Phraseological units as a way to compare Russian and Swedish linguistic worldviews

This article discusses phraseological units in the Russian and Swedish languages. Phraseological units preserve distilled knowledge about culture, way of life, and history of peoples, and therefore give a holistic picture of their worldviews. One of the most frequently used components in phraseological units is the colorative component. The article analyzes and compares the meanings of Russian and Swedish phraseological units that contain the names of different colors, namely green, blue, yellow, red, pink, gray, black, and white. The analysis revealed that 77% of the analyzed phraseological units describe a person, and 23% describe different objects, with 50.6% of the units having negative and neutral meanings, and only 19.8% having positive ones. It can be concluded that the Russian and Swedish systems of colorative phraseological units have a number of similarities due to the geographical proximity of the countries, their climatic characteristics, and historical ties. However, there are certain differences demonstrated by the cultural characteristics of each country’s independent development.