Senior Researcher, Ob-Ugriс  institute of applied researches and development Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia [email protected]
Abstract. Formulas in Khanty tales have a great importance in the artistic comprehension of the reality. Their study allows to obtain the full view of the folk language picture of the world and refl ected in it the mentality of the ethnos. 
The language of the tale is characterized in whole by the formulnost’. Formulas can be found in any part of the tale – in the beginning, in the middle, at the end of the tale. Their main function is compositional. The formula may be considered as a speech unit, which is repeated in the same tale more than once or in the several tales.
This is due to the specifi city of the tale genre: uncertainty of space and time, the crudity of psychological characters, the presence of specifi c conventions adopted by the listeners as a given.
Keywords: folklore, tale formulas, symbols, bans, ritual actions, borders, language picture of the world, mythology.