Anthropomorphic Nature in Hungarian Folklore: What tree Metaphors Reveal About Human Life

Recent studies in Cultural Linguistics have unveiled valuable insights into the cultural perspectives embedded in folklore, providing a window into the traditional worldviews of different cultural communities. Folk texts serve as reservoirs of cultural cognition, addressing a wide spectrum of human life, ranging from psychological to social dimensions; they describe and explain their nature and moral relevance. Much like folk poetry in other cultures, Hungarian folk songs prominently feature figurative representations of nature, rooted primarily in the cultural metaphor nature as emotion. In this study, I employ the methodological framework of Cultural Linguistics to analyze the metaphors and metonymies associated with the conceptualization of tree as portrayed in a corpus of 800 lyrical folk songs. The analysis reveals two key findings: (a) the cultural category of fa ‘tree/wood’ extends beyond the boundaries of the standard Hungarian definition; (b) trees encompass a diverse array of metaphorical meanings connected to various facets of human life. These meanings manifest in different forms of the human–nature relationship, reflecting varying degrees of anthropomorphism attributed to trees. The study concludes that trees as nature entities enjoy a predominantly favorable perception within Hungarian folk culture.