Zodiac Animals in Korean Proverbs

Resumo

There are a lot of animals we can meet in Korean folklore, but in this paper are described the animals that are most commonly mentioned in the Far Eastern zodiac, better known in English as the Chinese Zodiac. Here are described the role of the zodiac animal images in Korean folklore: proverbs, sayings etc. Each animal has its allegorical form and expresses various traits of man. Dealing with twelve animals of the Korean zodiac such as rat (jui), ox (so), tiger (beom, horangi), rabbit (tokki), dragon (yong), snake (baem), horse (mal), sheep (yang), monkey (wonsungi), rooster (sutak), dog (gae), pig (dwaeji), this article represents a contribution to research in Korean paremiology in the specific field of animal idioms. Besides referring to proverbs and sayings about these animals, surely I also try to give some examples of their role and importance in the history of the Korean nation and in other genres of Korean folklore. For this article, are used both North and South Korean sources, mainly dictionaries and books of proverbs, in order to disprove the point of view that there are profound big language differences between the two Koreas.