Batumi Shota Rustaveli State University, Georgia
[natalia.surguladze@bsu.edu.ge], http://orcid.org/0000‐0002‐6868‐5398
Irine Goshkheteliani
Batumi Shota Rustaveli State University, Georgia
[irine.goshkheteliani@bsu.edu.ge], http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8879-640X
Sophio Kakhidze
Batumi Shota Rustaveli State University, Georgia
[kakhidze_sophie@yahoo.fr], http://orcid.org/0009-0006-6859-8266
French, English, and Georgian National and Cultural Heritage Reflected in Idioms
Abstract: This paper explores the national and cultural heritage embedded in French, English, and Georgian idiomatic expressions, examining how language reflects cultural values, beliefs, and stereotypes associated with different nations and regions. Figurative expressions, such as idioms, proverbs, metaphors, and similes, often encapsulate elements specific to a particular culture or society. Analyzing these expressions provides valuable insights into a nation’s collective mindset, history, and social dynamics. Many of these units distinctly express the national identity of a language, reflecting customs, culture, traditions, and everyday behaviors. These include kinetic codes, which represent the national worldview and express the specifics of world perception and the distinctive ways of thinking characteristic of a particular culture. This study encompasses the complex culture and ethnopsychology of the French, English, and Georgian peoples and their unique modes of figurative thinking.
This research aims to analyze the national characteristics reflected in French, English, and Georgian idioms, particularly those related to etymology and the customs of these cultures, which have acquired various semantic connotations over time. The methodology of this idiom research in the three languages involves comparative and contrastive analysis, lexical and semantic analysis, identification of national characteristics, etymological analysis, cultural contextualization, and cultural semantics. As a result, the following factors were found to be nearly common among the French, English, and Georgian peoples: boasting, love, friendship, family, labor, intelligence, skill, humor, cowardice, patience, suffering, loyalty, kindness, courage, forgetfulness, avoidance, help, guidance, ridicule, insult, talkativeness, stupidity, hedonism, pessimism, appearance, and treason. Analyzing French, English, and Georgian idiomatic expressions reveals both similarities and differences, highlighting cultural nuances across these languages.
Keywords: idioms; national characteristics; cultural heritage; etymology; cultural contextualization.
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