Historical and Cultural Memory Preserved in Idioms by the Georgians and Georgian Muhajirs

Abstract

Idioms reflect people's viewpoints, values, and worldviews, illuminating their lifestyles, traditions, beliefs, and shifts within historical and cultural contexts. Preserving historical and cultural memory is essential for activating the implicit meanings found within a language's collection of idiomatic expressions. Beyond their literal meanings, these idioms also convey knowledge through the meanings of their components. The key to understanding this is the lexical part of an idiom, which encapsulates the cultural memory tied to national heritage and significant historical events. This component, rich with implicit knowledge, becomes apparent when a society actively preserves its ethnocultural memory through various expressions, including idioms and proverbs. This paper aims to analyse idioms that preserve cultural memory and serve as quasi-symbols of national culture. It seeks to identify the semantic, lexical, and structural changes these idioms have undergone. The study specifically examines the idiomatic expressions of the Georgian Muhajirs, an ethnic group of Georgians who have lived in Turkey for centuries, focusing on their lexical and semantic similarities and differences. The research findings confirm that some of these expressions have been modified lexically, although not all have changed semantically. Many expressions remain similar to those in modern Georgian. While their structure and components are identical, their semantic and stylistic nuances differ. The study's goals and objectives shape the methodological foundation of this linguacultural research, which is grounded in a comparative analysis of idioms and a component analysis at both the semantic and lexical levels.