Studia Językoznawcze

The purpose of the article is to re-create the linguistic image of animals that appears in the novel of Stanisław Kujot Pierwsze nawrócenie Prusaków [“The first conversion of Prussians”] published between 1877–1878. In order to re-create this image 1. the role animals played – according to the novel – in the life of Prussians was described, 2. the words naming animals were identified, and 3. linguistic means used to characterize and value animals were investigated. It was found that the image of animals presented in the novel is rich cognitively (a variety of animals’ roles in everyday life and in the Prussian beliefs are shown), but slightly poorer linguistically (in the novel only basic animal names are used, e.g. koń, niedźwiedź, pies, wilk, żmija, synonyms are rare, used only with regard to two names: koń – rumak, konik, podjezdek and żmija – wąż, gad, gadzina), adjectives that characterize or value are scarce, e.g. rączy, święty, niski, żartki, żwawy, verbs and their modifiers are numerous and mainly describe ways animals produce sound and move, e.g. świegotliwie śpiewać, krakać, syczeć, biegać lotem jastrzębia, hasać, unosić się).