On Semantic Peculiarities of Proverbs and Phraseological Units in the Kalmyk and English Languages

Abstract

The article considered the issue of the ethnic and cultural specifics of the Kalmyk and English proverbs and idioms containing ‘an animal component’. The main assumption is that each nation and each linguistic community perceives and reflects the world under the influence of its cultural and national customs, traditions and history, and creates its own worldview. The ethno-cultural character of any community’s worldview is clearly fixed in the language. Moreover, the language preserves the culture of the people and transfers it further to the next generations. The aim of the article is to describe and compare the semantic aspect of the Kalmyk and English proverbs and phraseological units. For this purpose, the ethnic peculiarity of each nation is examined and compared with that of the other one. As a result, this comparative analysis allows for identifying some similarities and differences as well as some features of metaphorical use of animals’ names for characterizing human beings. That is why the essence of the proverbs can be understood by relating them to certain qualities of human nature. According to their connotations, the proverbs and idioms are divided into two groups: positive and negative. The proverbs characterizing a man positively praise such qualities as diligence, courage and caution. Those with negative connotation make fun of such human character traits as cunning, stupidity, cowardice and greed. The research proves that there are more idioms and proverbs with negative connotation than positive. As the main economic activity of the Kalmyk people was cattle-breeding, in Kalmyk proverbs you can mostly come across the names of domestic animals, while in English ones the images of both domestic and wild animals are equally used.