Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
EUROPEAN SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL, cilt.20, sa.37, ss.362-381, 2024 (Hakemli Dergi)
Abstract
Death constitutes the last part of the life cycle. Although both being
born and living are welcomed with joy by human beings, death brings pain
and eternal unhappiness. This paper focuses on revealing how the concept of
death, which contains deep sadness, is handled in Turkish and Japanese
proverbs. Proverbs are stereotypes passed from one generation to another and
are very important in reflecting the lifestyles and ways of thinking of the
societies to which they belong. Proverbs are essential in transferring cultural
knowledge because our ancestors created them with the accumulation and
experience of many years. In this study, comparative analysis method is
employed. Total of 127 proverbs, including 80 Turkish proverbs and 47
Japanese proverbs, are examined. They are grouped into death has causes,
death as an unknown end, death has time to occur, grief for death, death is
not welcomed, death occurs one time, death as a bad situation, understanding
the value of things and people after death, death and animal, after death there
is no meaning, comparing the wrong things with death, death relates to
funerals and religious rituals, death is a relief and escape, and contradicting
proverbs. As a conclusion, although Turkish and Japanese people have
different cultural backgrounds, it is seen in proverbs that they have similar
cultural values to death. All categories as mentioned above have similarities
except the grief for death seen in Turkish proverbs but not in Japanese. The
religious rituals that relate to death differ as both (Turks and Japanese) have
different religions. Although there are expressions about Islam in Turkish proverbs, expressions about Buddhism are seen in Japanese proverbs.
Keywords: Death, Turkish, Japanese, Proverb, Comparative Analysis