Representation of the image of the peoples of Spain in the Spanish paremias

Paremias represent one of the means of reflecting and propagating of cultural and ethnical stereotypes; they show what is special and what is typical in people of this or that ethnicity. If these paremias belong to the people they characterize they reveal virtues of these people, but if they depict people of other ethnicity, they contain subjectively negative assessments, because all what is alien is considered to be malevolent and bad. People of Spain are classified by territory, not ethnicity. This is reflected in paremias that depict people of the main and most important provinces and territories of the country. The Spanish describe their neighbors giving them negative traits, thus distancing themselves from them. The article analyzes Spanish paremias that contain images of people living in Spain. Paremiographical, lexicographical and cultural and linguistic types of analysis allowed bringing out typical and specific traits attributed by Spaniards to inhabitants of neighboring provinces and territories of their country. Paremias that were brought out demonstrate absence of tolerance to neighbors, despite of the fact that each of the people of Spain considers themselves to be Spanish.