Lingual and cultural similarities between expressions and proverbs related to animal names in Turkish and Persian language for Turkish as a foreign language

As in every language teaching, it is important and necessary to teach foreigners culture while teaching them Turkish language. The lifestyle, traditions, customs and value judgments of every society constitute the culture of that society. One of the most reflected elements of this cultural background in the language are idioms and proverbs. Therefore, teaching idioms and proverbs in teaching Turkish to foreigners is important within the scope of culture education. In the life styles of the Turkish and Persian peoples examined within the scope of the study, animals are seen as an inevitable part of life and the environment, generally representing human behavior and their social relations. Therefore, in this study, the relationship between semantic and structural equivalence of idioms and proverbs, which are frequently used in Turkish and Persian and contain animal names, has been investigated. With the findings obtained as a result of our study, students whose mother tongue is Persian and who are learning Turkish as a foreign language will be able to learn common or similar idioms and proverbs, which include animal names, more easily and more consciously. As a result of the comparison of idioms and proverbs of both languages, many linguistic and cultural features, differences and similarities will be understood more easily and in this way, the mental learning processes of the learners will accelerate. Keywords: Animal, proverb, idiom, culture, Turkish, Persian.