Xorijiy lingvistika va lingvodidaktika –
Зарубежная лингвистика и
лингводидактика – Foreign
Linguistics and Linguodidactics
Journal home page:
https://inscience.uz/index.php/foreign-linguistics
English, German and Uzbek proverbs in their
linguoculturological aspects
Nilufar SHARIPOVA
1
Uzbekistan State University of World Languages
ARTICLE INFO
ABSTRACT
Article history:
Received September 2024
Received in revised form
10 October 2024
Accepted 25 October 2024
Available online
25 November 2024
The article presents the results of a linguocultural analysis of
English, German, and Uzbek proverbs, revealing the cultural
diversity across languages.
2181-3701/© 2024 in Science LLC.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47689/2181-3701-vol2-iss5
This is an open-access article under the Attribution 4.0 International
(CC BY 4.0) license (
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.ru
Keywords:
proverbs,
paremiology,
linguocultural studies,
phraseological unit,
practicality,
analyses.
Ingliz, nemis va o‘zbek maqollari lingvokulturologik aspektda
ANNOTATSIYA
Kalit so‘zlar:
maqollar,
paremiologiya,
lingvokulturologiya,
frazelogik birlik,
amaliylik, tahlillar.
Maqolada ingliz, nemis va o‘zbek tilidagi maqollarning
lingvokulturologik tahlili tadqiq etilgan bo‘lib, tahlil natijasida
tillararo madaniyat xilma xilligi aniqlanadi.
Английские, немецкие и узбекские пословицы в их
лингвокультурологических аспектах
АННОТАЦИЯ
Ключевые слова:
пословицы,
паремиология,
лингвокультурология,
фразеологическая
единица,
практичность,
анализы.
В статье приведены результаты лингвокультуроло-
гического анализа английских, немецких и узбекских
пословиц
в
ходе
которого
выявлены
различия
межъязыковой культуры.
1
EAP Teacher, Uzbekistan State University of World Languages.
Xorijiy lingvistika va lingvodidaktika – Зарубежная лингвистика
и лингводидактика – Foreign Linguistics and Linguodidactics
Special Issue – 5 (2024) / ISSN 2181-3701
370
The present article investigates the etymological, syntactic, semantic and
linguoculturological features of English, German and Uzbek proverbs, clarifying their
similarities and differences.
Folk proverbs form a unique lexical layer in the system of languages, distinguishing
traditions that are characteristic of language society and culture, reflecting national-
cultural, mental and social characteristics. The history and etymology of each
paremiological unit, taken separately, depends not on the universal schemes of motivation
of word combinations, but on the semantic cohesion of the components that make up the
paremiological unit and the level of re-meaning expression of the words in the
combination. When studying the etymology of paremias, it is necessary to study its history
and linguistic and cultural features, to pay attention to the nature of the changes in the
semantic structure of its components and the nature of the general meaning of proverbs.
In the process of translating English and German proverbs into Uzbek or Uzbek proverbs
into English or German and providing alternative versions of proverbs, it is very important
to preserve the meaning. That is why working with proverbs requires a deep study of their
semantic features and the original meaning of each proverb. Otherwise, an incorrectly
analyzed proverb may not convey its original meaning in another language. Most of the
English proverbs are similar in English to German and have the same meaning. One of the
main reasons for this is that these two languages belong to the same language family, but
in order to make the meaning clear when translating from one language to another, it is
necessary to know the national characteristics of the studied language and to choose
appropriate equivalents in terms of meaning. A large number of English proverbs are
proverbs whose translation from English to Uzbek does not correspond to each other, but
the meaning is the same. The main reason for this is that these two languages belong to
different language families. One of the reasons that causes difficulties in translation is not
understanding the meaning of proverbs. Difficulties in translation include not
understanding the meaning of proverbs in literal translation and finding the most suitable
equivalent. Most of the proverbs in English, German and Uzbek languages that glorify the
positive qualities of a person are semantically complementary. Most proverbs about
goodness and evil in Uzbek, German and English languages show that good is the greatest
good deed, while evil is the most vile and disgusting aspect of humanity. Most of the English
and Uzbek folk proverbs express the images of animals, and their main function is to
express the positive and negative character of a person. If the Uzbek alternative versions
of English and German proverbs with animal images do not use the name of the same
animal or do not use the name of the animal at all, this does not affect its general meaning
in both languages. The presence of toponyms in the composition of proverbs and their
ability to express content is also observed in proverbs in three languages.The classification
of lexemes representing national costumes, national dishes, national traditions in proverbs
– linguculturalisms in each language scale allows to show the diversity of inter-national
culture. In order to understand the essence of certain proverbs in languages, it is necessary
to have knowledge about the history of the people and the experiences of the past.
In the literature used as the main source, the versions of some proverbs do not
exactly correspond to each other. Therefore, by studying the semantic aspects of proverbs
in depth and analyzing them, we can correctly choose equivalents in English, German and
Uzbek languages.
Xorijiy lingvistika va lingvodidaktika – Зарубежная лингвистика
и лингводидактика – Foreign Linguistics and Linguodidactics
Special Issue – 5 (2024) / ISSN 2181-3701
371
One of the main phraseological units which are included in Phraseology by
Koonin A.V. as phraseological units are proverbs and sayings. 'A proverb', as Arnold defines
in her book "The English Word", 'is a short familiar epigrammatic saying expressing popular
wisdom, a truth or a moral lesson concisely and imaginatively [Arnold I.V. "The English
word" «Высшая школа» 1973 p.161]. They have much in common with set expressions
because their lexical components are also constant, their meaning is traditional and mostly
figurative and they are introduced into speech readymade.' They are often borrowed from
similar languages and cultures and sometimes come down to the present through more than
one language. Every culture has its language picture of the world which differs from others
and also is described in proverbs.
They are brief statements showing in condensed form the accumulated life
experience of the community and serving as conventional practical symbols for abstract
ideas. The scientist proved his ideas of proverbs having meter, rhyme, and alliteration with
the help of such examples as ‘to cut one’s coat according to one’s cloth’ or ‘Early to bed,
early to rise, makes the man healthy, wealthy and wise’.
In our research, we try to compare English, German, and Uzbek proverbs studying
their semantic and linguoculturological aspects.
According to the websites on the topic of our research, the Uzbek consider lions as
the symbol of bravity and strength, camels as strong patience, donkeys as laziness, sheep
as calmness, and so on. And it can be seen in the context of their proverbs. In most of Uzbek
proverbs animals are used as the symbol of people characters.
Eshak Makkaga borgani bilan mulla bo’lmas.
O’zingni el bilsang, o’zgani sher bil.
The topics of the proverbs in all languages compared by us can be chosen from
natural events the life experiences.
Be one flash.
Mann und Weib sind ein Lieb.
(Er-xotin bir tanu bir jon.)
Er –xotin – qoʻsh hoʻkiz.
Although this proverb shows the awkward use of its semantics, the concrete
meaning of it is very sensitive: “Two bulls can work in the land better than one, and the
wife and husband can support their family better together”.
Proverbs have the easy forms of understanding and remembering which strengthen
their meanings as the means of ethnopedagogy. They can keep in memory very well. The
rhythm of them can help the users to remember and utilize in their speech rapidly. The
main tool of proverbs is upbringing which gives the very genre the status of a special
means of education.
There is an option in the human mind that proverbs are considered as the heritage
of our old generation. “Yaxshi xotinning bolalari ham yaxshi boʻladi (Russian), “Aql katta
boʻlganda kiradi, tarbiya tugʻilgandan boshlanadi” (Uzbek), “Yaxshi goʻshtning shoʻrvasi
totli, yaxshi odamning bolasi totli” (Kirgiz) and so on. However, the very dones of the child
gives the responsibility to himself at the same time. “Ahmoq oʻgʻilga ota ham aql
boʻlolmaydi”, “Ahmoq oʻgʻilni ota ham yoʻlga sololmaydi”. In the proverbs, the comfortable
and uncomfortable forms of upbringing are also described. Every nation has the necessity
of being respectful to teachers- pedagogs. The great attention is turned to the fame of
parents: “Ota puli bilan emas, ota aqlli bilan yashash kerak”, “Eskichada ham, yangichada
Xorijiy lingvistika va lingvodidaktika – Зарубежная лингвистика
и лингводидактика – Foreign Linguistics and Linguodidactics
Special Issue – 5 (2024) / ISSN 2181-3701
372
ham ota oʻgʻildan qutlugʻ”, “Otalar soʻzi aqlning koʻzi”. There are several topics such as
friendship, labor, happiness failure, victory, love, and so on are described in proverbs. In
some times they help to renew life from the beginning in other cases turn it into the
opposite side. It is known that proverbs have lyric poetical forms and it can be very
important to save these forms while translating them from one language into another. For
instance:
Borgen macht Sorgen.
qarz olmoq, baloga qolmoq.
There are several zoonomic English, Uzbek, and German proverbs which express the
positive and negative features of people. The lexical unit Pig (Cho‘chqa-das Schwein) is the
widely seeded one among them. Pigs are the usual domestic animals in Germany. Besides,
there are a lot of wild pigs (das Wildschwein) in the German forests. But in our country,
this animal isn’t frequently fed. Pigs are considered the symbol of richness and good luck
for the Germans. For example : er hat Schwein – u sogʻlom; omadi keldi; er hat Schwein
gehabt – unga omad juda kulib boqadi; das nenne ich Schwein – mana bu omad! At the
same time in our culture and in the culture of German people pigs are the negative sides in
its meanings. Masalan: armes Schwein – bechora; bluten wie ein Schwein – qonga botmoq;
schwitzen wie ein Schwein – terga botmoq and so on.
Such kind of features can also be seen with other domestic or wild animals. For
instance, «Осла хоть в Париж, все будет рыж.» “Eshak makkaga borgani bilan halol
bo‘lmas” (The donkey couldn’t be honest after visiting Makka) In the Uzbek and Russian
proverbs a Donkey is symbolized as the symbol of stupidity. But differing from these two
countries German people use another animal – A monkey in this way "Ein Affe bleibt ein
Affe werder Konig oder Praffe". But this very animal is characterized as the symbol of
activeness and cunning in the Uzbek language. English people avoid using animals as the
symbol of stupidity in their proverbs and take examples from real life: All are not saint that
go to the church. Some proverbs of these countries are similar in structure and meaning
but differ from using words. For example, in the German proverb "Besse ein Spatz in der
Hand, Als eine Taube auf dem Dach" the birds Taube- a dove and Spatz-a sparrow are used
to give the main meaning. Russian people use «Синица» and «Журавль» in this way.
«Лучше синицa в руки, чем журавля в небе». But English people take this meaning
generally and use a bird in this way. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Differing
from others Uzbek people don't use any bird in this proverb. They get this meaning with
the help of reality “Uzoqdagi quyruqdan yaqindagi o'pka yaxshi” (It is better to have a lung
nearer than a buttock farther)
In Uzbek proverbs “Daryo bo‘yida quduq qazimoq” (To dig a well in the river) we
can understand that it's no use of bringing something where it is out of use. But this very
proverb is used in other three languages with proper names.
To carry coals to Newcastle.
Eulen nach Athen tragen.
Ехать в Тулу со своим самоваром.
The meaning of these proverbs shows that there is no use in carrying owls to Athens
as it is the land of owls, coals to Newcastle where they are produced themselves,
and
samovar to Tula as this city is famous for its samovars.
The analysis has newly been made from this point of view and it is still being done
in our further investigations.
Xorijiy lingvistika va lingvodidaktika – Зарубежная лингвистика
и лингводидактика – Foreign Linguistics and Linguodidactics
Special Issue – 5 (2024) / ISSN 2181-3701
373
FOYDALANILGAN ADABIYOTLAR RO‘YXATI:
1.
Arnold I. V. "The English word" "Высшая школа" 1973 p.161
2.
Buranov J, Muminov A "A Practical course in English Lexicology" Tashkent
"Ukituvchi" 1990
3.
Galperin I. R. "Stylistics" Moscow, 1971 p 179
4.
Маслова В.А. Лингвокултурология. – М.: «Академия», 2001. ‒ С. 9.
5.
Spirband G. K. "Sprichwӧrter im Deutsch" Berlin. 1988
6.
Sharipova N. E. “Linguoculturological aspects of proverbs and sayings in English,
German and Uzbek languages”, Oriental culture #8 pp.246-250
