AGING AND ELDERLY IN MONGOLIAN AND TURKISH PROVERBS FROM THE SOCIOLOGICAL VIEWPOINT

AYŞE CANATAN

ABSTRACT

Aging is inevitable process of life. In every society and in every time people evaluate
ages. Every age stage has special characteristics in our social life. Societies’ expectancies
are roughly similar. Socialization is a very important process to advance the members of
society. Since ancient times people transfer experiences to new generations with several
ways. Most of the societies choose similar ways for transferring information to the future
of their societies. Art and literature are more effective ways to say something people easy
to remember. Proverbs are popularly defined as short expressions of popular wisdom.
People remember them for ages. Mongolian and Turkish culture have some similar
characteristics that depending on living in Asia. In this study some proverbs which
are related to aging or elderly were analyzed in a frame of sociology of aging and social
gerontology. This study is based on the book Moğol Atasözleri (Mongolian Proverbs,
2010) published by Turkish Culture Research Institute. As a result it was determined
that several proverbs are similar in meaning in Mongolian and Turkish societies.