Comparative Research Of Numbers’ Cultural Meaning In Russian And Chinese Idioms

Each nationality all over the World has its own culture. Language and it’s words have close relation with life experience. People express objective world and subjective thinking by speaking; they choose appropriate words to say something. Words reflect culture, they have rich cultural connotation. Even if expressions have conceptual meaning, its’ emotional hue image association and other cultural meanings won’t be the same. It’s important to relieve between two nationalities in way of thinking, traditional concepts, national culture, social system and customs common features and differences.Number words, which are special language symbols, are part of the culture, they have rich cultural meaning. As far as there is difference between Chinese and Russian history, culture, and customs, there is difference between cultural meanings of numbers in two countries, too. It is very important for cultural interchange to grasp the meaning of number words in Russian and Chinese language.Analyzing researches about Chinese and Russian idioms we noticed that the definition of idioms in the two languages is not the sameo Standards of idioms classifying in Russian and Chinese language are different. Russian idioms have three types:phraseological joining, phraseological unity, phraseological combination. Chinese idioms classify according to their format and meaning, there are idioms (chenyu), proverbs, twisters, locutions. We also found that some articles describe meaning of idioms and numbers’meaning in idioms, but there is no completed description and analyzing isn’t profound.The aim of the research is to reveal similarity and difference in Chinese and Russian culture, to reveal social character of the two languages’system of numbers and their particular cultural meaning. All this can improve cultural interchange. This aspect use the following research methods:method of analyzing liierature, method of comparative research, method of complex research.The material of research is Russian proverbs and sayings and Chinese idioms (chenyu) which contains number words from one to ten. According to this we are going to analyze cultural meaning of numbers in the two languages. So, the object of our research is cultural meaning of number words in idioms. The article include the following aspects:characterize numbers’ connection with the culture, describe Russian and Chinese languages’ idioms, research the two countries’people about numbers’ belief and its’using in idioms.Result of research shows that cultural meaning of numbers in Russia and China is not the same; anyway there are also some similar points. For example, the two nations suppose "one" is so called "mother of numbers", but meaning of number "two" is different. Russian people suppose "two" and "six" are connected with devil (чepTa c лBa-like hell). Otherwise, Chinese people like number "two", because it has meaning "pair"(好事成双-good pairs). Except of number "two", they suppose "six"(luck),"eight"(get rich),"nine"(eternal) are lucky numbers; but these numbers in Russian culture don’t have such meaning. They most like "three" and "seven", most of all prefer number "three". Chinese people also adore number "five"(all substances in the world consist of gold, wood, water, fire and soil), in Russian culture it has two meanings-luckiness and evil sign. The two countries" people like number "ten", it symbolize perfection and integrity.