Images of men and women in the Kalmyk language picture of the world (on the material of proverbs)

The gender perspective in the Kalmyk linguoculture is the leading one among social dimensions of a person. It is expressed in the material and spiritual culture of the Kalmyks; it defines personal traits, standards of human behavior in society, features of territory development, the specifics of communication and speech, which is reflected in the custom hadmlhn “a married Kalmyk woman is prohibited to pronounce the names of the husband's senior relatives”. Accordingly some linguists speak about the existence of the Kalmyk woman’s language [Ramstedt 1957], woman’s dialect [Aalto 1961], woman’s words [Ochirov 1911; Bitkeeva 1976]. Gender is comprehended in the Kalmyk folklore, particularly in paremias. The images of man and woman are represented in proverbs and sayings, their positive and negative characteristics are discussed