Conceptualization of the Soul in the Evenk Linguoculture (on the material of heroic tale texts)

One of the main tasks of the modern language Evenkologists is to study the conceptosphere of the Evenki language. This will allow us to preserve the lexicon of the Evenki language, which is rarely used in everyday speech, and to restore the lost mental units in the consciousness of Evenks. The description of the systematized set of mental units in the consciousness of taiga nomads, hunters, reindeer herders will give access to their thinking, reconstruction and preservation of the conceptosphere of disappearing languages. The article is devoted to the description of the conceptualization of the soul in the Evenki linguoculture (on the material of Evenki heroic tales texts). The methods of definitional and contextual analysis are used in the research. The main sources for the study were dictionaries, texts of Evenki heroic tales. The materials of ethnographic research were also reviewed. The formation of the considered mental sphere influenced by ancient animistic views on nature, shamanic beliefs; traditional types of economy (hunting, reindeer herding); also, the landscape historically connected with the territory of the Evenki habitation. The main linguistic units involved in the representation of the mental formation /sphere are the words: omӣ, hanyan, main, kutu. The word omӣ is often used in the texts of heroic tales. The lexeme hanyan in the Evenk epic is used in the meaning of ‘shadow, image’. The word kutu in the modern Evenki language means ‘happiness, prosperity, good luck’. No use of the word main in the heroic tale texts meaning ‘soul’ has been encountered. The root of this lexeme is of ancient Tungus-Manchurian origin. The word main expresses the peculiarities of thinking of ancient nomads and deer hunters. The lexemes hanyan and kutu are formed from an ancient all-Altaic root with the meaning ‘blood, blood kinship’, which is an indicator of the archaic nature of these words and the concept under study. The mental formation contains cognitive attributes: “object“; ‘fluid’; ‘alive’; ‘light’; ‘mobile’; ‘mother’; ‘defenseless’; ‘soul – breath’; soul – air”; “fast movement - excitement, love”; “soul – bird”; “blood kinship”; “blood ancestor”; “successful hunting; ‘unsuccessful hunting’; ‘deity ruling over the souls of people and animals’. The interrelation and interdependence of the concepts “soul”, “fate”, “hunting” is observed.

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