不同的地理特征对汉英习语影响(5)

  The Chinese civilization is one of the oldest civilizations in the human history. The origin could derive from the Old Stone Age. And in the New Stone Age, the Chinese civilization developed very fast. In 21st B.C. the Xia Dynasty was founded, which was the first most glorious civilization in the ancient China.
As the other’s creation of the culture, in the earliest creation of the Chinese culture, the stone was the tools of the agriculture. The archaeologist identified this period: the Old Stone Age. With the using of the coarse stone tools, our ancestor also mastered the skill of getting fire by themselves.
Before 10,000 to 4000 years ago, the Chinese ancestor entered the New Stone Age. In this period, the Chinese entered the door of the civilization, beginning the early stage of the Chinese civilization.
  Between 1963 and 1964, the archaeologist discovered the “Lan Tian Simian” in Shanxi. The “Lan Tian Simian” lived in about 800,000 years ago. In 1927, the archaeologist discovered the “Beijing Simian” in Beijing, who lived about 600,000 years ago. These are all proved that all the Chinese civilization was all the Chinese people created in our own land.[29]
  For example, the Chinese character “社”， the “示”demonstrates the “God”, and the “土” demonstrates the land. From this we can see the land is very important to the ancient people.
 The following idioms will reflect it.
“土崩瓦解”(crumble; fall apart; collapse)[30]“人杰地灵”(The greatness of a man lends glory to a place)[31]“谈天说地”(Talk of everything under the sun)[32]“铺天盖地”(Blot out the sky and cover up the earth)[33]…….
From these idioms, we could see that the land is the most important thing to the ancient people. So in the idioms there are so many idioms about the geography.
(ii)The origins of the English civilization
  The English culture is from the Greece civilization.
The old Greece civilization influenced the creation and development of the western’s civilization. It’s said that the old Greece civilization was the mother of the European culture. [34]
With the Roman Conquest, the Roman brought their culture and customs into Britain. The Roman costume, ornament, pottery and glasses vessels spread in Britain. Of course the social live became Roman. With these things brought into Britain, the Latin was spread in Britain. At that time, in Britain, the official language, the law and the commerce were all used the Latin. Latin became the second language of the upper Celts.[35]
“Latin was originally the language of Latium, but came to be the dialect of Rome. The use of Latin spread with the growth of the Roman Empire, which included modern Italy, Spain and Portugal, most of Britain, France and Germany, South of the Rhine and the Danube. Beyond Europe it included North Africa and Palestine. Even where Latin did not survive as a spoken language, it remained as the international language of scholarship. This is a role it was to retain throughout Europe for well over a thousand years. As a result, all the major languages of the Europe have been profoundly influenced by Latin, not only in their vocabulary, but also in their grammar”.[36]