A Study on the Symbolism of Vocabulary in the Altai Folklore

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyze the characteristics of Altai tales and the symbolic meanings of words in Altai tales. Altai refers to the Altai Republic in the Russian Federation, located in South Siberia. Altaians - the common name of a kind of historically formed union of six autochthonous Turkic-speaking ethnic groups. Altai folklore is the traditional beliefs, customs, and stories of a community, passed through the generations by word of mouth Altai people. Altai folk tales are life stories that reflect the traditions, belief systems, religions, and cosmic views of the peoples who have lived around the Altai Mountains since ancient times. Altai folk tales have similar themes or modified contents found in other regions and peoples, but reflect the uniqueness of the Altai peoples and culture. In Altai folktale texts, color words that symbolically express the main character and surrounding objects, as well as names of people and numbers using color words, are found. These vocabularies are linearly combined with other vocabularies and function as text components unique to narrative texts.