To the question of the penetration of the word koral into modern reindeer herding vocabulary
English
journal number:
Journal’s Subject Headings:
History, ethnography, archeology
About author:
Ob-Ugric Institute of Applied Researches and Development, Khanty-Mansiysk, Russian Federation, [email protected]
ABSTRACT
Introduction: the article is devoted to the identification of ways of the word koral penetration into the cultural complex of the modern Ob Ugrians and Samoyeds, the history of its consolidation as the name of a deer paddock in the vast territory of Northern Europe, the Urals, Western and Eastern Siberia. The interest to this problem is due to the research of historical migrations of the peoples who made up the indigenous Finno-Ugric population of Eurasia.
Objective: verification of the hypothesis about the Tocharian ancestral homeland of the component kor / kar (“fenced place”) in the aspect of ethnocultural communications.
Research materials: ethnographic literature, ethnolinguistic dictionaries, encyclopedic publications, Internet resources, as well as oral messages of informants.
ABSTRACT
Introduction: the article is devoted to the identification of ways of the word koral penetration into the cultural complex of the modern Ob Ugrians and Samoyeds, the history of its consolidation as the name of a deer paddock in the vast territory of Northern Europe, the Urals, Western and Eastern Siberia. The interest to this problem is due to the research of historical migrations of the peoples who made up the indigenous Finno-Ugric population of Eurasia.
Objective: verification of the hypothesis about the Tocharian ancestral homeland of the component kor / kar (“fenced place”) in the aspect of ethnocultural communications.
Research materials: ethnographic literature, ethnolinguistic dictionaries, encyclopedic publications, Internet resources, as well as oral messages of informants.
Results and novelty of the research: the experience of ethnolinguistic research of one of the modern terms of commercial reindeer breeding vocabulary is presented for the first time. Since the word koral is associated with the process of reindeer domestication, we have considered defining words for the process of rearing and taming deer, their sex and age characteristics, etc. Local names of pens of various ethnic groups of the Ob Ugrians and Samoyeds have been presented. It is noted that the words koral and pen were used synonymously for some time, however, with the development of reindeer
husbandry in Soviet times, the word koral became widely used for fishing structures of complex design and with significantly greater functionality associated with veterinary measures (koralization). Five areas of its existence have been fixed in vast territories from Northeastern Eurasia and the southwestern coast of Africa to Southeast Asia, Siberia and the Far East, which justifiably characterizes the word koral as the “nomad word” with almost similar etymology: a courtyard as a pen-place, a pen, a hillfort, a fence, a stable, a paddock. Based on historiographical analysis, linguogeography and archeology data, the migration routes of the Proto-Tocharians from the territory of Europe (the so-called Danube culture) through the Great Steppe to Turkestan have been traced, as well as their transformation from husbandmen to the first herdsmen, which required the search for new pastures, frequent movements and the guarding of herds (in the Tocharian language – kār ‘to join‘, koro ‘herd animal’ or ‘movable property’). The inclusion of the Yamnaya and then Afanasiev archaeological culture in population, which originated in the Altai-Sayan region, largely explains the Tocharian borrowings in the Uralic languages and vice versa.
Key words: Tocharians, reindeer herding, pen, koral, domestication, Khanty people, Mansi people, Forest Nenets people, migrations
For citation: Spodina V. I. To the question of the penetration of the word koral into modern reindeer herding vocabulary // Vestnik ugrovedenia = Bulletin of Ugric Studies. 2025; 15 (1/60): 155–169.
Key words: Tocharians, reindeer herding, pen, koral, domestication, Khanty people, Mansi people, Forest Nenets people, migrations
For citation: Spodina V. I. To the question of the penetration of the word koral into modern reindeer herding vocabulary // Vestnik ugrovedenia = Bulletin of Ugric Studies. 2025; 15 (1/60): 155–169.
