Card Index of Lithuanian Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases

Card Index of Lithuanian Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases in the Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore was created in 1970 – 1990 following the initiative of professor Kazys Grigas (1924–2002). He was also the author of the system of the Card Index. The biggest share of the Card Index data is comprised by proverbs and proverbial phrases collected in the Lithuanian Folklore Archive’s Database (LTR) and Lithuanian Scientific Society’s Archive (LMD); these are mainly samples of the living language and dialects. Moreover, the Card Index also includes proverbs and proverbial phrases collected from the ancient Lithuanian written sources, early translations of the Bible. According to the calculations of Grigas, more than 1500 texts found their way to the corpus of Lithuanian proverbs from 17th-18th centuries; more than 10 000 entries were collected from manuscripts and publications of the 19th century (works of Simonas Daukantas, Motiejus Valančius, Laurynas Ivinskis, Antanas Baranauskas, Matas Slančiauskas, August Schleicher, Vilius Kalvaitis and many others, as well as from the archives of Lithuanian Scientific Society).

Kazys Grigas

1924-2002

The original of the St. Žumbys' photograph belongs to the Collection of Photographs kept in the Library of the Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore

A smaller share of the Card Index entries is comprised of proverbs and proverbial phrases found in publications of the 20^th century: fiction, scientific and social analytical texts. There were more than 200 000 texts in the Card Index of Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases in the last decades of the 20th century, yet it was later enriched with data from folkloristic field work expeditions, material collected by schoolchildren, records from last volumes of “The Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language”, collections accumulated by the employees of the department, etc. A particular, relatively not a big one, part of entries in the Card Index is comprised of popular phraseological as well as situational sayings.

Texts (variants) of proverbs and proverbial phrases each has a separate card in the systemic card index, all variants of each proverb are kept in one category – the type of a proverb. The types are arranged in alphabetical order according to the first letter of the main word (the main word is considered to be the first noun, in cases of absence of a noun, the first verb, in case of absence of both, the first nominative word, etc.) The types that have the same main word are arranged in alphabetical order according to the headings of the type.