Hungarian and Spanish nursery rhymes: a cultural, literary and linguistic comparative comment

Abstract

Due to social, cultural and economic changes, the day nursery has more and more importance in both countries given. In spite of the fact that there are various differences related to the institutional background in these two regions and that the content of the education in day nurseries and the training of professionals vary a lot, the stimulation of linguistic abilities is considered to be a main task of pre-school education in Hungary and in Spain, as well. Preserving the most archaic characters of the pure Hungarian language, nursery rhymes play an essential role in the development of infant language skills, while it seems that in Spain the focus is placed on other pedagogic aspects. These folkloric and especially rhythmic poems belong to the ancient Hungarian culture. Without being aware of the diverse development of the baby, most Hungarian people rhyme as an instinct when being around young children. In order to understand the above mentioned information in a better, scientific way and more deeply, in my article (which has the same title as the thesis of my master’s degree) I resume the institutional background of the two countries, I sum up my previous methodological observations and I mention some of the most important aspects of analysis of Hungarian and Spanish nursery rhymes and also, I propose my future plans for further investigations.