Concept of “tash” (stone) in the Karachay-Balkar language picture of the world

Abstract

This paper focuses on a multi-aspect study of the concept of “tash” (stone) in the KarachayBalkar language picture of the world. The analysis of the available factual material has shown that for Karachays and Balkars, “tash” is quite an important component of the ethnic culture and reflects one of the relevant segments of the naive national picture of the world, encoded in the Karachay-Balkar literature and works of folklore. This fact is also due to significant functional and semantic features of the “tash” lexeme in the Karachay-Balkar language. This word serves as the basis for the formation of a large number of complex words and phrases, giving rise to the corpus of nominations of objects of the surrounding reality: place names, various rocks, etc. In addition, the word under consideration is highly productive in the sphere of terminology associated primarily with the everyday realities of the Karachay-Balkar ethnic group. “Tash” and related concepts are represented in the phraseological fund of the Karachay-Balkar language and paroemias reflecting various anthropomorphic features, in particular: characteristics, properties, actions, states, etc. The concept under consideration has such cognitive characteristics as support, solidity, eternity, life, death, and others and represents the status and the character of a person. Also, the concept of “tash” is realized in the texts of Karachay-Balkar folklore, myths, and in the works of Karachay-Balkar writers and poets, confirming its relevance for the linguistic consciousness of the Karachay-Balkar ethnic group.