TABLE OF CONTENTS -- PREFACE -- PARTICIPANTS -- 1 EUROPE AND EUROPE-WIDE LINGUISTIC STUDIES -- 1.1 The Concept of Europe: General Remarks and the Perspective of Widespread Idioms -- 1.1.1 Europe: Name and Continent -- 1.1.2 Europe in the Context of Widespread Idioms -- 1.2 Multilingual Approaches to Europe's Linguistic Diversity -- 1.2.1 Early Europe-wide Linguistic Studies -- 1.2.2 Linguistic Typology -- 1.2.3 Eurolinguistics -- 1.2.4 Figurative Units in Europe-wide Linguistic Studies -- 1.3 Figurative Language in a European Framework -- 1.3.1 Metaphors -- 1.3.2 Paremiology -- 1.3.3 Idiom Research -- 1.4 Europeme, Euroversal, Europeanism or Internationalism? -- 1.4.1 Linguistic Typology -- 1.4.2 Lexicology -- 1.4.3 Phraseology -- 2 CONVENTIONAL FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE -- 2.1 Idioms, Figurative One-word Units and Proverbs -- 2.1.1 Figurative Units: Preliminary Remarks -- 2.1.2 Figurative Idioms -- 2.1.3 Figurative One-word Units -- 2.1.4 Figurative Proverbs -- 2.1.5 Subcategories of Widespread Idioms -- 2.2 Cultural Foundation: Toward a Macro-structure of theLexicon of Common Figurative Units -- 2.2.1 The Problem of Grouping Figurative Units -- 2.2.2 Culture: A Constant Element of Figurative Units -- 2.2.3 Motivation of Figurative Units -- 2.2.4 Etymology of Figurative Units -- 2.3 Intertextuality -- 2.3.1 The Term Intertextuality -- 2.3.2 Manifestation of Intertextuality in Widespread Idioms -- 3 WIDESPREAD IDIOMS IN EUROPE AND BEYOND:THEORETICAL APPROACH -- 3.1 Criteria and Working Definition of Widespread Idioms -- 3.1.1 The Six Criteria -- 3.1.2 The Definition -- 3.2 Explanation of the Criteria -- 3.2.1 Geographical Distance -- 3.2.2 Genetic Distance -- 3.2.3 Lexical Structure and Image Component -- 3.2.4 Figurative Core Meaning -- 3.2.5 Historical Development -- 3.2.6 Origin and Cultural Foundation.

4 COLLECTION AND PRESENTATION OF WIDESPREAD IDIOMS: EMPIRICAL APPROACH -- 4.1 Steps of Collecting the Linguistic Data -- 4.1.1 A List of Potential Widespread Idioms and Preliminary Test -- 4.1.2 A Network of Competent Collaborators and the Questionnaires -- 4.2 The Linguistic Situation in Europe -- 4.2.1 The Indo-European Language Family -- 4.2.2 The Uralic Language Family -- 4.2.3 The Turkic Languages -- 4.2.4 The Caucasian Languages -- 4.2.5 The Semitic Language Family -- 4.2.6 Basque -- 4.2.7 Planned Languages -- 4.3 Languages Represented in the Project -- 4.3.1 Germanic -- 4.3.2 Celtic -- 4.3.3 Romance -- 4.3.4 Baltic and Slavonic -- 4.3.5 Albanian, Greek and Armenian -- 4.3.6 Finno-Ugric -- 4.3.7 Turkic -- 4.3.8 Georgian, Maltese, Basque and Esperanto -- 4.3.9 Languages Outside of Europe -- 4.4 Presentation of the Data -- 4.4.1 Detailed Version and Space-serving Version -- 4.4.2 Headings, Semantic Explications, Cultural Foundations, and Comments -- 4.4.3 The Data Block -- 4.4.4 Variants and Standard Dictionary Form -- 4.4.5 Translation Problems -- 4.4.6 Writing Systems -- 4.5 Geographical and Sociolinguistic Aspects -- 4.5.1 Areal Dimension: Maps and Grids -- 4.5.2 Lesser-used and Standard Languages -- 5 ANTIQUITY AS A SOURCE OF WIDESPREAD IDIOMS -- 5.1 Widespread Idioms and Antiquity: Introduction -- 5.2 Classical Mythology and Narratives (A 1 - A 13) -- 5.3 Proverbial Phrases Current in Antiquity (A 14 - A 25) -- 5.4 Quotations from Greek and Roman Authors (A 27 - A 37) -- 5.5 Antiquity as a Source of Widespread Idioms: Conclusion -- 6 THE BIBLE AS A SOURCE OF WIDESPREAD IDIOMS -- 6.1 Widespread Idioms and the Bible: Introduction -- 6.2 The Old Testament (B 1 - B 18) -- 6.3 Old and New Testament (B 19 - B 27) -- 6.4 The New Testament (B 28 - B 42) -- 6.5 Concluding Remarks on the Bible as a Source of Widespread Idioms.

7 VARIOUS ANCIENT SOURCES OF WIDESPREADIDIOMS -- 7.1 Widespread Idioms in Various Ancient Sources:Introduction -- 7.2 Antiquity, the Bible, and Other Texts from the Past (C1 - C 11) -- 7.3 Blending of Ancient Textual Sources and Other Sources (C 12 - C 26) -- 7.4 Ancient Conceptions of the World (C 27 - C 36) -- 7.5 Various Ancient Sources of Widespread Idioms:Conclusion -- 8 POST-CLASSICAL LITERARY WORKS AS SOURCES OF WIDESPREAD IDIOMS -- 8.1 Widespread Idioms and Post-classical Literary Works: Introduction -- 8.2 Novels and Dramas of World Literature (D 1 - D 11) -- 8.3 Literary Works of Modern Times, Light Fiction, and Cinema Films (D 12 - D 21) -- 8.4 Literary Works as Sources of Widespread Idioms: Additional Remarks -- 9 PROVERBS AND PROVERBIAL UNITS OF MEDIEVAL AND REFORMATION TIMES AS SOURCES OF WIDESPREAD IDIOMS -- 9.1 Widespread Idioms and Proverbial Units of Medieval and Reformation Times: Introduction -- 9.2 Medieval Proverb Collections (E 1 - E 8) -- 9.3 Medieval Proverb Illustrations (E 9 - E 14) -- 9.4 Medieval Literary Texts (E 15 - E 23) -- 9.5 Widespread Idioms Developed since Medieval and Reformation Times: Concluding Remarks -- 10 FABLES, FOLK NARRATIVES, AND LEGENDS AS SOURCES OF WIDESPREAD IDIOMS -- 10.1 Widespread Idioms in Fables, Folk Narrations and Legends: Introduction -- 10.2 Fables of the Aesopic Type (F 1 - F 10) -- 10.3 Jests and Comical Tales (F 11 - F 18) -- 10.4 Fairy Tales (F 19 - F 23) -- 10.5 Animal Tales and Fabled Animals (F 24 - F 31) -- 10.6 Concluding Remarks on Fables, Folk Narrations and Legends as Sources of Widespread Idioms -- 11 CONCLUSIONS AND MAIN RESULTS -- 11.1 Preliminary Remarks -- 11.2 Attempts at Explaining Cross-linguistic Similarities of Idioms -- 11.3 The Most Widespread Idioms and Probable Causes of Their Wide Spread -- 11.4 Sociolinguistic and Areal Linguistic Aspects -- 11.5 Outlook.

REFERENCES -- ABBREVIATIONS OF THE LANGUAGE NAMES -- INDEXES -- LIST OF MAPS -- INDEX OF LITERARY WORKS -- INDEX OF DEPICTIONS -- ALPHABETICAL LISTING OF THE ENGLISH WIDESPREAD IDIOMS -- INDEX OF FURTHER FIGURATIVE UNITS -- INDEX OF LANGUAGES AND GROUPS OF LANGUAGES -- SUBJECT INDEX -- NAME INDEX.