Birds in Kajkavian Phraseology

Abstract

The paper will present phrasemes of the Kajkavian dialect composed of bird names. Namely, the phraseological corpus has established the existence of diverse components with animal names, including ornithonyms. While some of them are part of international phraseology, others have only been confirmed in a particular group of dialects or a local dialect. This paper will focus on the most frequently occurring phrasemes within Kajkavian phraseology, while also highlighting those considered rarely attested. It will also observe the representation of the mentioned phrasemes in the Croatian language as a whole, and attempt to determine the motivation behind their origin. The material for the analysis was excerpted from the existing literature and partly collected through field research. In this way, it was possible to draw conclusions about the established spectrums of meanings (e.g., the relationship between physical and psychological) and demonstrate the more extensive symbolism of certain ornithonyms in dialect phraseology, often exactly those that are characteristic for a specific region or for the everyday reality of the speakers of a given language.