Divanu Lugati’t-Turk is one of the most prominent works of Turkish literature. This work was written for the sake of teaching Turkish to Arabs, and to show that Turkish is a rich language. Arabic counterparts were given for Turkish words, and their usage was shown in sample phrases. Important information is found in the work regarding the Turkish history, geography, mith, and folklore. Revealing the folkloric elements of the proverbs that are found in the work is important, in terms of showing its value. In this study, we aimed to detect the folkloric elements that bear cultural code features, to emphasize their influence on the cultural continuation and protection. In this context, the forewords that appear in the Divan were examined from a folkloric point of view. The examined forewords were picked from within Besim Atalay's work Divanu Lûgati-it-Türk Tercümesi. While classifiying the folkloric elements, we referred to the twenty five issue classification work for folkloric studies by Sedat Veyis Örnek, and the classifications in the books Türk Halkbilimi by Erman Artun and Dîvânu Lugâti’t Türk’teki Şiirler ve Atasözleri by Ahmet Bican Ercilasun. For examining the proverbs in the work, document examining method, one of the qualitative study methods of social sciences, was utilized. The written documents were checked for being reliable or not, before being examined. Document examining process was carried out throughout the study. With this study, we tried to reveal the cultural codes as they appear in the proverbs. It was detected that the proverbs in the work are rich in terms of Turkish culture and folklore.

Proverb, culture, folklore, code, continuity.