Axiological concept of culture and worldview of the frisian people through the prism of paremiology

Abstract

The subject of this study is the paremiological stock of the Frisian language, the investigation of which has not been carried out yet in Russia. Using the ‘Frisian-English Dictionary’ by A. Dijkstra [2000] as a basis, the author of this work made an attempt to use English as an ‘intermediary’ in translating of the Frisian paremias into Russian with a further purpose of compilation of the Frisian-Russian dictionary of proverbs and sayings. About 200 Frisian proverbs and sayings were extracted by continuous sampling from the aforementioned lexicographic source. Then a literal translation of each paremia from Frisian into Russian was offered and its Russian counterpart and synonyms, if any, were selected. All paremias were divided into sections, groups and subgroups in accordance with the system-logical classification of G. L. Permyakov. As a result, the material for axiological analysis was obtained, the aim of which is to comprehend the culture and worldview of the Frisian people, as well as to reveal the system of their basic values. The analysis of the Frisian proverbs and sayings made it possible to draw some preliminary conclusions. The value system of the Frisian people, reflected in their paremiological stock, even in the first approximation, looks very balanced: the Frisians try to avoid unambiguous and harsh assessments, try to find not only bad, but also good features in any a person, thing or situation; they are characterized by a certain balance, restraint, desire for compromise and harmony with the outside world and themselves. The results can be useful in comparative studies of the paremiological stocks of the other Germanic languages and in various kinds of axiological investigations.