SOME INTERLINGUISTIC RELATIONSHIPS IN THE FIRST HUNGARIAN PROVERB COLLECTION OF 1598

Abstract: Following a short historical introduction, referring to more than a thousand Hungarian students studying at Wittenberg and other universities in the 16th century, the article presents proverbs included in the first 1598 Hun-garian collection, which was compiled by the Strasburg graduate schoolmaster János Baranyai Decsi and was based on the 1574 edition of Adagiorum Chiliades by Erasmus, and others. It includes universal proverbs like “What isn’t good for you, isn’t good for others”, European loan proverbs originating in the Greek clas-sics, like “To keep a snake in the bosom ” (Aesop), from Roman classics, like “To carry wood to the forest ” (Horace), “Cobbler do not go beyond your last ” (Pliny the Elder), “Go slowly, you arrive earlier ” (Suetonius), proverbs from the Bible “He digs a pit for others and falls in himself ” (Proverbs 26: 27) – “You see a splinter in another’s eye, but fail to see a beam in your own ” (Matthew 7: 3). From Medieval Latin there is, for example, “One need not inspect the tooth of a gift horse”, “Where a pig is offered, be there with your bag”, “Where there are three women, there is a market. ” There are also some Hungarian variants o