Although folklorists recognise the active role of children in intangible heritage, collecting and analysing children’s lore and school lore has been a side issue in Slovenian folkloristics. ...Especially since the beginning of the new millennium, it seems that school lore has been put aside. In order to revive collecting of school lore, the Institute of Slovenian Ethology at the Scientific Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU) organised riddle collecting in schools in 2015 and an e-collection during the 2018/2019 school year. The first collection was organised as part of interviews while the other collection was based on an e-questionnaire. This was sent to Slovenian elementary and high schools as well as to acquaintances in order to get as many responses as possible, i.e., using the snowball method. The article gives both an overview and a sketch of the results.
This study analyzed selected cartographic symbols on old maps depicting the territory of Slovenia from the sixteenth to nineteenth century. A semiotic approach was applied to establish connections ...between cartographic symbols on old maps and the characteristics of society at the time the maps were created. This semiotic approach was used to discuss the impact of the interpretation of four symbolic cartographic elements, their iconic basis, and the reading of the five maps analyzed. Cartographic symbols changed in line with the development of cartography at the time, as well as society. The depictions of settlements were first stylistic and then geometric. Relief depictions were first stylized and then shown through plastic or spatial methods. Cartographic symbols gradually changed into symbolic signs (in the semiotic sense), including the quality of the map display, as a result of developments and the demands of changing society.
This article explores Estonian and Slovenian proverbs related to alcohol and drinking with the aim of interpreting these proverbs in their broader sociocultural context and analysing the ...controversies embedded in proverbs on this topic. Considering that alcohol is not consumed in the same form everywhere, the article examines Slovenian material as representative of the geographical region of Southern Europe and the Slavic language group, and Estonian material as representative of the geographical region of Northern Europe and the Finno-Ugric language group. The units encompassed by the research contain the following words: wine, beer, spirits (vodka), drunk, and drinking. We analyse how proverbs-as culturally metaphorical units often considered the cornerstone of national identity and a compass of ethnic morals-fit into this ethnic pretext. We focus on three different aspects: those regarded as specific to national culture; gender and family (gender inequality, drinking alcohol as a symbol of masculinity); and the ambivalence surrounding drinking.
Love was always one of the most desired emotions in history as it meant acceptance and tenderness. Therefore. people, mostly women (stereotypically (for Slovenian areas)), tried to gain love through ...magic, amulets and rituals, especially when marriages were mostly arranged by economic and social status. Therefore, it is surprising that there are almost no written sources for traditional love charms in Slovenian archives, though there are some descriptions of love magic rituals. In contrast, nowadays, we can find many internet sites with so-called love spells in the Slovenian language accompanied by some content explanations and also alleged historical descriptions. In this article Slovenian love spells which appear nowadays as a magic recipe for love on internet will be overviewed, their structure and content will be analysed, compared to traditional forms, and explanations within the cultural context will be given.
Short folklore forms are diverse group of short folklore texts~some of these are used in everyday communication and are still alive, others are reserved for specific moments~some of them are ...disappearing from our linguistic and cultural environment. Their structure,function, texture and context of use differ very greatly, as well as their length~it may comprise a single word (eg. greetings), one sentence (proverbs, riddles) or a short text (defense, prayer). Book systematically and comprehensively shows the origin, structure and classification system, and aesthetic structures of the most representative short folklore forms: working exclamations, greetings, curses, proverbs, riddles, incantations and prayers.
The article discusses conspiracy theories concerned with the global crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic in Slovenia based on material collected from the Internet and during fieldwork. Content ...is examined using the well-established foundations of conspiracy theories, the semiotics of the conspiracy theories, and their mythological structure. Pandemic-related conspiracy stories appear to emerge from already established conspiracy narratives, linking them to a bigger and imminent threat to the health and freedom of humanity, believed to be perpetrated by conspiring evil forces.
The current issue of the journal Folklore: Electronic Journal of Folklore was created as a collaboration between Estonian and Slovenian folklorists and ethnologists within the joint bilateral ...project, “Slovenian and Estonian Contemporary School Lore”. The main objective of the project was to analyse and compare the contemporary school lore, its collecting, use, and dynamics in two European countries with different geographical positions and characteristics, with a similar history, and no direct contact. The project focused on tradition and transformations of the folklore material, playfulness, and creativity in (new) formats, and on how they reflect the social reality that produces them. The project aimed to apply a new dynamic comparative approach from an intercultural as well as diachronic and synchronic point of view, which offers a unique and innovative perspective in folklore studies of Slovenia and Estonia.
This study comparatively analyses swearing material in the Slovenian and Estonian languages in order to show the lexical and structural similarities/differences between swearing and incantations ...present in the material and to argue that swearing is not only a way to give voice to taboos, but is similar to incantations. The basic premise underlying the analysis is the existence of the “go to X” formula found both in the material and in the two genres analysed. Place X is the place of origin, non-existence or chaos to which the unwanted is sent. There are more than 50 different variants of the formula “go to X” that we can detect in both Estonian and Slovenian languages; in addition, we consider the phrases which carry the idea to fend off someone or send them somewhere, but they are in a different formulation.
The adverbial slot in the phrase ‘go to X’ may be filled by a variety of expressions, all of which have had different connotations throughout time, although they are connected with chaos, in which nothing living exists, or the place of origin to send the evil back to from where it came (spells are also expelled by counting back, but it does not reveal in swearwords). In swearing we can specify three major groups of mentioned places to which one expels another person: 1) places linked with religion and the supernatural; 2) sexual and reproductive organs as a place of extinction; 3) places signified by non-taboo expressions that connote taboo words.
The analysis of Slovenian and Estonian swearing expressions with the formula “go to X” showed not only that this material has preserved some pagan gods and concepts of sacred places (Svarun, Perun, concept of forest, swamp mountains, etc.), which are not alive in religious contexts anymore, but also the concepts of places in which a human does not live, and places of chaos and emptiness, which can also be linked with incantations. These swearing formulas are similar to incantations, i.e., words and rituals to expel the evil, including curses. Incantations send the curse into emptiness or back to its origin. Similarly, swearwords with the formula “go to X” send another person into his or her origin (inherent in the physical conception), or into chaos, which is the conceptually fitting hell or devil’s place. At the same time, it reveals a different concept of human origin and existence: when religion and god were on a pedestal and higher forces gave life to the human being, the worst violation was mentioning god and devil in swearing. When someone was sent to hell, he or she vanished into chaos and destruction. By accepting that a human being originates in a human body as a result of sexual intercourse, and by accepting the world of intimacy as an important part of human existence, swearing gained lexis from the field of reproductive and intimate organs and sexual intercourse. Sending the person back into mother’s uterus or even further, into the penis (which would be pre-conception period, pre-existence), can show us the sender’s aim to negate the existence of that person. In both cases utterances with the formula “go to X” deal with the person’s origin, birth, and existence, trying to negate him or her or to fend them off, as if the “persecuted person” were the evil, a curse which has been brought upon someone and needs to be expelled; we exorcise the person, trying to negate him or her. With his or her death, all the headaches and illnesses originating from them would vanish; our life would become nicer and calmer. With these swearwords a person can be expelled either to the place where no (religious/Christian) soul exists, like hell, or into their point of origin, with the idea that if they had not been born, if they returned to cunt or dick, wherever they came from, life would gain colours again (Nežmah 1997: 131). Therefore, these places – either places of non-existence or places of origin – have the function of places of dissolution. Both concepts of these places send one into nothingness, non-existence, where nothing living exists. What becomes obvious is the fact that in both concepts – religious or physical – places of dissolution are directly connected with the concept of our existence and socialisation. Swearwords with the formula “go to X” try to negate our existence either way.
Birds are present in everyday life, in forests, parks, cities, in fields and on playgrounds, by rivers and at entrances to stores, etc. Their ubiquity in human everyday life all through history leads ...to “birds” developing metaphorical meanings and producing powerful stereotypical images, which also motivate wider conceptual meanings. This article focuses on the lexeme ptica “bird” in Slovenian short folklore forms, its stereotypical representation and its metaphorical meanings. The ethnolinguistic approach will provide insight into the characteristics ascribed to birds as well as personifications and metaphorical transfers in short folklore forms, i.e., it will show what the bird symbolizes.
Ptice su prisutne u našoj svakodnevici: u šumama, parkovima, gradovima, poljima i igralištima, uz rijeku, na ulazu u trgovinu itd. Budući da su kroz povijest ptice bile sveprisutne u svakodnevnom životu ljudi, jasno je da će “ptice” imati metaforička značenja kao i izrazite stereotipne predodžbe, koje će motivirati i šira konceptualna značenja.Ovaj se članak bavi leksemom “ptica” u slovenskim jednostavnim usmenoknjiževnim oblicima, stereotipnim prikazom ptica kao i metaforičkim značenjima. Etnolingvistički pristup pružit će uvid u karakteristike koje se pripisuju pticama kao i u personifikacije i metaforički prijenos koji se javlja u jednostavnim oblicima, odnosno pokazat će što sve ptica simbolizira.
Pregovori kot tradicionalne paremiološke enote so semantično bogati izrazi, ki ponujajo dragocen vpogled v kulturno kompleksnost. O kulturi lahko veliko izvemo z vpogledom v njene kratke folklorne ...oblike, ki predstavljajo odsev časa in družbe. Odsev družbe je viden tako na ravni zgradbe kot ubeseditve metaforičnih in metonimičnih oblik. Prispevek bo prikazal potencial pregovorov o alkoholnih pijačah v namen raziskave o odnosu do alkoholnih pijač in njihovih uživalcih v dani kulturi na podlagi arhivskega gradiva Inštituta za slovensko narodopisje ZRC SAZU.
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