Cultural conceptualizations of horse phraseology

Abstract This study compares the cultural conceptualizations of horse in Hungarian and Kazakh societies, focusing on how a shared steppe-nomadic heritage has developed into distinct figurative systems. Using the frameworks of Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Cultural Linguistics, the analysis examines three source-domain areas: the lexeme horse, horse body parts , and horse tack . The findings show that Kazakh phraseology is more practice-based and predominantly metonymic, grounded in everyday riding and mobility, whereas Hungarian displays stronger metaphorical abstraction related to power, control, and social position. A further difference concerns horse equipment: Kazakh uses only a limited set of tack-related expressions, while Hungarian develops a richer system conceptualizing authority, discipline, restriction, and burden. The comparison suggests that Kazakh reflects ongoing, practice-based human–horse interaction in nomadic culture, while Hungarian reflects its later transformation in a sedentary context, showing how similar cultural experiences can yield divergent metaphorical and metonymic patterns.