SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ARABIC AND ENGLISH IDIOMS AND PROVERBS

Abstract

Different cultures have different ways of expressing their ideas and thoughts in the languages that they use. Every language has its unique expressions relating to culture heritage in the form of idioms and proverbs. These idioms and proverbs have unique features that distinguish them from normal sentences or phrases. Native speakers of every language use idioms and proverbs in everyday speech to express feelings, ideas, wishes and so on. Some of those idioms are used in more than one language in the same context. Although there are a number of similarities being used as idioms across languages, there are a number of differences. Arabic and English are regarded as national languages. They share many similar idioms and proverbs. This study will focus on similarities and differences of idiom and proverb use between Arabic and English speakers. The study adopted a comparative analytical method during the first stage of which the researcher selected approximately 400 English and Arabic idioms to compare. The idioms were scrutinized to identify those that were judged to be proverbs and idioms correlated in Arabic and English. More than 140 idioms were used in the study as examples in the first three chapters. In the second stage, the researcher selected only 68 idioms from the two languages, 34 from each language. The results of the comparison of English and Arabic idioms were analyzed and classified showing the similarities and differences between the two languages