HOW “CUNNING” ARE THE BULGARIAN AND THE GERMAN FOX? (OBSERVATIONS THROUGH THE PRISM OF BULGARIAN AND GERMAN PHRASEOLOGISMS FROM THE SEMANTIC FIELD OF CUNNING – DECEPTION)

Abstract

Languages are a projection of the mentality of their users. Over the course of time, languages have developed alongside people’s way of thinking, reflecting humanattitudes, needs, worldview, and self-perception. This study focuses on the examination of phraseological units in Bulgarian and German, with special attention placed on the semantic field of cunning – deception. Through comparative analysis, similarities and differences in the manifestation of Bulgarian cunning and its nuances in the German language will be examined, and conclusions will be drawn regarding the degree of semantic overlap in the analyzed examples.