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ЭТНОЛИНГВИСТИЧЕСКОЕ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЕ СИБИРСКО-ТЮРКСКИХ ФОЛЬКЛОРНЫХ ИМЕН СОБСТВЕННЫХ (НА МАТЕРИАЛЕ ШОРСКИХ КОСМОГОНИЧЕСКИХ ЛЕГЕНД И МИФОВ)
Д.М. Токмашев
Работа выполнена при поддержке гранта РФФИ «Мобильность молодых ученых» - 11-06-90752-моб_ст
Аннотация. Рассматриваются проблемы этнолингвистической интерпретации шорского фольклорного ономастикона. Этнолингвистический подход к интерпретации собственного имени широко распространен в современных ономастических исследованиях. Шорские фольклорные имена собственные не только обозначают объект номинации, но также несут скрытую информацию, связанную с традиционными верованиями и культурой шорского народа. Классификация фольклорных имен определяется двумя основными принципами: жанровой принадлежностью (мифы и легенды) и характеристиками объекта обозначения (антропонимы, топонимы и другие классы имен собственных). Отмечается малое количество культурно немаркированных фольклорных имен собственных. Фольклорные онимы уникальны и имеют свои особенности происхождения, как языковые, так и культурные.
Ключевые слова: традиционная культура; этнолингвистика; ономастика; сибирско-тюркские языки; шорский язык; фольклор.
Introduction
The research into aboriginal moribund languages and cultures is nowadays claimed to be one of the most acute issues in linguistics. The native language usage environment is rapidly shrinking - e.g though the overall population of the Shors is estimated to be about 14 000, no more than 5-10% of them are full-competence native speakers, mostly people over 60, while others use Russian for a mother tongue. This situation is very common with all small-numbered indigenous peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East of Russian Federation (the Shors, the Teleuts, the Ket people, the Selkups, the Nganasans, the Yukagirs, the Khanty and so on). It is getting quite obvious that most of them will assimilate and disappear in the nearest 10 years. Still most linguistic studies in Russia focus on the European (mostly Germanic) and Slavic (mostly Russian) languages. That is why the study of the languages and cultures of aboriginal peoples of Russia will contribute much to the development of ethnolinguistics - a relatively new branch of language study in Russia - and will help to recreate their traditional world outlook.
The Shor people are Turkic aboriginal people of South Siberia. Their origin is still considered disputable. The term they used to call themselves is tadar kizi, namely ‘the Tatar man’. This term is also used by the adjacent Siberian Turks - the Teleuts and the Khakas, close to the Shors in the aspect of their origin and culture, though none of them are really Tatars, but they inherited this name from Russian explorers of Siberia, just the way they called the Khanty, the Selkups and the Ket people - originally different aborigines of the Ob and Yenissey - the Ostyaks.
Nowadays most ethnologists and linguists presume that the Shors are descendants of indigenous peoples of South Siberia (supposedly the Samoyed, the Yenissey and the Ugric people), who were greatly affected by the Turks in the period of Turkic expansion northwards from the territory of Central Asia [1]. This hypothesis is based on the linguistic material, revealing common elements in the Shor and the Ket lexicon [2], which can also be the result of a convergent development of these languages. Still the toponymic research indicates that a large amount of Shor place names have Yenisseic (Ket) and Samoyedic (Selkup) roots. The data of comparative anthropological study of the Shors and other Siberian natives also show the non-Turkic substrate in the genesis of the Shors, for example, common cultural correlations with the Ket, Selkup and Khanty people [3. P. 38]. Physical anthropology of the Shors set them closer to the Northern Samoyeds (especially the forest Nenets), some groups of the Eastern Khanty and Kets rather than South Siberian and Central Asian Mongoloids [4]. According to these data the Shors are referred to as the Uralic race. Their historical habitat is the valleys of the rivers Mrassu and Kondoma in Mountain Shoriya, the southern territory of today’s Kemerovo region, Russia.
The Shor folklore is relatively rich in genres. The first comprehensive research in the Shor language, folklore and culture (with the elements of ethnographic study) was performed by acad. V.V. Radlov (germ. W. Radloff) in the 1860-s, with the edition of some of Shor epic poems in 1866. Much later in 1940, a Soviet linguist and ethnographer N.P. Dyrenkova published the fundamental essay “The Shor Folklore,” which was the result of her fieldwork in Mountain Shoriya. That essay was a compilation of Shor folklore specimens and represented the first full description of Shor folklore genre variety. It comprised such genres as qay nybaq ‘heroic epos’, nybaq ‘tales’, saryn ‘songs’, purunyu cooq ‘myths and legends’, kep sos ‘proverbs and sayings’ and tabysqaq ‘riddles’. The most important one was heroic epos, artistically developed folklore genre, greatly popular not only with the Shors, but all Turkic and Mongolian peoples of Asia. The roots of qay nybaq obviously can be found in Central Asia according to the plot and motives of heroic poems, depicting the fight of the protagonist (very often denoted by the Turkic-Mon-golian term khan ‘king, emperor’) against mythical monsters and antagonistic heroes. Of course, the epic poems are rather various in their plots and often
represent the combination of Central Asian motives and local ones. The very term qay nybaq reveals the manner of reciting these poems: in Shor qay means ‘specific manner of story-telling, when the storyteller sings with the compression of the larynx’, and nybaq denotes a folklore story, thus qay nybaq means ‘a heroic story about khans, warriors and monsters sung in a specific manner by the accompaniment of qay qomus (traditional plucked string instrument).’ The proper names in this genre form a clearly structured semantic field, each name representing a cultural concept rather than just denoting a character, and should be a subject of a separate and thorough research. In this paper we will consider only the proper names detected in Shor myths and legends.
First we should give a brief notion of a proper name. What is a proper name? O. Molchanova wrote: «Due to the complexity and multiplicity of proper names, they may have a variety of definitions revealing different treatments, conforming viewpoints and specialization of researchers» [5. P. 31]. The most neutral notion of a proper name is ‘a language sign denoting a unique object.’ Most questions start up with the consideration of a proper name semantic value. In Russian linguistics there is no commonsense view upon the proper name semantics. Scholars still debate whether proper names can possess linguistic semantic value, despite the fact that onomastics is considered to be a part of general linguistics. «The semantic problem of an onym derives from the fact that different scholars have different concepts of semantics. Some linguists deny that proper names can have semantics (they look upon semantics as an ability to express some conceptual features). Others admit that proper names possess semantic value, under which they mean the specific content of a proper name in the discourse» [6. P. 77].
The above mentioned dilemma (denotation vs. reference), based on the philosophic essence of any linguistic sign, is also reflected in European and American linguistic studies. E.g. S. Cumming resumes that «proper names are familiar expressions of natural language. Their semantics remains a contested subject in the philosophy of language, with those who believe a descriptive element belongs in their meaning (whether at the level of intension or at the level of character) ranged against supporters of the more austere Millian view. ...J.S. Mill is given credit (and naming rights) for the commonsense view that the semantic contribution of a name is its referent (and only its referent)» [7]. According to D.G. Hall’s view, «specifically a proper name is an expression that refers to an individual (in a kind), in all the situations in which the individual appears, regardless of the conditions under which it is used. .An important consequence of this fact is that proper names are not synonyms for definite descriptions» [8. P. 341].
It’s worth noting that folklore onomastic studies differ from other proper names research in the aspect of the «denotation - reference» problem. According to J.S. Mill’s theory, the common name is connotative and has a concept (conceptual content) as deemed by its nature, while the proper name is not con-
notative and has no concept, but directly indicates the denotatum, without giving us any additional information on it, being a rigid designator in S. Kripke’s theory [9. P. 11]. But since the folklore proper names’ field is heterogenic, proper names in it can carry different conceptual load. E.g. in heroic epos, fairy tales and ritual folklore most proper names are traditional, while onyms in lyrics, songs and others may be quite accidental. The more widespread a folklore proper name is, the more connotations it has, getting closer to a common name.
We analyzed about 20 Shor folklore texts of the above-mentioned genre. One of the first questions to emerge is genre differentiation and attribution. We can easily recognize a song, a proverb and a riddle for they have specific features, like the plot and the lyric structure based on alliteration, parallelism and repetitions. But the genre specifications of nybaq (tales) andpurunyu cooq (myths and legends) are sometimes evasive and it is difficult to define a certain story as a myth, legend or a fairy tale, partially because of the terminology jumble, e.g. when a story about the world creation (originally a myth), about some historical or totemic predecessor (originally a legend) is called a fairy tale by the editor. The other reason can be the decay of folklore tradition with the Shors, when most parts of folklore stories are forgotten, and those which still remain in the last informants’ memory are called just tales. To differentiate between them we will use the following criterion: if the story aims to amuse and teach the listener, then it’s a tale; if its purpose is to explain and interpret the universe, as well as prevent the listener from wrongdoings - it is a myth or a legend. The didactic component of these genres is also different: that one of a tale is you should conform to social rules or else you’ll be neglected, while that one of a myth or a legend is you must conform to universal rules or else you’ll die.
Let us make an overview of the purunyu cooq proper name system. The precise meaning of purunyu cooq is ‘an ancient story’; these stories tell us about world creation, spirits inhabiting the surrounding world, mythical and historical predecessors and the origin of place-names. In this paper we will consider only the proper names of cosmogonist myths and legends, since the research into other genres’ proper names will make the subject for a separate paper. In the scope of cosmogonist myths and legends we mainly include stories about rivers, mountains and natural objects, though we admit that some of them can also be referred to other genres.
Proper names detected in the world creation (cosmogonist) myths and legends
Theonyms and demononyms. Qudaj - the upper God in Siberian-Turkic mythology. He created the universe and all living beings. Qudaj < Farsi Xudaj ‘god’, also can derive from Siberian-Turkic qut ‘soul; vital energy.’ It can also be a common name for an upper god with Turkic peoples.
Ulgen - the name of qudaj, he represents the universal Good and lives on the 7th, 11th and 12th layer of the sky. His image and functions are rather various with the Shors and the Altaian people, but the most important one is demiurgic, and most common epithets are “white, clean, bright.’ In the Shor variant he originally had a bird image and was hovering over the ocean, and then he ‘felt bored and created the Sun, the Moon, the stars and the land.’ Later his image combined with Jesus Christ, after the Shors were Christianized in the 19th century, he was also called Aq Qudaj < aq ‘white.’ Etymology considered unknown, there is a parallel with the Mongolian theonym Ulgan dalkhaj ‘non-personalized female deity.’ Turkic languages comprise quite a few homogeneous stems ulken with the common meanings ‘great’, ‘tall’, ‘huge’, ‘big’, ‘old’ and ulkej- ‘get bigger’, ‘get older’, but their etymology as well as their correlations with the theonym Ulgen are rather vague. Sometimes Ulgen is compared to proto-Turkic Ulger ‘the Pleiades’ < *urker, which is also very doubtful.
Arlik - the name of the upper god of the underworld of Mongolian and Sayan-Turkic peoples. In the Shor and Altai mythology, he is the brother of Ulgen, in some myths it is he who created the land of a lump of clay, which he took from the bottom of the primeval ocean (he dived there in the image of a duck), and introduced a soul into a man’s body, thus obtaining the right to get it back after the man is dead. His image and functions are also very ambiguous, but the main ones are: the lord of the underworld and souls of the dead; the creator of bogs and mountains (originally the land made by Ulgen was flat); the lord of the hellfire and blacksmith craftsmanship and some others. Sometimes he acts as a trickster to annoy Ulgen. The etymology is also doubtful and can originate from old-Uigur Arklig qagan ‘mighty king’ [11. P. 667].
Tazyxan (Taz-qaan) - goddess, the mother of Ulgen, is living on the 16th sky layer. The origin is not clear, the second stemxan means ‘king’. The first component taz means ‘balled; mangy’ in Turkic languages, but its correlation with the name Tazyxan~ Taz-qaan is not clear and may be homonymic.
Yamgyr-axtu (Yazigan) - the first son of Ulgen, the God of rain and thunder. The name is semantically clear, derives from Turkic yamgyr ‘rain’ + axtu = oq- ‘arrow, bullet’ + -tu ‘possessive affix’ + yazyn ‘lightning’, the whole name thus meaning ‘the khan (lord) of lightnings with the arrows of rain’.
Soltyxan - the second son of Ulgen. Origin and function are not explained.
Temirxan - the third son of Ulgen, the God of war. Temirxan < temir turk. ‘iron’ + xan.
Yayace - the absolute demiurge. His name is mentioned along with Qudaj, but the character is mostly depersonalized. Yayace < turk. yaya-/yaza-‘create; decorate’ + -cy ‘actor (suffix)’.
Yayik-xan (Cayik-xan) - mentioned by shamans as the God, who made the Great Flood. The name is motivated by the Turkic verbal stem yay-/cay-‘flood; overflow; expand’.
Celbegen - the name of a demon in Sayan-Altai Turks’ mythology, mentioned in Shor (Celbegen), Altai (Jalbagan) and Khakas (Zelbegen) folklore, both in myths, tales and epos. The image of this character is rather complex. Its basic common features comprise the following: Celbegen is a demon hostile to human beings, it can be male, female or non-anthropomorphic; Celbegen usually has 7 heads. In Shor folklore it is a cannibal seven-headed dragon, sitting on the top of the Qatun Mountain. In Altai folklore it is a sevenheaded giant riding a blue ox, in Khakas folklore it is an old woman; Celbegen is somehow connected with the moon. A Shor myth tells that dark stripes and spots on the moon is Celbegen, in Altai myths Jalbagan steals the moon and in Khakas myths Zelbegen swallows the moon that is why lunar eclipses happen.
The etymology is not quite clear, but presumably the first formant is cel ‘wind; air’. The relevance of the wind and the evil in the traditional world-outlook of the Sayan-Altai Turks can be explained through the fact of infectious disease epidemics like small-pox, which came with the wind according to people’s belief. The other reason for associating the wind with the evil is the belief in spirits inhabiting the surrounding world, especially the souls of the dead, which may return after the man is dead to harm living beings. The spirits can not be seen and people can feel them through wind blasts. It is worth saying that wind carries a positive function (introduction of a soul into a human body) by the Navajos, Apaches and other Athabascan peoples of America.
Another way to etymologize the proper name Celbegen is to refer it to the old-Turkic archetype *jelvi ‘magic; sorcery’ > see modern Shor cilbi ‘temptation; greed’, also Teleut ilbi ‘the magic power in prayers and medicine’, and especially Tuvinian cilbi ‘voracious’. All these stems can be combined into a homogenous line leading to old-Turkic *jelvi. The Mongolian cilbi/cilvi ‘sorcery’ is claimed to be the source for Siberian Turkic reflexes [12. P. 616-617].
Toponyms
Oronyms. Oyudun (pronounced like Oyudum) - in a myth is a mountain with a four-edged apex and a lake on top of it. After the Great Flood a raft got stuck in that lake. They say the logs of this raft bob up a war breaks out. This is the real geographical object in Mountain Shoriya in the middle flow of the Mrassu River. Etymology is unknown, presumable not of Turkic origin.
Kilgis - a legendary mountain in the valley of the Tom River. Legend says this mountain is female (tizi kizi). You must not tease it (shout loudly to cause echo) or blackguard near it - Kilgis may get angry. Etymology is un-
known, may be of non-Turkic paleo-Siberian or Ugric origin. In Kaliningrad region of Russia there is an oikonym Kilgis, but the relevance of these two onyms can not be explained.
Qarayaj tag - a real mountain in the valley of the Tom River near the village of Culzan < Shor qarayay ‘pine tree’ + tag ‘mountain’. This mountain is claimed to be male (ar kizi).
Mustag - the most important mountain in Shor mythology, the highest peak of Mountain Shoriya < Shor mus/pus ‘ice’ + tag ‘mountain’, thus revealing its most conspicuous feature - an icy cap on top of it. In myths and legends it is the throne of Ulgen and the great father of all Shoriyan Mountains.
Tegdi - in a Shor legend is a female Chinese Mountain, the first wife of Mustag, located in the headwaters of Solton. The folklore etymology says it comes from Turkic teg- ‘reach; touch’ + -di ‘past tense affix’, thus meaning ‘slipped (legs),’ which seems doubtful. In the legend this mountain is called “a Chinese woman”, and № (di) in Chinese means ‘land, place’, which could tempt us to find a Chinese root in this oikonym, but the track of Chinese toponymy in Altai and Shoriya is even more doubtful.
Sancilyq - a legendary mountain on the left bank of the Mrassu River. In a legend this mountain was a hero and had a daughter. Mustag wanted to marry her, but Sancilyq wouldn’t let her go, so Mustag got angry and chopped a huge lump of Sancilyq with his sword. Etymology is rather clear, the name derives from the Turkic verbal stem sanc- ‘pierce, stab, chop’ the last formant -lyq means possession, thus the whole name can be translated like ‘chopped; hacked.’ The name is obviously inspired by the image of the mountain.
Kizey - a legendary mountain, the younger son of Mustag. According to the legend it lays in the valley of the Munzass River. Geographically not located, etymology unknown. Legend says its name means ‘rough; rude.’
Utja - a legendary mountain, she annoyed Kizej and was struck by him. Geographically not located, etymologically can be compared to the old-Turkic ut ‘hole, pit’ and ut- ‘to drill; to pierce; to make a hole in something,’ because the legend says Kizey struck Utja and made a house-size hole in its peak. The legend describes the peculiarities of the physical outward of this mountain with a huge rupture in it.
Qylan - a local onym for a mountain near Qabyrza. Legend says it was a widow mountain with seven daughters. When some hero wanted to marry one of them, Qylan wouldn’t agree and he took all her daughters for that - that is why there is a cliff with 7 peaks opposite Qylan across the Qyjigzu River.
Qurtyak Tas - a local onym for a mountain near the inflow of Bugunci into Mrassu. The legend says it keeps the pikes from moving up along the river Mrassu. If a fisherman catches a pike up that mountain, he will let it go back in the river, otherwise he can die. The exact meaning of this oronym is The Old Woman Stone < Shor qurtuyaq ‘old woman’ + tas ‘stone; cliff’.
Mazaraq - a legendary mountain opposite the mouth of Onzass. Etymology not clear. The legend says he was a warrior who defeated the giant whale (Ker-Balyk < Shor ‘pale-grey fish’) which swam into Mrassu. We also found a toponym Masaraq in Spanish Catalonia, but the relevance of these onyms is not clear, since Siberian Turks could hardly have language and cultural contacts with Europeans.
Pugru qacay - a legendary cliff behind the mountain Tegri tizi. The legend says it used to be a mighty warrior with 90 hammers. He was punished by the god and turned into a rock. The etymology is rather vague.
Tegri tizi - one of the highest peaks at the border of Mountain Shoriya and Khakasia. This name comes from Shor tegri ‘sky’ + tis ‘tooth; fang,’ thus meaning ‘the sky fang.’
Qatun - a legendary mountain, upon which there sat a cannibal demon named Chelbegen. Qatyn is also the longest river in the Mountain Altai. The actual meaning is ‘wife; spouse; mistress.’ This metaphor comes from worshipping natural objects like rivers and mountains. The name derives from Turkic verbal stem qat- ‘add’ + -yn ‘affix.’
Hydronyms. Tom - a real river, the biggest in Mountain Shoriya. The name presumably originates from the Ket toom ‘big river’ or ‘dark (water).’ The legend says there lived a hunter youth Tom, who fell in love with a girl named Mrassu. They were parted and Mrassu became a river crying. Tom also turned into a river and they eventually merged together.
Mrassu - a real river in Mountain Shoriya, the second biggest river after Tom. The etymology is unknown, the second formant suy/suu means ‘water; river.’
Folk etymology sometimes interprets Mrassu as ‘a yellow river’, which is doubtful, since ‘yellow’ in Shor (and all Turkic languages on the whole) is sary/saryy. The first component mras/pras has no transparent Shor etymology, can probably be of substrate Ket origin.
Solton (written as Salton) - in the Shor legend is a river. It is also a river and village name in the Mountain Altai (south to Shoriya).
Munzass - a river in the legend of Kizej, not detected on the maps but probably being a microtoponym for some real river according to the Ket formant -zass ‘water; river’.
Qyjygzu - a river near the village of Qabyrza, may derive from the Shor kijik ‘reindeer’ + suy/suu ‘water; river’, thus meaning ‘the deer river.’
Qyzynyryqgol - the other name for the river of Qyjygzu, etymology not clear, the last formant gol/qol means 1) ‘arm’; 2) ‘river’ (presumably a somatic metaphor).
Bugunci - a river which flows into Mrassu, the motivation of this name is not clear, but it’s obviously of Turkic origin < Shor pugun ‘today’ + ci ‘actor’ (suffix).
Olcek - a river, left inflow of Mrassu. According to the legend of Mazaraq it means ‘dead; perished’ < Shor ol- ‘die’, it says a huge whale died at the mouth of Olchek. Obviously, it’s a folk etymology, the word most likely derives from substrate Ket ol-/ul- ‘water; river’ + Shor caq/-cek ‘diminutive (suffix)’, thus meaning ‘small river.’
Oikonyms. Qoray - a real village in the valley of the Tom River, derives from the Shor and Khakas qooraj/xooraj ‘historical name for the valley of the middle flow of Yenissey’ > ‘the Universe’ > ‘the dwelling place, the village.’ Culzan - a real village in the valley of the Tom river < Shor cul ‘a small river.’
Qabyrza - a real village in the valley of the Mrassu River < Shor kobur ‘coal’ + suy/suu ‘water; river’, thus meaning ‘the coal river.’
Qarayay Tag ulus - a village in the valley of Mrassu River < Shor qarayay ‘pine tree’ + tag ‘mountain’ + ulus ‘village, dwelling place.’
Other proper names. Ulug ay - a Shor name for November. Namely it means ‘the great month’ < Shor ulug ‘big; great’ + ay ‘moon; month.’ According to the legend the name is motivated by the strong frost in November in Mountain Shoriya.
Kicig ay - a Shor name for December, meaning ‘the small month’ < Shor kicig ‘small’ + ay ‘moon; month.’ The name is motivated by not being so frosty if compared to November.
Tebir Kiris - the name of a legendary predecessor of one of the Shor tribes. The legend says once a barley spike shot out of his navel, thus this tribe first had barley. Tebir Kiris means ‘iron bow-string’ and is often met in heroic epos as a negative male character name.
Aq Purba - the name of a Shor legendary beauty, means ‘white ring,’ also very popular in heroic epos for positive female character name.
Discussion
The onomastic system of South-Siberian Turkic folklore is forming a clearly structured semantic field, falling into several groups according to the character of the nominated objects. The most massive groups in the genre of cosmogonist myths and legends are oronyms and hydronyms, which can be explained both through the world-creation myths genre specification and the cult of worshipping mountains and rivers, their key positions in the world-outlook of Siberian Turks. Thus, of all detected proper names in the total number of 36, 14 and 8 names denote mountains and water objects respectively. The second main group after the names of natural objects is formed by the names of gods and demons. Other names are rather accidental.
We can set forth some more classification principles while analyzing folklore proper names. If we look upon the name from the principle of reality
of the denoted object all the names of gods and demons refer to imaginary characters, while toponyms mainly denote real objects - mountains and rivers. Still many of them can be regarded as microtoponyms, which refer to small objects. The ethnoliguistic attribution of the above-listed proper names makes clear, that most components of the names are of Turkic origin, but there are some Ket (Yenniseic) hydronymic formants in the names of the water objects.
Since the etymology and semantics of many names is currently not clear, it is difficult to say what principles lie in their ground, but in the case of clear semantics we can state that metaphor has the significant role in nomination, e.g. Celbegen < cel ‘wind’ > ‘small pox; pestilence’, ‘unseen spirits’ > ‘evil,’ Tegri Tizi < ‘sky’ + ‘tooth’ > ‘high peak,’ Qurtyak Tas < ‘old woman’ > ‘massive rock,’ Temirxan < ‘iron’ > ‘hard, solid, mighty.’
While analyzing folklore proper names, one comes across one the obvious problems, which is a phonetic factor. Assimilative processes within the word, along with regular phonetic shifts in different dialects, often lead to etymon’s phonetic distortion, e.g. * celbegen > celbeen (intervocalic elision of the consonant [g] typical for Siberian Turkic languages) > celben (contraction of the two adjacent vowels) > celven (regular consonant [b]~[v] interchange in the Tom dialect of Shor). Thus we have the two words (celbegen and celven), which may sound totally different.
The other problem is invoked by the fragmentary character of the written Shor folklore. Shor cosmogonist myth and legends belong to the archaic folklore genres, which presumably appeared long before the Shors were consolidated into one ethnos. Consequently, the system of the proper names in this folklore genre was greatly affected by different cultural (e.g. shamanism vs. Christianity) and linguistic (Turkic vs. non-Turkic) substrates. Unfortunately those texts which were written and published in the 20th century - the time of decay of Shor folklore tradition - represent only the fragments of the harmonic system of thought and world outlook. Very few texts were written down and still fewer were published, so it’s getting quite a difficult task to reconstruct the toponymic or anthroponymic system of this genre.
The etymology of many proper names cannot be explained on the Turkic language basis. Obviously, the more archaic the legend is, the more difficult it is to explain the semantics of this name. To avoid the danger of false or folk etymology we decide not to find the etymon for every onym except more or less clear cases.
The onomastic system of Shor cosmogonist myth and legends is represented by several types of onyms, most of them nominating geographical objects. The intention to give a personal name to every topographic object like rivers and mountains and explain the appearance of these objects were first caused by the need to explain and “domesticate” the Universe, to give it certain coordinates, thus proper names carried out sacred functions in a tra-
ditional Shor society. Later, with the decay of mythological outlook, these names obtained poetic functions.
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ETHNOLINGUISTIC RESEARCH INTO SIBERIAN-TURKIC FOLKLORE PROPER NAMES (BASED ON SHOR COSMOGONIST MYTHS AND LEGENDS)
Tokmashev D.M.
Summary. The article dwells on the problems of ethnolinguistic interpretation of the Shor folklore onomasticon. The ethnolinguistic approach to the proper name interpretation is widely accepted in modern onomastic studies. As in the folklore of any other indigenous people, the Shor folklore proper names do not only denote the character, but also carry a lot of hidden information revealing traditional beliefs and culture of the Shor people. Folklore proper names classification is determined by two main principles, which are genre affiliation (myths and legends) and characteristics of object denotation (anthroponyms, toponyms and other classes of proper names). There are few accidental folklore proper names, most proper names are unique in their own way and have their own origin, both linguistic and cultural.
Key words: traditional culture; ethnolinguistics; onomastics; Siberian-Turkic languages; the Shor language; folklore.
