THE SACRED NUMERICAL CODE IN INTERLINGUAL AND INTERCULTURAL ASPECTS (based on Ukrainian and Chinese numerals)

Abstract

This article is devoted to the analysis of Ukrainian and Chinese numerals in their secondary semiotic cultural-symbolic meaning. The impetus for writing this article was the jubilee date – the 95th birthday of the famous Ukrainian linguist – Tetyana Borysivna Lukinova, whose entire life is connected with academic science. It is widely known that her doctoral monograph “Numerals in Slavic Languages” (2000) laid the foundations of Ukrainian comparative-historical Slavic studies in the field of numerals, but little is known in the linguistic world about the author’s contribution into linguistic culturology. The proposed article is an attempt to fill this gap. In its framework, Ukrainian and Chinese numerals are considered in a comparative mode, mainly from 1 to 10, on the ground of the linguoculturogical analysis of Ukrainian numerals, already made by Tetyana Borysivna. The purpose of the article is to clarify the cultural lacunae and discrepancies in the sacred numerical code of two rather distant linguocultures (of course, against the background of their archetypally determined commonalities). The realization of this goal has not only theoretical, but also practical significance: in the modern globalized world, there are still cultural national ethnic differences, which can sometimes become an obstacle to effective international communication. Among other language codes, the numerical one is considered the most important, since ancient times, the number has been considered to have a certain mystical side, which is a carrier of knowledge about the deep essence and nature of things, shut for the human mind. The perspective of this exploration can be, on the one hand, a comparison of the cultural significance of the numerical code from 1 to 10 in Chinese and other Slavic languages (Polish, Czech, Slovenian, etc.), and on the other hand, an expansion of the research material in the numerical sphere.