Zoonyms in the names of the characters in Mari folk games
Yoshkar-Ola, Russian Federation, [email protected]
ABSTRACT
Introduction: zoonyms occupy important place in the semiotic system of folklore. They encode basic mythological ideas and, at the same time, reflect economic activity of people traditionally associated with animals. The game vocabulary correlates with the general system of folklore and mythology. Zoonyms are used in games as the names of characters, game items and toys, movements, as well as they are widely represented in texts of chits, game sentences, dialogues, songs.
Objective: to reveal zoonyms in the names of the characters in the Mari folk games, to systematize them according to their functions, thematic groups and etymology.
Research materials: almost the full volume of texts with descriptions of the Mari folk games is taken from publications in Russia and other countries, from the hand-written Archive of the Mari Research Institute of Language, Literature and History, field records, the personal collection of the author.
Results and novelty of the research: the article for the first time reveals a complete system of zoonyms in the names of the characters of the Mari games. Their functions in the game are revealed: most often, zoonyms are used in the games like catch-up, blind man etc. as the name of the catcher, his antagonists, as well as an offensive nickname for the losing player; they also indicate the similarity of the movements of the gamer and the animal; used in round dances and imitative improvisational games. Thematically, most of them are the names of mammals and birds, which Mari children most often met in everyday life and in native nature. There are almost no names of reptiles, amphibians, fish and insects. Etymologically, most of the reviewed zoononyms are Turkic borrowings in the Mari language, fewer of them are words of Finno-Ugric origin and borrowings from Russian; and these data indirectly indicate the genesis of specific animal images in the Mari game culture.
Key words: Mari language, folk games, children’s folklore, game voocabulary, zoonyms, folklore characters, the role of the catcher in games.
For citation: Klyucheva M. A. Zoonyms in the names of the characters in Mari folk games // Vestnik ugrovedenia = Bulletin of Ugric Studies. 2020; 10 (3): 462–471.
