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Dumb Blondes and Democracy

Author(s): Stanoy Stanoev / Language(s): English Issue: 46/2010

The jokes about dumb blondes, thinking only of sex, are very popular in the international joke repertoire. From the perspective of the ancient misogynous narrative tradition they are perhaps the most radical part. In Bulgarian everyday communication the jokes about dumb blondes began to be spread during the second half of the 1990s and are still popular today. In Western democratic societies the creation and spreading of jokes about dumb blondes is a logical consequence from advanced social and economic development which brings forth more and more women onto the public stage and the sphere of employment, and gives them the chance for individual accomplishment. The socio-cultural situation in Bulgaria, after the fall of the communist regime, in relation towards women is a bit different – characteristic for it is a discredited emancipation, obvious aggravating and extension of sexist discourses, male domination over public life and professional activities, feminization of poverty, a tendency to return to patriarchal values in private life. Despite the diverse contexts in both cases, jokes about dumb blondes represent an adequate strategy for the adaptation to the deep social change which challenges, in many ways, female and male identities.

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How Humour Makes a Difference

Author(s): Seppo Knuuttila / Language(s): English Issue: 46/2010

Abstract: In this article I shall look into how the use of examples in humour research has both manifested and controlled the ongoing discussion. I will also briefly ponder, what the often used discussion-raising examples of humour have signified regarding folklore and cultural history. I also intend to comment on Arvo Krikmann’s discussion on the connections and differences between humour and figurative speech. Through examples, attempts will be made to search for the obscure meanings that in jokes are left unsaid, but that are apparently essential for the humorous impact. Producing gaps in the plots can even be considered one of the forms of expression of jokes. In closing, a few words and images on humour in visual contemporary folk art that have attracted a lot of interest in Finland for over the past ten years. With a few examples, I will shed light on the relationship between the target and the source.

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Humorous Interpretations of Abbreviations as a Socio-Cultural Phenomenon

Author(s): Piret Voolaid / Language(s): English Issue: 46/2010

The article discusses the nature of abbreviation jokes, the possible formulation principles, relations to humour and slang and the way their interpretation depends on the socio-cultural context. The abbreviated riddle corpus, (ca 3,000 texts of about 330 types) stored in the Folklore Archives of the Estonian Literary Museum, constitutes the source material for the study. The material has been systematised and presented in the database Eesti lühendmõistatused or Estonian Abbreviation Riddles (Voolaid 2004). The database provides a fine overview of alternative folkloric interpretations of abbreviations and acronyms in different periods and allows us to diachronically observe and describe the transformation of the genre in the socio-cultural context. The article introduces the possible ways of systematisation and formulation principles of the alternative interpretations of Estonian abbreviations (abbreviation parodies) bordering folklore and language. Folklorists have approached the phenomenon as a subgenre of riddles: the question part consists of a conventional abbreviation, whereas the explanation provided in the answer part is radically different from the conventional one; it is witty and humorous, often with a political or sexual undertone. A single abbreviation may produce several alternative interpretations, including the conventional and the folkloric explanation. Alternative (often witty) interpretation of abbreviations can be considered an important source of the slang lexicon of group languages (e.g., exclusive subcultures, professional parlance) or secret language.1

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Tricksters Trot to America: Areal Distribution of Folklore Motifs

Author(s): Yuri E. Berezkin / Language(s): English Issue: 46/2010

The folklore Trickster is usually considered a universally known combination of features intrinsic to human nature. However, there are strong anomalies in the areal distribution of such a figure. Sub-Saharan Africa, North America (except for the Arctic), Northeast Asia and South American Chaco not only are the preferred zones of tricksters’ activity but also share some peculiar trickster motifs unknown in most of the other regions. The range of animals which play the role of tricksters is also restricted and not always easily explained, E.g. the Hare and Spider, known in both Africa and North America, are neither “mediators” between life and death (suggested by C. Lévi-Strauss for Coyote) nor “really tricky” (“materialistic” hypothesis of M. Harris). The set of trickster motifs and the zoo- or anthropomorphic impersonations of the Trickster are independent variables. The same episodes are easily linked to different tricksters while every trickster usually attracts episodes characteristic of a particular region. Though the original emergence of Trickster as a mental construct can indeed be rooted in human psychology (and where else?), the distribution of tricksters in folklore is discretionary and depends of many uncertain, i.e. chance, factors. The wide spread or lack of tricksters in certain cultural areas hardly reflect any fundamental differences in the psychology of inhabitants of these regions. The study of trickster motifs, just as of any other folklore motifs, helps us reconstruct possible historic links between populations. The African – North American links remain enigmatic (independent emergence is possible but slight historical links cannot be completely excluded) but the parallels between (Western and Northeast) Siberian – North American tricksters are almost certainly due to former cultural ties across Northern Asia. Another interesting case is the proliferation of tricksters with different zoomorphic and other identities (Mink, Blue Jay, Raccoon, Ice, South Wind, etc.) inside a small area of North America (Plateau and the adjacent part of the Northwest Coast) between two large zones of the Raven and of Coyote. Study of such cases helps us reconstruct cultural processes that little is known about, and some of them are very ancient.

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Jokes as the Truth about Soviet Socialism

Author(s): Christie Davies / Language(s): English Issue: 46/2010

The political jokes told in Estonia and other parts of the Soviet Empire were very important to those who told them. They were tiny areas of freedom, a brief escape from socialist hegemony. Those scholars such as Alexander Shtromas who took the jokes seriously were alone in predicting the rapid collapse and demise of the Soviet Union. Shtromas’ thesis was rooted in a hardheaded analysis of power and politics but he knew that the jokes were a good indication of the failure of socialism and of the alienation from the entire system of both the broad masses and the intellectuals. Most Western ‘Sovietologists’, some of them malign sympathisers with the socialist ethos, were foolish enough to think that the Soviet socialist order was a legitimate and enduring type of society. A knowledge of the jokes of socialism was a better guide to Soviet reality than the official Soviet versions and data or the theories of those Western scholars, particularly the revisionists, who tried to be ‘fair’ to the Soviet Union; fairness to evil is the father of lies. Jokes are not serious statements but when viewed within a comparative framework they can reveal a great deal about what a particular society is like. Jokes have no consequences whatsoever but they are a good indicator of where the tensions in a society lie. The political jokes of the Soviet Union and its empire revealed that social order to be riddled with contradictions and ripe for collapse as soon as those controlling the means of force began to falter. Force alone had kept the system in being.

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Women’s Place in Finnish Proverbs from Childhood

Author(s): Liisa Granbom-Herranen / Language(s): English Issue: 46/2010

The purpose of this article is to introduce some features of the relationship between proverbs and gender in Finnish folklore tradition. I focus on pedagogical speech using proverbs in the life-stories from the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. The main interest is on bringing up children concentrating on the written memories and the everyday life of ordinary people. This deals with the private level of education in childhood memories. Kodin ilmapiiri oli lämmin ja tunsimme koko perhe olevamme yhä. Tuimme aina lasten kesken toinen toisiamme ja pienempää piti aina ohjata ja auttaa ja puolustaa. Äitini aina sanoikin että heikompaa on aina autettava ja että köyhän ainoa pääoma on rehellisyys, rehtiys ja oikeamielisyys, ja kun kasvatte suuriksi niin pitäkää itsenne miehinä, joihin voi luottaa. Eikä minunkaan ole sitten koskaan tarvinnut noista periaatteista luopua. ‘The atmosphere at home was gentle and all the family felt to be one and same. We children gave our support to each other and we were supposed to guide and help and defend the smaller ones. My mother always said that you have to always help those who are weak and the only capital a poor person has is sincerity, honesty, and uprightness. When you’ll be grown-ups, see that you still are those ones to whom others can trust. I have never given up those principles.’

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"Our Beer is Better Than Theirs": Sub-cultural Comics as a Joking Relationship with Identity

Author(s): Aimar Ventsel / Language(s): English Issue: 46/2010

Many music-related subcultures have their own printed media known as fanzines. These journals often include comics, drawn by amateur artists who belong to the same subculture. In my article I will focus on the comics in German reggae and punk fanzines. I am going to demonstrate that besides entertainment and fun, these comics also entail a wide range of political, social and cultural messages as well as attempts to define the subculture’s identity. Punk/ skinhead-comics often discuss political issues, criticize certain features of punk culture (like local patriotism), but also raise issues such as commercialization. Reggae-fanzines focus very often on stressing certain cultural traits like the use of colloquial language, behaviour patterns and dress code which are considered essential to being part of that subculture. Considering the joking, the paper reveals that similarly to South African tribes, the humour of punk and reggae fanzines hides very serious social, political and cultural issues.

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Proverbs and Medicine: The Problem of Applied Folklore

Author(s): Larisa Fialkova / Language(s): English Issue: 46/2010

The difference between medical proverbs and proverbs in medicine has been largely ignored. The former are proverbs used for medical purposes even though they may have no medical content. The perception of a proverb as medical in content is flexible, varying from collection to collection. In thematic proverb collections the items are usually taken out of the context but their very inclusion is in itself a context-specifying factor. A new definition of applied folklore is proposed, stressing the role of non-folklorists. The wish to use proverbs for concrete purposes inheres in the material itself as much as the wish to reveal its universal formulas.

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Use of Proverbs and Narrative Thought

Author(s): Outi Lauhakangas / Language(s): English Issue: 35/2007

The article is based on a research of the functions of proverbs insocial interaction. Academician Matti Kuusi’s characterization of proverbs as signs of situations and emotional loadings was a starting point for the writer to collect material of proverbs in their social contexts. The multicultural corpus consists of context examples borrowed from other scholars around the world, from Finnish folklore archives and fiction, from everyday situations and the media. The use of proverbs or proverb-like sayings deals with questions concerning the same themes as in folk narrative research in general: selective memory, reconstruction of experiences, explaining and reasoning about the past, giving instructions and warnings for the future, encouraging or amusing each other, etc. The speech where proverbs are used and its mode of rationality differ from logical and scientific argumentation. The point is in the narrative strength of proverbs in social contexts. Proverbs are multifunctional and flexible instruments of everyday reasoning, although they may maintain solidified attitudesor traditional modes of thought of a certain culture.

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Digging One's Own Grave

Author(s): Arvo Krikmann / Language(s): English Issue: 35/2007

The paper aims to demonstrate that some points in the explicationof the figurative expression digging one’s own grave via the concept of blending given by Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner are problematic: (1) Not understanding the consequences of one’s deeds is an almost universal presuppositionof and impulse or motivation for actualizing any utterance with a forewarning or gloating content (e.g., proverbs), not the singularity characterizing just the expression of grave-digging as such. (2) The inversion of causal and temporal structure is not the case because of metonymic association between the concepts of the grave and death, as a result of which specific causal and temporal order loses any significance. Many synonymous examples can be given in which the image refers to events before the death, between the death and funeral, as well as those after burial. (3) The source domain needs not to be restricted to natural death and modern civilized funerals but should include also the cases of violent deaths, e.g., the scenario of execution and the scenario of hunting and trapping. Preliminarily, a very brief synopsis of the main phases of development of cognitive linguistic theory of metaphor and some favourite examples of blends, used also in previous works, is provided.

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Riddles as a Community Psychological Phenomenon in Folklore: Myths, Fairytales, Personal Literature Art

Author(s): Ana Stefanova / Language(s): English Issue: 35/2007

The paper is an attempt to review riddles as a community psychologicalphenomenon, through the point of view of the analytical psychology of C.G. Jung, M. Eliade, E. Durkheim’s conception about sacred and profane and the conception of S. Arieti about concept and endocept.There is also a review of neck riddles as similar to the ritual of initiation, fortune telling, other community phenomena, and as a way to reach individuation, the Self.

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Some Interlinguistic Relationships in the First Hungarian Proverb Collection of 1598

Author(s): Gyula Paczolay / Language(s): English Issue: 35/2007

Following a short historical introduction, referring to more than athousand Hungarian students studying at Wittenberg and other universities in the 16th century, the article presents proverbs included in the first 1598 Hungarian collection, which was compiled by the Strasburg graduate schoolmaster János Baranyai Decsi and was based on the 1574 edition of Adagiorum Chiliades by Erasmus, and others. It includes universal proverbs like “What isn’t good for you, isn’t good for others”, European loan proverbs originating in the Greek classics, like “To keep a snake in the bosom” (Aesop), from Roman classics, like “To carry wood to the forest” (Horace), “Cobbler do not go beyond your last” (Pliny the Elder), “Go slowly, you arrive earlier” (Suetonius), proverbs from the Bible “He digs a pit for others and falls in himself” (Proverbs 26: 27) – “You see a splinter in another’s eye, but fail to see a beam in your own” (Matthew 7: 3).From Medieval Latin there is, for example, “One need not inspect the tooth of a gift horse”, “Where a pig is offered, be there with your bag”, “Where there are three women, there is a market.” There are also some Hungarian variants of European proverbs. Regional and sub-regional proverbs include those having Nordic (Slavonic, Baltic) affiliations, like “Peel the lime tree until it peels”. “A cheap meat has a dilute broth” has Northern and Southern Slavonic, Baltic and Turkish equivalents (meat is replaced by fish in Estonian, Finnish, Zyryan and Ukrainian), “One stone is enough [to frighten] one thousand crows” can be found in Bulgarian, Turkish and Persian. “One sitting among the reeds can make a whistle of his choice” and “It does (not) bring much to the kitchen” have earlier exact German equivalents, while “A liar is caught sooner than a lame man” is found in different Romance languages. There are a number of proverbs found only in Hungarian, like “The pepper is small but ‘strong’”, “A Székely picks up anything of more value than a louse”, “He that wants to shoot a crow, does not bang his bow”, “There is no packed hay-cart unable to carry one more forkful of hay”, etc.

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How Long Are Sayings?

Author(s): Anneli Baran / Language(s): English Issue: 35/2007

We talk, communicate, chat, speak, and make utterances – all thesesynonymous verbs signify verbal communication and mark the same action. The action may also be expressed by means of set expressions, or more precisely, phrases or idioms. Words, phrases and syntactic units, or the sc. microtexts, are at our disposal. The issue may be also considered at another angle – namely, how short can a phrase be for it to preserve its contents? Compared to other short forms (proverbs, riddles), phrases are generally characterised as being shorter. It has been determined that the minimum length of a phrase is a combination of at least two fully semantic words. According to a common claim aphrase characterises a specific situation. Therefore, a phrase can only exist as a set expression in a context. Conceptualising phraseologisms, however, prompts the question of the ‘obligatory’ and ‘facultative’ constituents of a phraseologism, i.e. the issue of its form and, more importantly, of its defining. While discussing the motivation of phrasal expressions, scholars often refer to their opacity vs. transparency. But what would the ideal form be for which people possess sufficient background knowledge, including phraseological competence, which is required for understanding a given expression? What is the smallest number ofwords necessary for understanding an expression? Whether and to which extent can we find help in metalanguage framing a set phrase? In the article I will discuss the issues related to the study of phrasal semantics on the example of set phrases connected with the image of talking, narration, words, etc. The discussion will rely on material from the database of Estonian phrases.

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“The proof of the proverb is in the probing": Alan Dundes as Pioneering Paremiologist

Author(s): Wolfgang Mieder / Language(s): English Issue: 35/2007

Alan Dundes (1934–2005) was one of the giants of internationalfolkloristics whose voluminous publications and lectures delivered around the world touched thousands of scholars and students of folklore. The paremiological tribute to Alan Dundes has been divided into eight sections, a conclusion, and a list of references cited, i.e., 1. Honoring Alan Dundes with Three Festschriften; 2. Proverbs as Exemplifications of Folklore Theory; 3. Major Paremiological Contributions; 4. Proverbs as Expressions of Worldview; 5. The Darker Side of Proverbs: Ethnic Slurs and National Character; 6. Proverbs as Collateral Folklore References; 7. Major Monographs Based in Part on Proverbial Matters; and 8. The Interplay of Paremiology and Paremiography.

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Carrying a Wolf, a Goat, and a Cabbage across the Stream. Metamorphoses of ATU 1579

Author(s): Piret Voolaid / Language(s): English Issue: 35/2007

The article discusses the functioning of the plot of a fixed tale typeATU 1579 (Carrying a Wolf, a Goat, and a Cabbage across the Stream) as a riddle and a narrative and its forms which have surrounded the plot and originate in traditional folklore genres. Folklore, reconstructed and placed in new contexts, emerges in new genres. In the present computer era, the plot has not only emerged in narrative and riddle genre, but has emerged in an entirely new context – it has been widely applied in the form of an interactive computer game. The different forms, contexts, functions and goals of the type plot may be regarded as aspects of the dynamic folklore process.

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The Style of ‘Lokaabharan’ in Indian Proverbs

Author(s): Biplab Chakraborty / Language(s): English Issue: 35/2007

The changing pattern of Indian proverbs is very much reflected invarious literary creations, especially in modern Indian poetry. Proverbs are used in poetry as a mode of creative process which entails change. Indeed, it is mostly expressed in a poetic style of narration which may be termed as the style of ‘lokaabharan’. Various types of folk elements are used in the creative process and amongst such folk elements proverbs assume a very important position in the making of the style of ‘lokaabharan’.The central message of a proverb is often conveyed with a subtle touch of language use as a linguistic device. Patterns of changes in language use need to be examined with a view to measure the mode of expression of the proverb concerned. In order to understand the style of ‘lokaabharan’, we must examine how proverbs have been used as fixative factors. In this process, we need to compare and contrast the original proverbs used and their changing patterns available in the text of the poems concerned. Fixative factors are what may be called the core of folk elements used in a poem. This may be either a conscious creative effort or an unconscious artistic measure. It plays a vital role in conveying the central theme or message, whatever the case may be.

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Tuhandete saarte lään tuhande järve maal. Ahvenamaa impressioonid

Author(s): Ülli Tõnissoo / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 30/2005

Åland is an island commune of Finland in the middle of the Baltic Sea. The tourist industry makes use of the unique history and nature of the region to attract numerous tourists and thus tourism is the most profitable branch of economy in the area. Next to other tourist sights, the area is famous for historical festivities, such as the Gustav Vasa Days held each summer near the castle of Kastelholm. With its natural surrounding and performances the event is a powerful tourist magnet. The "island state" is filled with history and most tourist events are the staged reflections of older or more recent events.

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Kuu-uskumuste aegruumilisest kontekstist

Author(s): Jaak Jaaniste / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 30/2005

The article explores the laws in the seeming movement of the moon and which aspects of this need special consideration while interpreting ethnoastronomy. The examples used refer to the Estonian geographical latitude 58-60 degrees north. The classical worldview originates mainly from the area of 40 degrees latitude. If we consider the three main economic regions of the world - Europe, the USA and Japan-China - all these remain roughly on the latitude of the Mediterranean region. Since most science and pedagogical theories originate in these regions, the one-sidedness of textbooks is quite understandable. There are no long-term changes in the movement of the moon. The precession of the orbit (the node shift) and the repetition of eclipses (the Saros) fall into a cycle of less than 20 years. Secular changes (such as the precession of the axis of the earth) do not influence the seeming movement of the moon. On greater latitudes (55 to 70 degrees) the moon's axis is usually perpendicular to the horizon. Thus, the full moon is always seen in the same position and figures seen on its surface should be stabile. The uniqueness of northern folklore, its astronomical aspects included, has enchanted researchers for more than a century.

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Päike, kuu ja tähistaevas tšuktši mütoloogias ning taevakehade seostest ohverdamistega

Author(s): Ülo Siimets / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 30/2005

The article provides a short overview of the central Chukchi myths, concepts and beliefs concerning celestial bodies at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. The Chukchi starry sky is related to their main means of making a living, breeding wild reindeer. Chukchi are one of the few Siberian peoples that have maintained their own religion. Peoples of the far north, among them the Chukchi, personified the Sun, Moon and starts. Reindeer breeders today still make sacrifices considering the help or influence of a constellation or planet, e.g. sacrifying at full moon. The Chukchi believe the most important character in the sky is the Sun. They describe it as a separate being (vaœrgœn). In addition, the special (upper/higher) beings include Creator, Dawn, Zenith, Midday and Northern Star. In Chukchi mythology, the Moon is a human-creature. He is the ketlja `bad spirit' of the Sun. Several Chukchi star myths (e.g. concerning the Northern Star and the Orion) are very similar to those of other nations.

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