Concept of the Moon in the Yakut Language World View

Abstract

The article defines the concept of the moon in the traditional Yakut world view at the levels of language, myth and ritual. It is common knowledge that the Yakuts are the northernmost Turks who have largely preserved the mental representations of the Southern Siberia Turks’ ethnocultural heritage. National world view features in the nominations of the concept moon related to space and time cultural paradigm, representing the mythopoetic picture of the world, have been established. The archaic features of this concept, set phrases, and oral folk art have been considered. The relevance of this research lies in the conceptualization of the verbal culture of the Sakha people. The purpose of the article is to identify linguistic and cultural features of the concept moon in the Yakut language world view. The article uses a cognitive approach, contextual and syntagmatic analysis of word connection as well as the method of conceptual analysis. The cosmological representation of the Universe among the Yakuts is given through the archaic metaphor of a leather vessel with numerical and spatial symbols. The moon is projected in conjunction with the sun as a trace of an early form of deity worship. It has an ambivalent function that affects the fate that generates birth/death. In connection with this understanding, various verbal and non-verbal ritual actions have arisen. The space and time paradigm in the oral tradition has given rise to various names for the calculus of time. In analyzing the nominative field of the concept moon, its universal and national components have been revealed. Among the lexical units that form the concept moon in the Sakha language, one can distinguish riddles that emphasize the roundness of its shape, symbolizing the cyclicity of life – the idea of eternal birth. It has such basic signs as large/pale/white/moving, the somatic code of which is manifested in the symbolic use of the eye. When comparing fairy tales, similar and distinctive motifs associated with the image of the girl on the moon have been revealed.