Uzbekistan state world languages university d. U. Ashurova m. R. Galieva

Phraseological units of the biblical origin:

As is known, the main religion of European culture is Christianity. The Bible, as the basis of Christian culture, has become an eternal and inexhaustible source of ideas, images and motifs in all spheres of life and art. They have penetrated into all spheres of social life, thus becoming a specific way of ideology and the conceptual world picture. The Bible contains much of deep ancient wisdoms, and inspires writers to use characters, phrases, images, legends, proverbs from it. On the one hand, the Bible, being an essential part of the overall picture of the world, has a great impact on people’s mentality, cultural values and moral ideals, and on the other hand, the biblical language has a great influence on the language and literature, providing them with a great number of phraseological units. Many biblical phraseological units assimilated in European languages and are widely used in everyday speech, their religious origin being forgotten:

Alpha and Omega – альфа и омега – das Alpha und das Omega – L’alpha et omega; prodigal son – блудный сын –der verlorene Sohn– enfant prodigue; Sodom and Gomorrah – Содом и Гоморра – Sodom und Gomorrha – Sodome et Gomorrhe; wash ones’ hands – умывать руки – siene Hände in Unschuld waschen – s'en laver les mains; the brand of Cain – Каинова печать – Das Kainzeichen tragen – le signe de Caïn.

A distinctive feature of the above Ph.U. is their universal character since they are used in different languages. However, along with the universal Ph.U. of the biblical origin in the English there are lots of non-equivalent Ph.U., which have no analogues in other European languages. Here are a few examples of such Ph.U. in English: Adam’s ale – water, to suffer fools gladly – to be tolerant towards silly people, to entertain the angel unawares – having a guest not knowing his high status/rank, to fall on stony ground – to be infertile, having itching ears – be eager for news; as patient as Job – to be very patient, Job’s news – sad news, Job’s post – the person who brings bad news.

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