Zoonymic idioms regarding fish, cetaceans, and crustaceans: a comparative study between brazilian portuguese and german

Abstract

When he wrote his letter to the Portuguese King HM Manuel about his discovering Brazil, Pêro Vaz de Caminha emphasized the presence of “[…] very big and beautiful red parrots, as well as of two green little ones […] in the so-called Vera Cruz Island. He also pointed out an interesting detail: “Here there are neither oxen nor cows nor goats nor sheep nor poultry nor any beast of burden”. In the linguistic-cultural universe of Brazilian Portuguese, there are many phraseologisms (idiomatic expressions, conventional expressions, proverbs, collocations etc.), whose imagetic tissue is composed of animal metaphors. In the same way, in the linguistic-cultural space of German-speaking countries there is an immense variety of phraseologisms that make use of zoonimic metaphors. When those metaphors are embedded in the group of presumedly universal animals for the Western countries, scarcely ever is it difficult to find corresponding idioms in both languages. In this case, it has to do with metaphors having their origin in Biblical passages, in Esop’s and La Fontaine’s fables etc. This papers deals with the accurate analysis of several animalistic metaphors referring to fish, shellfish and cetaceans. Here we have some examples: a) estar/ficar um siri na lata = rotsehen / auf die Palme kommen / die Wände hochgehen; b) soltar arraia = einen Drachen steigen lassen; and c) não tenho nada a ver com peixe = das ist nicht meine Baustelle / den Schuh zieh ich mir nicht an / damit habe ich nichts im Sinn. The principal aim of this article is to verify, based on different examples of popular and / or erudite variety of Brazilian idioms, the difficulty of intercultural translation that should be processed here. Besides the presentation of several examples in Brazilian Portuguese, the author of this article will try to show at least a corresponding idiom in German for each example. Another specific objective of this paper is verifying if Brazilian zoonimic idioms with fish, shell fish and cetaceans are listed in bilingual Portuguese-German dictionaries. As the circumstances require, translation suggestions will be made.