Descriptive Personal Names Of The Yakut In Early Yakut Anthroponymic System

Abstract

In comparison with other Turkic languages, figurative words form a large formation of vocabulary in the Yakut language. They are characterized by a specific semantics, which is formed "by comparison, by substituting various semantic elements according to their connection". Due to this, they can pass into the category of anthroponyms without changes and give an accurate description of a person's appearance, character, and behavior. The main motive for naming such a name was the desire to single out an individual. The names of the Yakuts were not permanent, they could change several times during their lives due to the age or social status of a person. The names assigned from early adulthood remained constant. This is also explained by the fact that official record keeping was not developed at that time. By virtue of their emotionally expressive semantics, figurative words are a favorite means of describing a person's appearance and serve as a motivating basis for the transition of these words into the category of personal names – onyms. The study of the onymy of the Turkic-speaking peoples, in particular the Yakut, is quite justified, since personal names are one of the most conservative parts of the vocabulary and carry unique information not only linguistic, but also historical, ethnographic, and general cultural plans. In them, the people reflected not only the material and spiritual culture, but also the vision of the world and cognition.

Keywords: Anthroponymy, descriptive names, figurative words, optimization, pre-Christian anthroponymy

Introduction

The study of language vocabulary in various aspects is one of the most important tasks of general linguistics. However, certain formations of the vocabulary of the Yakut language remained outside the field of special systematic scientific consideration for a long time. The anthroponymy of Yakutia with its diverse anthroponymic system could be attributed to such formations. Only a few works were devoted to the study of Yakut anthroponymy, namely: an article by Gritsenko (1970) on personal names and nicknames of Yakuts, a monograph by Sofronov “Pre-Christian personal names of the peoples of Northeast Asia” (1985). Only in recent years, interest in Yakut names has intensified and a systematic study of Yakut anthroponymy from a scientific point of view has begun. The candidate's dissertation of Vasilyeva was defended. “Pre-Christian personal names of the Yakuts: a structural and semantic aspect” (Vasilyeva, 2020) and a monograph and articles by Nikolaev “Personal names of Sakha in a linguoculturological context” (2020) were published. An important contribution to the development of anthroponymic science was made by representatives of modern applied anthroponymy – Kurt (2021), Sulyamova (2018), Sagindykova (2018).

Problem Statement

Personal names are words that denote and identify the person himself. In an effort to preserve, prolong and multiply the genus, human society placed a lot of hopes on the "magical power" of personal names. Therefore, the choice of a name has always been closely connected with a person's worldview and has been conditioned by the entire religious and philosophical system of views of a particular community of people. The name was born as a verbal reflection of customs, morals, religious rituals and their subject attributes (Mitroshkina, 1987).

Any anthroponymic system of a single people has its own history. The development of Yakut anthroponymy is also no exception. For a long time (starting from the XVII century), the anthroponymic system of the Yakuts developed under the strong influence of the Russian naming system. This is due to the Christianization of the Yakuts, which began almost simultaneously with the annexation of Yakutia to Russia, that is, from the first half of the XVII century. However, despite this, the Yakuts had a fairly developed pre-Christian anthroponymic system, which, unfortunately, has only recently become the object of scientific research.

Research Questions

The object of the study is descriptive personal names (descriptives) of Yakuts.

• The subject of the study is the semantic features of the Yakut pre–Christian descriptive personal names and the influence of extralinguistic factors in their formation.

Purpose of the Study

Our research aims to reveal the concept of cognition underlying the descriptive personal names of Yakuts, which were widespread before the XVII century.

To achieve this goal, the following tasks are solved:

• using the example of descriptive personal names to show the specific features of the pre-Christian anthroponymic system of the Yakuts;
• to show the active participation of figurative words in the process of formation of the pre-Christian anthroponymicon of the Yakuts.

Research Methods

The methodological basis of the research was the main scientific and theoretical provisions developed in the works of Galiullina (2008), Mitroshkina (1987), Nikolaev (2020, 2016), Safronov (1985), Superanskaya (2007), Vasilyeva (2020). When clarifying some meanings of figurative words, the Dictionary of the Yakut Language by Pekarsky in three volumes (1959), the Great Dictionary of the Yakut Language in 15 volumes (edited by Sleptsov) (2004-2018) and the Educational Dictionary of Figurative Verbs of the Yakut Language (2019) were used.

The methods of component analysis, comparative historical method and descriptive method were used in the work. The general method was inductive-deductive and the method of sampling personal names from Safronov's namebook (1985) and the “Directory of Yakut names and Surnames” (2014).

The material for our research is taken from the anthroponymic material from the manuscript of the “Handbook of Yakut Names and Surnames” (Efremov et al., 2014), containing 3,223 personal names and surnames of Yakuts and the namebook of historian Safronov, which was compiled by historical acts collected and published by the archeographic commission, as well as documents of the yasach collection. The namebook of pre-Christian personal names of Safronov (1985) contains 5954 male and 48 female anthroponyms. The author classified the nicknames (names) of Yakuts according to their original semantics, identified their etymology as far as possible, determined the motivations of naming.

Findings

According to Nikonov, according to semantics, Turkic personal names can be divided into three large groups: I. Descriptive names (descriptives); II. Names-wishes (desideratives); III. Names-dedications (memoratives) (Nikonov, 1974). After analyzing the Yakut personal names of the pre-Christian period, we came to the conclusion that the names of the first group, that is, descriptive names (descriptives), dominated the anthroponymy of the Yakuts of the XVII–XVIII centuries. These are mostly non-derived names formed as a result of the onymization of appellatives into the category of personal names without changing the structure of the word. They have, basically, features characteristic of verbs, nouns and adjectives, that is, formed by the onymization of verbs, nouns and adjectives.

In this article, based on the generalization of the semantics of personal names, we have made a classification of descriptive Yakut personal names with their breakdown into thematic subgroups.

1. Personal names describing the appearance and gait of a person

1) Limb curvature: ‘to become bow-legged’ (Sleptsova, 2007), ‘to flex, bend, pick up the legs’ (Sleptsova, 2007), ‘widely separated, spaced (legs)’ (Sleptsova, 2004), ‘to bend the legs in the knee joints’ (Sleptsova, 2005, p. 372), etc.

2) Stooping, slouching: Акый ‘long, ungainly, thin and slightly bent’ (Sleptsova, 2004), ‘become hunched, settled’ (Sleptsova, 2010),‘stooped, leaning forward (usually about high slouching man with a sunken chest’ (Sleptsova, 2010), etc.

3) Small stature, miniaturization: ‘little, small, neat' (Sleptsova, 2006), ‘small, tiny’, ‘small (in size, quantity’, (from ‘to seem miniature, small'), etc.

4) Soreness, frailty: 'suffering from belching, urge to vomit' (Sleptsova, 2010), ‘blind’, ‘stutter’, ‘blind in one eye’,‘lame’,‘sick, weak, frail’ (Sleptsova, 2004), ‘legless’, etc.

5) Thinness, dryness, infirmity: ‘lose weight, thin, dry (from malnutrition, illness, backbreaking work’ (Sleptsova, 2006), ‘thin’,‘dilapidated, dilapidated’, ‘broken, dilapidated, old’ (Pekarsky, 1959, column 3287), ‘withered, faded, dried up’, etc.

6) Strong physical strength, tall stature: ‘significant in size, volume, large’, ‘bulky, tall’, ‘big, lumpy’, ‘powerful, mighty, strong’, etc.

7) Fullness, density: (from 'to be, to appear convex, rounded’,(from ‘to be big, lush, to rise hilly' (Pekarsky, 1959, column 1495), ‘to have a very soft, pliable body due to excessive obesity' (Sleptsova, 2005),‘at very low height to have a broad, dense figure’ (Sleptsova, 2008), etc.

8) Features of walking: ‘easy and fast to step over with your feet’ (Sleptsova, 2006),‘fast walking, running’ (on slightly raised legs, with jumping on toes) (Sleptsova, 2006), ‘walk with a light springy step on tiptoe' (Sleptsova, 2006), etc.

9) Gait: ‘with his head thrown back, keep unnaturally straight (out of habit or arrogance’ (Pekarsky, 1959, column 3640), ‘keep his back straight, slightly throwing his head back’ (Monastyrev et al., 2019).

2. Personal names describing human body parts

1) Face: ‘to be, to seem big and round’ (Sleptsova, 2006),'to stand out with its wide flat appearance (for example, about the face)’ (Sleptsova, 2010),‘to expose a wide flat face, muzzle’ (Sleptsova, 2010), ‘to have a large elongated convex face or an elongated forehead’ (Pekarsky, 1959, column 1613), etc.

2) Features of the lips, mouth: ‘open your mouth, stand still, as if rooted to the spot’ (Sleptsova, 2004), ‘have a slightly open small mouth with lips folded into a tube’ (Sleptsova, 2010), ‘open your mouth slightly, lips folded into a tube’ (Sleptsova, 2010), etc.

3) Features of the structure of the nose: ‘have a high bridge of the nose or a nose with a large hump’ (Monastyrev et al., 2019), ‘having a high bridge of the nose’,‘large and protruding nose’ (Monastyrev et al., 2019), etc.

4) Hair features: ‘to be disheveled, tousled’ (Sleptsova, 2004),‘without hair, bald’, ‘short-cropped, shaved’ (Monastyrev et al., 2019),‘in small thick curls, frizz, curly’, etc.

5) Features of the eyes: ‘squint-eyed, squinting’, ‘be bug-eyed' (Sleptsova, 2005), ‘eyes like a duck’, ‘oblique, crooked’ (Sleptsova, 2010), etc.

6) The shape of the head:‘straight nape'.

A large number of personal names describing the appearance of a person are noted. They reflect a specific feature of the vocabulary of the Yakut language – imagery, subtly conveying the smallest features of a person's appearance and gait. Take, for example, personal names describing completeness, density: (from ‘to be, to appear convex, rounded’ (Pekarsky, 1959, column 2723), (from лөглөй ‘to be big, lush, to rise hilly‘ (Sleptsova, 2007), 'to have a very soft, supple body due to excessive obesity’ (Sleptsova, 2005),‘with very low growth have a broad, dense figure’ (Sleptsova, 2008). These words describe only completeness, but they differ in degree and color.

3. Personal names describing the circumstances of childbirth.

1) Time (seasons, days of the week, time of day): ‘gloomy, semi-gloomy’ (Sleptsova, 2005), ‘typical, characteristic of summer; used in summer, summer’, ‘dark time of day, night’, 'time of dawn, predawn twilight’ (Pekarsky, 1959, column 809), etc.

2) Place: ‘summer cattle shed, building, serving for milking cows’, ‘located to the side, remote from human eyes’ (Sleptsova, 2006), etc.

3) Historical events or minor incidents simultaneous with childbirth:‘blizzard, storm’, ‘rain’,‘rainbow’, ‘dew’, ‘rain’, ‘heat, swelter’.

4) Which child is in the family: ‘six’,(from ‘seven',‘last, final'.

4. Personal names describing the food formed from the names:‘fermented milk drink from mare's milk, koumiss’, ‘lake minnow of autumn catch, which is stored for the future, fermenting it in special boxes (eaten in winter after freezing’ (Sleptsova, 2007), ‘small fish, fermented in pits dug for this purpose, lined with larch bark’,‘lake minnow’, ‘dish made from horse colon’ (Pekarsky, 1959, column 3365), etc.

The main type of life among the Yakuts, of course, was cattle breeding, so their food was mare's milk and meat. Mare's milk was used to make koumiss ‘sour raw mare's milk'. The Yakuts revered this drink and believed that if you drink koumiss, then strength is added. A good koumiss for the owners was equal to happiness and was a tasty treat for the rich. Fish occupied a special place after dairy products in the diet of the Yakuts.

5. Personal names formed from the names of clothing: ‘silver hryvnia (female neck ornament) with plates attached to it in the form of pendants’ (Sleptsova, 2008), ‘national Yakut hat: fur inside and out, high, covering the ears' (Sleptsova, 2006), ‘a piece of traditional clothing of the northern peoples made of fur or suede, covering the legs from the hip to the foot, tying straps () to the nataznik () or to the belt, knee pad’ (Sleptsova, 2012).

According to the beliefs of the ancient Yakuts, evil spirits could cause various diseases, dementia, therefore, in order to protect themselves from evil spirits, they attached great importance to clothes and jewelry.is a tall female headdress made of sable or beaver fur. It had the appearance of a cap descending to the shoulders, with a high top made of red or black cloth, velvet or brocade, thickly beaded and with a large silver heart-shaped plaque () over the forehead. is the oldest Yakut attire that young people wore during the wedding ceremony, it served as protection from evil spirits.

6. Personal names formed from the names of vegetation: ‘underground stem of herbaceous plants, rhizome’ (Pekarsky, 1959, column 2220), ‘larch needles; larch branch’ (Sleptsova, 2007), ‘strawberry’,‘mushroom’.

7. Personal names formed from the names of dishes, buildings, structures, household items, tools.

These names are fraught with the peculiarities of the material culture of the Yakuts.

1) Personal names formed from the names of dishes: ‘big ladle’ (Sleptsova, 2005),‘birch bark or wooden basket designed for water or storage, fish keeping’ (Sleptsova, 2004),‘a large wooden cup with a rich pattern made of trunks of a young birch intended for drinking koumiss’ (Sleptsova, 2007), ‘wooden ladle’, etc.

2) from the names of buildings, structures: ‘swing’ (Sleptsova, 2005),‘pit’ (Sleptsova, 2010),‘fenced grazing, fenced pasture for livestock (near housing)’ (Sleptsova, 2010), ‘installed in front of the entrance to the house, that is, on the east side, a post for tying horses, a hitching post’, etc.

3) from the names of household items, tools:‘seine’ (Sleptsova, 2005),‘pole for controlling deer’,‘pole with a rope loop at the end, lasso’ (Sleptsova, 2010), ‘wooden pads put on the legs of a horse’ (Sleptsova, 2004), ‘axe’, etc.

In addition, parents certainly laid their love, tenderness and affection in their names, which is also reflected in personal names, for example: ‘giving treat, pleasure’ (Sleptsova, 2007), ‘a close person with whom friendship, love binds’, ‘the most dear and a beloved person’,‘beloved, honey, dear’, ‘darling, my dear’ (Sleptsova, 2005), ‘affectionate, friendly’ (Sleptsova, 2004), etc.

It would seem that these are nicknames, not personal names, but they were actually names. In a number of scientific articles, the term nickname is still preserved to this day, if we are talking about the personal names of Yakuts. S.F. Taborovskaya writes about this: "Until now, there are small, colorful and witty nicknames among the Yakuts, most of which have become so firmly attached to this or that person that often the official name is forgotten and in his personal life this person is known only by nickname" (Tabarovskaya, 1970). And as K.F. Gritsenko notes: "The Yakuts used nickname names as personal names before the adoption of Orthodoxy. Some of them were given at birth, others were acquired later" (Gritsenko, 1970). All this gives grounds to assert that the transition of Yakut personal names into nicknames is associated with the Christianization of the Yakuts, the formation and development of the Russian anthroponymic system among them.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it should be noted that based on the generalization of the semantics of personal names, the Yakut personal names considered by us are divided into 7 lexico-semantic groups. Of these, figurative names that characterize the appearance, gait and physical characteristics of a person play a predominant role. It tells us that the Yakuts, first of all, paid attention to the features of the figure, the physical characteristics of a person. In figurative words, the speaker's attitude to what is being said is clearly expressed. By virtue of their emotionally expressive semantics, figurative words are a favorite means of describing a person's appearance and serve as a motivating basis for the transition of these words into the category of personal names – onyms. As the historian F. G. Safronov notes: "Already in the XVII–XVIII centuries, the peoples of the Northeast of Siberia, especially the Yakuts, had a fairly developed national pre-Christian anthroponymic tradition. Their names are semantically not only rich, but also diverse" (Safronov, 1985). They were mainly expressed lexically, because the Yakuts, like other Turkic peoples, had no gender category. For this purpose, in most cases, evaluative names were used.

In addition, as the analyzed material shows in the act of nomination, when highlighting a feature, the material and spiritual culture of the people play a significant role.

The native descriptive personal names of the Yakuts reflect the national specifics of the people, which provides material for etymological and linguocultural searches. These native names of the Yakuts with the transition to the Russian anthroponymic system became nicknames.

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