К вопросу семантической интерпретации эпической формулы «үс саха, түөрт саха»

Abstract

In the Yakut mythological system, associative thinking prevails which forms a basis for the formation of more ordered and holistic representations. In the worldview of ancestors, the awareness of the world in integrity and unity is depicted through imaginative systems built on the basis of similarities and analogies with concepts of the animal and plant worlds. It is important that in this context of ethnic awareness, the definition and position of the person in the universe also occurs. The analyzed epic formula ‘үс саха үөскүү илигинэ, түөрт саха төрүү илигинэ’ / ‘us sakha uӧskuu iligine, tuӧrt sakha tӧruu iligine’ (liter. ‘when the three Yakuts were not yet born, and the four Yakuts have not yet appeared’) in the Yakut tradition is not only sustainable but is also a universal element that transforms to penetrate into other genres and literature. The problem of understanding folklore texts — indivisibly connected to language semantics — on the basis of which cultural meanings are built still remains a most understudied topic in folklore studies. The structure and nature of information systems preserved and brought till nowadays by epic formulas have not been studied enough. The work aims to identify and describe the deep semantic structures of the epic formula ‘us sakha uӧskuu iligine, tuӧrt sakha tӧruu iligine’. The research approach is determined, firstly, by the mythological attitudes of primitive consciousness, and, secondly, by ethnic peculiarities of thinking. To achieve the goal of the study, methods of review, comparison, hermeneutics, extrapolation, and structural semantic analysis are involved. The use of the method of empathy based on the idea of ‘Yakut thinking or interpretation’ in the reconstruction of the meta-language of the studied formula makes it possible to view and evaluate the concept from inside, which certainly reflects the essence of research ethics. During the stage-by-stage analysis the study reveals that the stability of the term ‘Sakha’ supported by the review of historical materials of different eras and confirmed by the internal laws of the language is essentially archaic. The information encoded in the word ‘Sakha’ is represented as ‘санаалаах харамай’ / ‘sanaalaakh kharamai’ which means ‘a thinking living creature’, i.e., ‘person’. The root of the name kharamai ‘khara’ attracts special attention since the semantic meaning of the former in ancient and modern Turkic, Mongolian, Tungus-Manchurian languages is interpreted as ‘person’. The archived internal organization of the structure of the epic formula ‘us sakha uӧskuu iligine, tuӧrt sakha tӧruu iligine’ conveys the message ‘when person-man and person-woman were not yet born’ (‘when all mankind had not yet appeared’), containing echoes of ancient worldviews. The article — without coming into conflict with the concept of the multi-component Sakha ethnos — puts forward the hypothesis of fixing the central element, i.e., a common core ethnic substrate of the Sakha community which offers new opportunities for understanding the peripheral branches of origins of many ethnonyms. Such a positioning of the expressive content of the meta-language of the formula refers to the idea of reassessing mythological representations that occur in the depths of the Olonkho. The conclusion deals with times when not only one ethnos but the whole of humanity had been endowed with the name Sakha, which is the key one, and this thesis can serve as a starting research point in various areas in future.