Yurt as a value of Kalmyk linguistic culture

Abstract

The paper analyzes the linguistic culture associated with the ger ‘yurt’ – the Kalmyk house, objectively determined by the historically established traditional type of the nomad housing. A new approach to comprehending the sphere of ger ‘yurt’ is undertaken. The selected object is studied not only as a dwelling, but as a sacred, inhabited, developed space, the semantic dominant of the Kalmyk worldview, which determines people's ideas about “insider/outsider”, “honorary/profane”, “male/female”, “right/left”, “forbidden/permitted”, “happy/unhappy”, as well as the norms of behavior of insiders and outsiders in the living space of a Kalmyk dwelling. The existence of the “ishka ger” concept sphere in the Kalmyks’ linguistic culture is proved through the analysis of lexico-semantic field within mental area associated with ger, in terms of their value in material and spiritual culture, from the standpoint of its categories such as quantity, color, space, and behavior. It is established that every element of ishka ger, its size, weight, shape, material, and placement is designated not just by Kalmyk nomadic lifestyle, the stock-raising type of labor activity, and social organization features of the Kalmyks, but mental features of the Kalmyk nomad worldview. The yurt details, the objects of its interior are characterized from the point of view of symbolism, axiology in connection with the status of the ger as a “microworld of a nomad, a model of the universe.” The main research method is linguo-culturological: analysis of conceptual, figurative and value components of mental formations associated with the ger sphere. Lexico-phraseological, paremiological means extracted from lexicographic sources, as well as fragments from the texts of Kalmyk fiction, extracted by continuous sampling from the national corpus of the Kalmyk language are used as the material.