Ethnocultural Originality of Color Toponyms in Turkic Folklore

Abstract

The national and cultural originality of color designations in place names are often employed in the folklore of the Turkic peoples. Drawing material from famous epic poems in the Azerbaijani, Yakut, Kyrgyz and Kazakh languages, common and specific features in the frequency and semantics of color terms are distinguished. This qualitative study combines the intensive topology approach with frequency and component analyses. As a result of the frequency analysis, the most salient toponymic colors in Turkic culture are identified, among which yellow and pink appear to be more frequent than in most world languages. As a result of the component analysis, symbolic meanings of color terms “white”, “yellow” and “black” in toponyms are identified. A conclusion is drawn that the semantics of color toponyms in the epos of the Turkic peoples has a significant similarity, which indicates close linguistic contacts of the speakers of the Turkic languages in the past and their belonging to one common linguacultural zone. The color perception reflected in the Kipchak group within the Turkic family is shown to stand out due to the most frequent use of the color term “pink” and larger diversity in the figurative uses of colors in place names. The study enables a better understanding of national preferences in using color designations as part of Turkic culture.