WAYS OF REPRESENTATION OF THE CONCEPT “SOUL” IN KALMYK LANGUAGE

One can name numerous articles, dissertations studying different
concepts including the concept “soul” in Russian, English and
other languages. Over last decades lots of articles and papers
have turned up studying concepts of Kalmyk language, the
language spoken in one of the regions of Russian Federation.
Among them concepts “happiness”, “destiny”, “nomads”,
“compassion”, “time”, “modesty” just to name. As for the
concept “soul”, which is thoroughly examined in Russian and
other languages, it hasn’t attracted due attention of linguists
studying concepts in Kalmyk language. Though, it is the one that
undoubtedly can be referred to basic concepts of Kalmyk culture.
Besides, an alarming fact that Kalmyk language is included in the
number of endangered languages makes it utterly important to
study the language. Thus this article is a way to contribute our bit
to preserve this beautiful and ancient language.
The article studies the ways to represent the concept “soul” in
Kalmyk language speaking community. The linguistic material to
be studied is taken from verses by modern poet Badma Vaskaev
as the outstanding representative of Kalmyk speaking community.
The poetry by this author reflects the beauty, linguistic wealth and
diversity of Kalmyk language as well as the essence of Kalmyk
way of thinking and world outlook.
Badma Vaskaev was a connoisseur of Kalmyk language and
Kalmyk, Russian and world literature. He highly appreciated the
treasure of Kalmyk culture the legendary heroic epos “Jangar”
and poetry by famous poet D.N. Kugultinov. These facts define
the depth and creative power of the poetry by B. Vaskaev.
The ideas of this article are based on theories of concept worked
out by prominent Russian linguists V.I. Karasic, I.A. Sternin, S.G.
Vorkachev, E.M. Vereschagin, V.G. Kostomarov and others.
The concept in the article is understood as conventional mental
unit designed for comprehensive study of a language, mentality
and culture as it is defined by V.I. Karasic. The idea of a frame,
which is traditionally used in cognitive study as a tool to describe
metaphors, is employed here to fully depict the ways of forming
the concept “soul”.
Semantic, component and context analysis uncovered ways
representing the concept under consideration. The idea of
individual concepts existing along with those belonging to some
groups, nations, and the whole humanity mentioned in the article
by V.I. Karasic and G.G. Slyshkin prompted the choice of the
linguistic material for the article.
The semantic analysis of the verses resulted in working out
several frames that shape the concept “soul” in the poetry under
consideration. Metaphoric use of words that do not have literal
meaning “soul” enlarges the ways to convey the idea of the
concept.
Having studied the linguistic material it can be concluded that in
Kalmyk language the notion of soul can be expressed with the
help of several words such as: седкл sedkl, чееҗ chedge, сүмсн
sumsn, өрч oerch. In the studied verses the word өрч oerch bears
the notion of the concept “soul” while in the dictionary this
meaning is not reflected. Besides in spoken Kalmyk language this
word is not used in the meaning of soul.
Analysis has showed that: firstly, sometimes words representing
the concept acquire their meanings only due to the context.
Secondly, there are cases when one and the same word bears two
meanings in one sentence, literal and metaphoric. And finally,
often two words manifesting the concept can be found in one line,
facilitating or even contrasting lexical meanings of one another.
It is necessary to mention that the word седкл sedkl is a core
word which is mainly used to represent “soul” both as a national
concept and an individual one.
Key words: concept “soul”, frame, individual concepts