Karakalpak relationship terminology and its reflection in etiquette behavior

Abstract

Kinship terminology in the traditional culture represents an ethnocultural phenomenon, in which specific features of the stages of the historical development of a certain people are recognized, as well as the forms of social organization that reflect the mentality and norms of behavioral culture. In the study we undertook the analysis of special literature and the collection of field materials conducted in rural areas (auls) of the Republic of Karakalpakstan. The method descriptive analysis was applied to study the main material. This article discusses the system of kinship terms among the Karakalpaks, its classification, both along the “consanguineous” line (for example, parents, brothers, uncles, etc.) and along the line of “properties” (for example, relatives of the husband and wife from the side speaker, etc.). In addition to the main terms of paternal and maternal kinship, the author collected a large number of special euphemisms (i.e. “nicknames”) used by the Karakalpak daughter-in-law in relation to her husband’s relatives and his fellow villagers. This as aspect is of interest for ethnolinguistic analysis. In the course of the study, all the main terms and special vocatives were collected in order to analyze their description in the system of stereotyped behavior of members of a kindred community and related norms of etiquette, determined by gender, age and social factors from an ethnographic point of view. It should be noted that the kinship terms of the Karakalpaks are largely similar to the kinship terms of other Turkic-speaking peoples of Central Asia and Altai in the works of Turkologists and ethnographers, which reveal the etymology of terms, lexical semantics, relics of archaism and social stereotypes of behavior.