Comparative analysis of wishful thinking and curses of the Bezhta and Chamalal people

Abstract

The subject of this research is small folklore genres, namely wishful thinking and curses. The goal of this article consists in the comparative analysis of most used emotional and expressive lexis in the Bezhta and Chamalal languages. Currently, in the context of irreversible process of narrowing and unification of linguistic palette of humanity, its preservation requires the creation of full descriptions of the living” languages. This list also includes the non-written Bezhta language (from Tsez subgroup) and Chamalal language (from Andi subgroup) – two of the 18 minority languages existing in Dagestan. The research employs field material collected by the authors during expeditions of 2018-2020). Analysis is conducted on wishful thinking and curses in different ontological situations of the Bezhta and Chamalal communities. The relevance of studying small folklore genres of Bezhta and Chamalal people is substantiated by uniqueness of the type, is observed to a different degree in the folklore of different peoples. The key research methods contain analytical (analysis of theoretical literature and factual material on the matter), continuous sampling, descriptive and comparative methods. The methods of field work were applied in the course of expedition to Bezhta and Tsumadinsky Districts of the Republic of Dagestan in terms of collection of the materials on paremiology of Bezhta and Chamalal languages.