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has a depth and includes at least three layers: language, folklore, and literature. Also, verbal
culture includes the ethno-territorial (anthropological and geographical), “plane” aspect,
namely, the distribution of ethnic verbal cultures geographically, as well as their genetic and
typological relations. On the basis of anthropological theories of cultural universals, reinterpreted within the framework of the ideas of linguistics (in particular, ethnolinguistic represen-
tations), folklore and literary studies, a system of criteria has been developed for the formation of a set of cultural universals relevant for the comparative study of different verbal
traditions (language, folklore, literature) of different ethnic groups. The Appendix presents
a list of cultural universals, including two aspects: the conceptual series that form the “plane
of content” of cultural universals and cultural codes that represent the typed “plane of expression,” universals in their natural, artifact and actional components. Not only will the research
results in various subject areas allow clarifying the “flat” (ethnogeographic) and “deep”
(on the language, folklore, and literary layers) distribution and configuration of universals, but
also to define the original model itself.
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