TÜRK VE LEH ATASÖZLERİNDE ZENGİNLİK KAVRAMI

Each community has its own history, culture, tradition and sayings. But people, as individuals, often interpret the world in accordance with certain concepts. For this reason, perceptions of very similar phenomena can be found in different languages and cultures. The aim of this study is to compare the concept of wealth in the proverbs existing in the Turkish and Polish languages. The analysis covers the proverbs that encompass the word “richness” and its synonymous or equivalents (example: wealth, fortune, property, prosperity, gold, money, etc.). Ones the sayings have been classified according to their meanings, it turns out that the Turkish proverbs in question focused on the following issues: 1. Richness is opposed to poverty; enables a comfortable and easy life. 2. Knowledge and intelligence are more important than richness. 3. Richness is associated with someone's fortune. 4. Richness is the result of working and saving. 5. Richness, is meaningless in view of disease and death. 6. Disadvantages of being rich. 7. Excessive richness is suspected (it can come from haram). 8. The real richness. It may be conducted that, regardless of the language, people think and behave in a similar way, although the signs of wealth may vary. Depending on the climate and geographical conditions, it may be cattle or poultry, sheep or cows. Probably the only universal worldwide symbol of material wealth is money and gold. The value which unfortunately usually depends on the state of possession is the respect, disrespect and contempt of the people around. However, according to proverbs, some value are not always measured by money: health, farmland, children and peace are more precious than property and money.