding, “without a catchphrase the word is not basque,” ​​that is, not good, ugly. Sayings also help enhance emotional expressiveness and fill the language with lively and emotional images that help the speaker vividly evaluate various phenomena.

Small folklore genres include works that are small in volume: proverbs, sayings, signs, riddles, jokes, proverbs, tongue twisters, puns. These genres in scientific literature are called proverbs(from Greek paroimia - parable 1).

Proverbs and sayings, as works of folk art, are close to each other in their artistic characteristics.

Define what it is proverbs And sayings, Russian folklorists tried back in the 19th century. F.I. Buslaev considered proverbs and sayings as artistic works of the native word, expressing the life of the people, their common sense and moral interests.

N.V. Gogol saw in them the result of popular ideas about life in its various manifestations.

IN AND. Dahl understood the proverb as “judgment, sentence, teaching.” In his Explanatory Dictionary he gave the following definition:

“A proverb is a short saying, a lesson, more in the form of a parable, an allegory, or in the form of an everyday sentence; a proverb is an individual of the language, of folk speech, it is not composed, but is born on its own; it is the walking mind of the people; it turns into a proverb or a simple figure of speech ". 2

A proverb, as defined by Dahl, is:

“a collapsible short speech, current among the people, but not constituting a complete proverb; teaching, in accepted - current expressions; a conventional figure of speech, a common way of expressing itself.” 3

The general characteristics of proverbs and sayings include brevity, conciseness, stability, and widespread use. Both proverbs and sayings can be defined as poetic, polysemantic, widely used in speech, stable short expressions that have figurative meanings. 4

Proverbs and sayings reflect folk wisdom, a moral set of rules of life. They represent broad layers of life and are educational in orientation. They enshrine the experience of the people. The topics of proverbs and sayings are very diverse. They express an understanding of the foundations of life, historical events, family relationships, love and friendship, condemn human vices and praise virtues (sobriety, modesty, intelligence, hard work) as well as other moral qualities of a person.

It is no coincidence that V.I. Dahl, in his famous collection of proverbs and sayings, arranged the material by topic: work - idleness, yard - house - farming - agriculture, superstition - omens - happiness - luck, good - mercy - evil, etc. 5

Popular proverbs reflect various aspects of human life: mythological ideas (“a prophetic dream will not deceive”); features of serf life (“here’s Yuryev’s day for you, grandma”); events of enemy invasions and wars (“empty, as if Mamai had passed”); courage, courage and heroism of the people (“the city takes courage”, “to be afraid of wolves, don’t go into the forest”). They capture all aspects of the people’s labor activity, love for the homeland, glorify labor (“Idleness only smokes the sky,” “labor feeds, but laziness spoils”), expresses a sense of deep human dignity (“a goal, but not a thief,” “money not a penny, but good fame", "poor, but honest").

Proverbs developed in all segments of the population, but most of all in the peasant environment, as the main bearer of national folk culture. The annual cycle of peasant labor is reflected in the proverbs “for the time being, one does not sow a seed”, “a good seed, a good shoot.”

Proverbs arose both among artisans - “without an ax - not a carpenter, without a needle - not a tailor”, and among barge haulers - “need will teach the rolls to eat”.

In proverbs and sayings, various artistic and visual means and techniques are used: comparisons (“another soul is like a dark forest”), metaphors, personification (“the hops are noisy - the mind is silent”, “putting spokes in the wheels”), antitheses, i.e. oppositions (“the root of the teaching is bitter, but its fruit is sweet”), hyperbole (“to go out of your way”, “to get lost in three pines”). There is also an artistic device in proverbs - tautology 6 (“they do not seek good from good”, “unheard of, unseen”).

According to their composition, proverbs are divided into mononomial, two-nomial and polynomial. Most of them are two-membered (“praise the rye in a haystack, but praise the master in a coffin”).

Proverbs can be based on opposition (“a man and a dog are always in the yard, but a woman and a cat are always in the hut”). In them, as well as in lyrical songs, the technique of parallelism is used (“a worm wears away a tree, sadness crushes a heart”).

Proverbs are rhythmic. They rhyme individual words (“you can’t even take a fish out of a pond without difficulty”), individual parts or the entire proverb (“don’t open your mouth to someone else’s loaf, but get up early and start your own”). They vary in form of expression. They may include a monologue or dialogue (“from a bow we are not, from a squeak we are not, and you can’t find something to drink and dance against us”, “Titus, go thresh!” - My belly hurts. - Titus, go drink wine! - Oh, let me cover myself and somehow drag myself."

Proverbs and sayings are examples of folk eloquence, a source of wisdom, knowledge about life, folk ideas and ideals, and moral principles.

Thus, proverbs and sayings, which arose as a genre of folk poetry in ancient times, have existed for many centuries and play an everyday and literary and artistic role, joining folk culture.

Electronic learning materials

GRADUATE CLASSIFICATION WORK

Executor:

1st year student

Full-time department

Faculty of the Russian Geographical Faculty

Lomakina O. V.

Scientific adviser:

Associate Professor, Department of IT

Donina O.V.

Voronezh, 2017

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..3

Chapter 1. Proverbs and sayings as a genre of oral folk art...4

Chapter 2. Classification of German proverbs and sayings with their Russian equivalents………………………………………………………………………………6

Conclusions on the chapter…………………………………………………………………………………7

References……………………………………………………………8

Introduction

Ein Sprichwort im Mund wiegt hundert Pfund.

Aus dem Volksmund

Nowadays, along with the development of technology, information is stored and transmitted in different ways. But still the simplest and most accessible way to convey experience is language. There are many genres of folk art, such as fairy tales, songs, rituals, which convey to us a kind of message from distant ancestors, but the most informative and interesting of them are sayings and proverbs. Despite their capacity and brevity, they fill our speech with brightness and expressiveness, while carrying a certain semantic load. Proverbs and sayings of different peoples of the world have many common features, but on the other hand, they also have their own specific features that characterize the original culture and centuries-old history of a particular people. Proverbs and sayings contain folk wisdom rooted in the distant past.

As already mentioned, proverbs and sayings are a genre of oral folk art or can be borrowed from various literary sources, losing any connection with them over time. Be that as it may, they generalize the cultural experience of a people, derived from its social practice.

It is precisely because of their brightness, imagery and emotionality that proverbs and sayings are often found in various types of texts in German. However, when translating proverbs and sayings contained in German texts into Russian, difficulties are often encountered, since their meaning may not always be clear to us, and their interpretation is not always given in German-Russian and Russian-German dictionaries. Currently, there are many dictionaries, the main purpose of which is to describe the diversity and reveal the meaning of proverbs and sayings of a certain language. However, the question of the peculiarities of their functioning in different languages, as well as translation, remains open. In this work, an attempt will be made to systematize the information available about this and bring something new to the study of such linguistic phenomena as proverbs and sayings. This is the relevance of this thesis.

Object of study: proverbs and sayings of the German language and their Russian equivalents

Subject of research: the functions performed by proverbs and sayings in the language, techniques and means used in their translation into Russian.

The purpose of this thesis is to find out the reasons that cause problems when translating proverbs and sayings into Russian, as well as to develop possible ways to overcome them. To do this, it was necessary to analyze the literature on this issue and compare German proverbs and sayings and their Russian equivalents in terms of their meaning, use, and lexical composition.

The set goal required solving the following tasks:

1. Conduct a comprehensive analysis of the necessary philological literature on this topic

2. Define proverbial and proverbial sayings as a genre of oral folk art

3. Consider the structure, content and stability of the forms of proverbs and sayings

4. Conduct a comparative analysis, identify similarities and differences in the structure and functions of these concepts

5. Identify the significance of proverbs and sayings in communication terms

6. Identify the most effective ways to translate proverbs and sayings into Russian

Chapter 1. Proverbs and sayings as a genre of oral folk art

Since ancient times, there have been special genres that explained the world, preserved the social and historical experience of their ancestors and conveyed rules and norms of behavior, which were presented in the form of songs, myths, legends, fairy tales, rituals, conspiracies, military and labor songs, proverbs and sayings . All these genres are united under the general term Folklore - from the English. folklore - folk wisdom, folk knowledge) - artistic collective creative activity of the people, reflecting their life, views, ideals; created by the people and existing among the masses [Dal 1989, 342].

Gradually, these genres underwent some transformations, their structure changed, many lost their relevance and fell out of use, but many, on the contrary, were filled with new meaning by the people and they received a new life. But, thanks to their brevity and laconic form, which contains the wisdom of many generations, proverbs and sayings still occupy a special niche in oral folk art. Like a drop of water, they reflect the destinies of the people, their wisdom, their attitude towards the world around them, and also reflect national ideas and folk traditions, and in some even the personal individual skill of the speaker was manifested.

Proverbs and sayings are presented in numerous varieties in all modern languages, including German.

The origins of folk proverbs and sayings go back to ancient times. In those days when people could not write, they had to convey their knowledge orally. The short form of proverbs and sayings contributed to easy assimilation and perception by ordinary people. Therefore, it is quite difficult to talk about the origin of proverbs and sayings, since once uttered, they lose contact with the source and become part of the public consciousness.

Another important source of proverbs is the Bible, translated from Hebrew, which was very popular. From there were taken wise sayings, thoughts, statements that reflected the worldviews of ancient society, many of which have survived to our times. Many German proverbs are borrowed from Holy Scripture [Podgornaya 2001, 167]. Some proverbs and sayings were borrowed into popular speech from literary sources. For example, the statements of J.W. Goethe and Maria von Ebner-Eschenbach are widely known: “In der Jugendlernt, im Alter versteht man,” (in youth they learn, in old age they understand) F. Logau: “Freude, Mäßigkeit und Ruh schleußt dem Arzt die Türe zu" (joy, moderation and peace close the door to the doctor) became winged. Many sayings came into German from French, English, Latin, etc.

Thanks to the long path of historical development, proverbs and sayings have reflected the most diverse aspects of the life of the people, therefore they are distinguished by their thematic diversity. They concern all objects, invade all areas of human existence, relationships, thoughts, assessments of objects in the surrounding reality, qualities of people, and much more. The famous Vladimir Dal allocated one hundred and seventy headings for proverbs and sayings.

As a genre of oral folk art, traditions are of great importance in proverbs and sayings. Eastern peoples call the proverb “the color of the tongue”, “unstrung pearls”, the Greeks and Romans - “prevailing opinions”, the Italians - “the school of the people”, the Spaniards - “medicine of the soul”, the Germans - “street wisdom”.

Over the course of many centuries, the relative stability of the structure, means and vocabulary has been maintained. Therefore, each people contributed their own ideas and views regarding the understanding of reality. . Thus, proverbs and sayings typify phenomena, i.e. identify the most significant ones among them and note the most significant features in them. Typification is manifested in the creation of images of a peasant, artisan, worker, priest, master, judge, and in German: burgamister. It is emphasized by defining a person’s social status, which makes it possible to characterize him accordingly, pointing out the main characteristics: poverty or wealth, power or lack of rights.

Literary and spoken language is constantly enriched through proverbs and sayings. Indeed, in the works of oral folk art there are many ancient and local (dialect) words.

As has already been discussed, proverbs and sayings occupy a special niche in the oral form of folk art. Many scientists have studied them. But the issue of differentiation of proverbs and sayings as linguistic phenomena and their relationship with each other still remains controversial.

Many authors have dealt with the problem of defining proverbs, trying to establish the distinctive features of proverbs and sayings.

Immense oral folk art. It has been created for centuries, there are many varieties of it. Translated from English, “folklore” is “folk meaning, wisdom.” That is, oral folk art is everything that is created by the spiritual culture of the population over the centuries of its historical life.

Features of Russian folklore

If you carefully read the works of Russian folklore, you will notice that it actually reflects a lot: the play of the imagination of the people, the history of the country, laughter, and serious thoughts about human life. Listening to the songs and tales of their ancestors, people thought about many difficult issues of their family, social and work life, thought about how to fight for happiness, improve their lives, what a person should be, what should be ridiculed and condemned.

Varieties of folklore

Varieties of folklore include fairy tales, epics, songs, proverbs, riddles, calendar refrains, magnification, sayings - everything that was repeated passed from generation to generation. At the same time, the performers often introduced something of their own into the text they liked, changing individual details, images, expressions, imperceptibly improving and honing the work.

Oral folk art for the most part exists in a poetic (verse) form, since it was this that made it possible to memorize and pass on these works from mouth to mouth for centuries.

Songs

A song is a special verbal and musical genre. It is a small lyrical-narrative or lyrical work that was created specifically for singing. Their types are as follows: lyrical, dance, ritual, historical. Folk songs express the feelings of one person, but at the same time of many people. They reflected love experiences, events of social and family life, reflections on difficult fate. In folk songs, the so-called parallelism technique is often used, when the mood of a given lyrical character is transferred to nature.

Historical songs are dedicated to various famous personalities and events: the conquest of Siberia by Ermak, the uprising of Stepan Razin, the peasant war led by Emelyan Pugachev, the battle of Poltava with the Swedes, etc. The narration in historical folk songs about some events is combined with the emotional sound of these works.

Epics

The term "epic" was introduced by I.P. Sakharov in the 19th century. It represents oral folk art in the form of a song of a heroic, epic nature. The epic arose in the 9th century; it was an expression of the historical consciousness of the people of our country. Bogatyrs are the main characters of this type of folklore. They embody the people's ideal of courage, strength, and patriotism. Examples of heroes who were depicted in works of oral folk art: Dobrynya Nikitich, Ilya Muromets, Mikula Selyaninovich, Alyosha Popovich, as well as the merchant Sadko, the giant Svyatogor, Vasily Buslaev and others. The basis of life, at the same time enriched with some fantastic fiction, constitutes the plot of these works. In them, heroes single-handedly defeat entire hordes of enemies, fight monsters, and instantly overcome vast distances. This oral folk art is very interesting.

Fairy tales

Epics must be distinguished from fairy tales. These works of oral folk art are based on invented events. Fairy tales can be magical (in which fantastic forces are involved), as well as everyday ones, where people are depicted - soldiers, peasants, kings, workers, princesses and princes - in everyday settings. This type of folklore differs from other works in its optimistic plot: in it, good always triumphs over evil, and the latter either suffers defeat or is ridiculed.

Legends

We continue to describe the genres of oral folk art. A legend, unlike a fairy tale, is a folk oral story. Its basis is an incredible event, a fantastic image, a miracle, which is perceived by the listener or storyteller as reliable. There are legends about the origin of peoples, countries, seas, about the sufferings and exploits of fictional or real-life heroes.

Puzzles

Oral folk art is represented by many riddles. They are an allegorical image of a certain object, usually based on a metaphorical rapprochement with it. The riddles are very small in volume and have a certain rhythmic structure, often emphasized by the presence of rhyme. They are created in order to develop intelligence and ingenuity. The riddles are varied in content and theme. There may be several versions of them about the same phenomenon, animal, object, each of which characterizes it from a certain aspect.

Proverbs and sayings

Genres of oral folk art also include sayings and proverbs. A proverb is a rhythmically organized, short, figurative saying, an aphoristic folk saying. It usually has a two-part structure, which is supported by rhyme, rhythm, alliteration and assonance.

A proverb is a figurative expression that evaluates some phenomenon of life. It, unlike a proverb, is not a whole sentence, but only a part of a statement included in oral folk art.

Proverbs, sayings and riddles are included in the so-called small genres of folklore. What is it? In addition to the above types, these include other oral folk art. The types of small genres are complemented by the following: lullabies, nurseries, nursery rhymes, jokes, game choruses, chants, sentences, riddles. Let's take a closer look at each of them.

Lullabies

Small genres of oral folk art include lullabies. People call them bikes. This name comes from the verb "bait" ("bayat") - "to speak." This word has the following ancient meaning: “to speak, to whisper.” It is no coincidence that lullabies received this name: the oldest of them are directly related to spell poetry. Struggling with sleep, for example, the peasants said: “Dreamushka, get away from me.”

Pestushki and nursery rhymes

Russian oral folk art is also represented by pestushki and nursery rhymes. At their center is the image of a growing child. The name “pestushki” comes from the word “to nurture”, that is, “to follow someone, raise, nurse, carry in one’s arms, educate.” They are short sentences with which in the first months of a baby’s life they comment on his movements.

Imperceptibly, the pestles turn into nursery rhymes - songs that accompany the baby's games with his toes and hands. This oral folk art is very diverse. Examples of nursery rhymes: “Magpie”, “Ladushki”. They often already contain a “lesson”, an instruction. For example, in “Soroka” the white-sided woman fed everyone porridge, except for one lazy person, although he was the smallest one (his little finger corresponds to him).

Jokes

In the first years of children's lives, nannies and mothers sang songs of more complex content to them, not related to play. All of them can be designated by the single term “jokes.” Their content is reminiscent of short fairy tales in verse. For example, about a cockerel - a golden comb, flying to the Kulikovo field for oats; about the rowan hen, which “winnowed peas” and “sowed millet.”

A joke, as a rule, gives a picture of some bright event, or it depicts some rapid action that corresponds to the active nature of the baby. They are characterized by a plot, but the child is not capable of long-term attention, so they are limited to only one episode.

Sentences, calls

We continue to consider oral folk art. Its types are complemented by slogans and sentences. Children on the street very early learn from their peers a variety of calls, which represent an appeal to birds, rain, rainbows, and the sun. Children, on occasion, shout out words in chorus. In addition to nicknames, in a peasant family any child knew the sentences. They are most often pronounced one by one. Sentences - appeal to a mouse, small bugs, a snail. This may be imitation of various bird voices. Verbal sentences and song chants are filled with faith in the powers of water, sky, earth (sometimes beneficial, sometimes destructive). Their utterance introduced adult peasant children to the work and life. Sentences and chants are combined into a special section called “calendar children's folklore”. This term emphasizes the existing connection between them and the time of year, holiday, weather, the whole way of life and the way of life of the village.

Game sentences and refrains

Genres of oral folk art include playful sentences and refrains. They are no less ancient than calls and sentences. They either connect parts of a game or start it. They can also serve as endings and determine the consequences that exist when conditions are violated.

The games are striking in their resemblance to serious peasant activities: reaping, hunting, sowing flax. Reproducing these cases in strict sequence with the help of repeated repetition made it possible to instill in the child from an early age respect for customs and the existing order, to teach the rules of behavior accepted in society. The names of the games - "Bear in the Forest", "Wolf and Geese", "Kite", "Wolf and Sheep" - speak of a connection with the life and way of life of the rural population.

Conclusion

Folk epics, fairy tales, legends, and songs contain no less exciting colorful images than in the works of art of classical authors. Original and surprisingly accurate rhymes and sounds, bizarre, beautiful poetic rhythms - like lace are woven into the texts of ditties, nursery rhymes, jokes, riddles. And what vivid poetic comparisons we can find in lyrical songs! All this could have been created only by the people - the great master of words.

Oral folk art represents a vast layer of Russian culture, formed over many centuries. The works of Russian folklore reflect many of the feelings of the people and their experiences, history, serious thoughts about the meaning of life, humor, fun and much more. Most works of oral folk art exist in poetic form, which made it possible to remember them well and pass them on from generation to generation orally.

Small genres of folklore include works of small volume: ditties, nursery rhymes, jokes, proverbs, riddles, lullabies, fables, tongue twisters. Sometimes they are classified as children's folklore, because in ancient times a person's acquaintance with these works occurred at an age when he did not even speak. These works are interesting for their brightness, accessibility, and form that is understandable to everyone.

Small genres of Russian folklore:

Russian folk proverbs

Russian proverbs and sayings are short, rhythmically organized, figurative folk sayings, often with edifying, instructive content; these are original folk aphorisms. They often consist of two parts, supported by rhyme, have rhythm, characteristic alliteration and assonance.

Russian folk nursery rhymes

Folk nursery rhymes are rhymed short stories, songs and rhymes, combined with simple movements, designed to entertain the child, train his memory, develop fine motor skills and coordination of movements, and harmonious development of the child as a whole, through an unobtrusive form of play.

Russian folk jokes

Jokes or amusements are small, funny, often rhymed works that tell in a bright, entertaining form about interesting events that happened to its heroes. They are distinguished by dynamic content, energetic actions of the characters, designed to interest the child, develop his imagination, and bring positive emotions.

Russian folk tales

Russian folk tales are small-scale fairy tales, sometimes presented in rhymed form, the plot of which is built on meaningless events that defy logic. Their task is to amuse the listener, instill in the child a sense of humor, logic, imagination and develop the entire thinking process as a whole.

Russian folk tongue twisters

Russian tongue twister is a short comic phrase built on a combination of hard-to-pronounce sounds, invented by our ancestors for entertainment and now used to correct problems with speech and diction.