Ze współczesnej perspektywy o przysłowiach w niemiecko-polskim słowniku K. C. Mrongowiusza z połowy XIX wieku

Abstract

In the first part of the article the author justifies a large number of approximately 800 proverbs, in the strict sense of the word, which appear in the third edition of Dokładny niemiecko-polski słownik (Detailed Polish-German dictionary) by Christoph Coelestin Mrongovius from 1854, with didactic pragmatism and other requirements of the nineteenth century lexicographical workshop typical for the then translator dictionaries , including a tendency to serve an edifying purpose. The second part of the article, which is more extensive, includes conclusions coming from the analysis of the linguistic material. They imply that even though a great deal of the analyzed proverbs seem well known as they are a living element of the Polish language from the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, a contemporary user of Polish finds many of them not only completely strange and foreign but also archaic. Such a perception is influenced, among the others, by the fact that some proverbs have been completely forgotten for different reasons. Other seem hardly legible in result of their lexical composition, which includes ancient and already forgotten words or their meanings, i.e. dictionary and semantic archaisms; sometimes, past morphological and grammatical forms make a proverb seem strange for contemporary Polish people.