Ethnolinguistic Study of the Colour Term System in the Kumanovo Region

Abstract

In 2018, within the framework of a detailed study of the colour term system in the Balkan Slavic languages, the author’s ethnolinguistic questionnaire was prepared and aimed at identifying the specifics of the colour term system and colour functioning in the traditional folk culture. In 2018, May-June, an expedition was held to the Kumanovo municipality, the north part of North Macedonia, with a view to test the questionnaire and to study the archaic phenomena of the folk culture. This area is a borderland of the three Balkan Slavic ethnic groups and a zone that preserves unique archaic features in the folk culture. Nevertheless, the Macedonian part of the borderland has not been researched enough. The problem on the colour term system in the dialect under consideration has not yet been formulated. Dialect dictionaries reflecting the peculiarities of the Kumanovo dialect have not been published yet. The collected material reveals the specifics of the colour term system and colour functioning in the Macedonian spoken dialects under consideration. The use of colour in the traditional folk culture of the population living in the border zone of the three Slavic peoples has not been studied so far. The article provides an analysis of the results of the expedition to the Kumanovo region.