Semantics of zoonyms in Khakas proverbs and sayings

The article is devoted to the study of proverbs and sayings of the Khakas language, which are anthropocentric in nature and include animal names (zoonyms). The aim of the article is to identify and describe the semantics of zoonyms and the peculiarities of their functioning in Khakas paremic expressions. The relevance of the topic is conditioned by the insufficient development of the problems of studying small folklore genres in Khakas linguistics. The novelty of the conducted research consists in the fact that it attempts to study zoonyms as components of proverbs and sayings of the Khakas language. Descriptive, semantic-cognitive and linguostatistical methods, and a review of scientific literature were used in the course of the work. The material of the study was selected by continuous sampling from existing collections of Khakas proverbs and sayings.

The results obtained in the course of the study showed the presence of a large number of paroemia with zoonym components (more than 130 units), which is due to the significance of the animal world, in which the national features and mental peculiarities of the Khakas people have been fixed as a result of centuries of human observation of it. The ethnocultural specificity of the Khakas language is most fully represented by paroemia with the zoolexeme at ‘horse’. The thematic classification of Khakas proverbs and sayings with zoonymic components includes about 12 value-oriented semantic groups, which are united within the framework of universal oppositions (good-bad, good-evil, truth-false, strength-weakness, intelligence-stupidity, etc.), as well as family and social relations. The dominance of the two-component parallel structure of Khakas paroemia has been revealed, containing in one part the main idea in the form of a moral attitude, and in the second part – its argumentation with a zoonym component. The figurative meanings of Khakas animalistic paremiology are represented by associative links of animal morals and habits with human characteristics and traits: horse symbolizes strength, diligence; hare is associated with cowardice; dog – with anger, cruelty; snake – with pretense and meanness; wolf – with greed and calculating mind; bear – with fearlessness; magpie – with idle talk and chatter, etc. The ethnocultural semantics of zoonyms is presented both in metaphorical proverbs and sayings, and in paroemia, representing good wishes, customs and omens of the Khakas people.

Further implications – comparative studies of the topic under consideration with the involvement of materials of Russian and English languages.

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