The antonymic paradigm of the color lexemes "huzh – Fiyce" (white – black) in the Adyghe language culture

Abstract

The subject of the study are proverbs and sayings of the Kabardino-Circassian language with components of color designation. The paper reveals the specifics and patterns of the use of color words in the context of paremias, analyzes the structural-semantic, text-forming (phraseological) features of color nominations. The words naming the color make up a special lexico-semantic group. Their study is very important both theoretically and practically. Being a component of a stable phrase or a stable combination, they reflect the psychology and worldview of the people in a special way, it is a valuable source of information about the culture and mentality of the people. Being compressed in their form, proverbs and sayings represent not only a system of moral and ethical norms, but also contain the sum of knowledge about the external order of things and the inner world of a person. In the Adyghe paroemias, the circle of cultural concepts that can be considered nuclear for folk spiritual culture is revealed. And in this context, color designations can carry the burden of transmitting the normative and value orientations of an ethnic group, show the main stereotypes of human behavior. The main conclusions of the conducted research are as follows: the color meanings of the Adyghe language, expressed mainly by adjectives, in this case Fiyce 'black' and huzh 'white', in paremiology can be considered a point of intersection of the interests of philology (linguistics, folklore studies, history of Adyghe literature), ethnopsychology, cultural studies, ethics, political science, philosophy. However, the color lexemes in proverbs and sayings, represented not only by adjectives, but also by nouns, verbs, adverbs, have not yet been the object of special study. The need for such a study is determined by the fact that color nominations in the figurative system of proverbs and sayings as special folklore microtexts occupy a very significant place, performing an important semantic and emotionally expressive load. In addition, native speakers of the modern Adyghe language often do not realize the original meaning of many paroemias.