ETYMOLOGICAL AND STRUCTURAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ENGLISH PROVERBS AND SAYINGS ABOUT "FRIENDSHIP

This paper examines the etymological origins and structural features of English proverbs and sayings related to friendship. Drawing on historical linguistics and phraseology, it traces the development of key expressions from Old English, Middle English, and later borrowings (Latin, French, and classical sources) through to modern usage. The study analyzes morphological patterns, syntactic structures (parallelism, antithesis, ellipsis, and fixed formulae), semantic fields, and metaphorical mappings that characterize these units. Particular attention is paid to how cultural values of loyalty, reciprocity, trust, and caution are encoded in the form and history of proverbs such as “A friend in need is a friend indeed,” “Birds of a feather flock together,” and related sayings. The findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the stability and variability of proverbial wisdom about interpersonal bonds in the English language.