LINGUOCULTURAL PECULIARITIES OF WEATHER SUPERSTITIONS IN GERMAN

Abstract

This article focuses on the study of the linguocultural peculiarities of German weather-related superstitions. They reflect the life experience of farmers from the Middle Ages onward, and inform their descendants about the specifics of their farming activities, such as their daily routine, their living conditions, their production tools, their food and clothing, as well as about their observations of weather and nature throughout the calendar year and the objective regular patterns which are linked with that, such as when farmers should start sowing their crops, put their cattle out to graze, begin their harvesting operations in their fields and gardens, and go out hunting. A wide range of long-term weather observations is considered, including those related to wind, thunder, lightning, rain, dew, snow, clouds, and rainbows, as well as observations relating to examples in the world of animals and plants. Some historical facts related to the weather German superstitions in German are elucidated, and correlations of weather superstitions with certain days in the church calendar are traced, as well as astrological influences on weather forecasting. Particular attention is devoted to the so-called “predictive” days in the calendar (Lostage), during which farmers watched weather phenomena with particular care, making long-term or short-term forecasts and hoping for the patronage of the saints. A number of lexical, semantic and stylistic features of German weather superstitions are defined. In the obsolete names of the months of the year, which are often found in the weather superstitions, especially prominent weather characteristics of these months are manifested, and the derivation of these words from the names of farming activities carried out at this time, as well as the names of specific types of flora and fauna, are observed. The article demonstrates the quantitative superiority of weather superstitions associated with the spring months, when fieldwork customarily begins, and the way in which farmers used hints from nature to try to predict how good the harvest would be. The article analyzes some peculiarities of the sentence structure of weather superstitions, the use of “magic” numbers 4, 7, 12, and 40 in weather superstitions, original emotional-evaluative comparisons, metaphors and personification phenomena. These points all point to the importance and the cultural and historical significance of these distinctive examples of the folk creativity of the German people.