Proverb commonalities in different languages and its application to Asian Pacific communication

Abstract

This article surveys the idea of commonalities in cross-cultural communication through examining potential semantic universals in languages, particularly in their proverbs — the smallest verbal folklore genre that vividly reflects the mentality and culture of any nation. At the proverb level, it is possible to identify, (1) basic cognitive universal mechanisms that lead to the creativity of metaphorical thinking; (2) principles of verbalization of common human values in different languages; and (3) statements of affability, translatability, and as a result, mutual understanding between nations. At the global level, diverse human languages and cultures exist and are interconnected in a dialectical unity reflecting both its universal/common and specific features. Based on the idea of Noosphere, i.e., the latent planetary source of any kind of intellectual and spiritual information, this metaphysical perspective enables us to identify human universality in all its forms.