Cultural codes: Representation of the sky and celestial bodies in Yakut riddles

One of the topical directions of modern linguistics refer to the studies related to the identification of anthropocentric nature of the language. In this context, language can be considered a system of signs reflecting the specifics of human perception and description of the world around. Being the most ancient genre of folklore, riddles serve as a valuable material for linguocultural research and contain unique culturally significant information about the mythological and worldview views of different peoples. The purpose of the study is to determine key cultural codes verbalized in the texts of the Yakut cosmogonic riddles. The objectives of the study were as follows: to consider texts of riddles in which the sky and celestial bodies serve as the denotation; to identify key cultural codes that metaphorically represent celestial space and space objects; as well as archaic images of space objects and the sky encrypted in the texts of riddles. To achieve the purpose, we used the methods of semantic, descriptive, semiotic and interpretive analysis. The combination of the methods mentioned above allowed identifying universal and culturally marked codes that describe space objects. In the course of the study the key codes of Yakut linguoculture were identified: anthropomorphic, object and zoomorphic. In paroemias the mythologeme of the universe is represented by a vessel, horse-cosmos; celestial bodies acquire anthropomorphic and zoomorphic features; object-related and zoomorphic codes actualize the archaic picture of the household structure of the Yakuts. The prospects of the study are the following: the results obtained can be used by specialists in linguistics, linguoculturology and folkloristics, interested in the problems of reflecting the specifics of national cultures in folklore texts.

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