Proverbs with the word »Bee« in English, Italian, Lithuanian and Slovenian

Abstract

The article presents a cross-linguistic contrastive analysis of proverbs featuring the word ‘bee’ in English, Italian, Lithuanian, and Slovenian, aiming to explore common semantic fields, culture-specific features, the proportion of shared proverbs and their origins. Employing a mixed methods approach, the research integrates qualitative and quantitative data from a corpus of 255 proverbs. Five semantic fields were identified (innate qualities, indispensable bees, collectivity, warnings, and selectivity). The origins of these proverbs trace back to Classical times, Christianity, Medieval Latin, and folk wisdom.