Portuguese Proverbs by Rūta Pauliukonytė

“A cavalo dado não se olha os dentes”

The proverb has a direct translation into English "One doesn't examine the teeth of a gift horse. It means that people should accept things, which unexpectedly, without effort come to their lives, and should not be too choosy or underestimate it. The Lithuanian language has the equivalent expression of this proverb, which means the same as in Portuguese.

“Dovanotam arkliui į dantis nežiūrima.”

A esperança é a última a morrer.

In English, this proverb would sound as follows: Hope dies the last. The meaning, basically, can be understood directly, whereas it shows that the hope stays in every aspect of life, suggesting the positive thinking and not giving up. Lithuanian folk wisdom has the same proverb with identical meaning.

‘Viltis mirsta paskutinė.’

‘Diz-me com quem andas dir-te-ei quem és’

This proverb says: tell me who you gather with and I'll tell you who you are. It is possible to interpret this saying as it shows how important and influential the surrounding of a person is. After some time all people get some features from their friends and others whom they live with. So being surrounded by bad company would mean to become one himself and vice versa. In addition, we could understand this that a person chooses his surrounding which is similar to him so the friends can be seen as the reflection of oneself. Lithuanian language translates this saying slightly different, instead of using impersonal expressions ‘who you gather with’ it uses the word friend (translation-draugas). Nevertheless, the meaning stays absolutely unchanged.

‘Pasakyk kas tavo draugai ir as pasakysiu kas tu toks.’

To make a brief conclusion about what was mentioned during this comparison of the proverbs, it can be fairly stated that Lithuanian and Portuguese use of various expressions is very similar. So it raises a question maybe for the future surveys about wider cultural similarities. Are Lithuanians so alike Portuguese in this respect or is it just a coincidence?