Color Terms in Bashkir Toponymy

Abstract

It is common to many languages that all color terms belonging to the most ancient part of the vocabulary, apart from the color meaning as such, convey a symbolic meaning. The same is true to the Bashkir language, where this particularly applies to toponyms. Colors are one of the most prevalent motives of naming used in Bashkir toponymy. This paper aims to study Bashkir place names with reference to color terms, based on the names of landscape objects, water bodies, and geographical names collected in the card index of the Linguistics department of the Institute of History, Language, and Literature of the UFRC RAS, as well as presented in the annexes to the ten-volume Academic Dictionary of the Bashkir language (2011–2018), in toponymic dictionaries, and special studies on toponymy. Statistically, color names make up 6% of all Bashkir toponyms. The most productive lexemes used in the formation of topographic objects include: aq ‘white,’ qara ‘black,’ qїthїl ‘red,’ һarї ‘yellow,’ ala ‘piebald,’ kük ‘blue,’ sїbar ‘motley,’ which can be regarded as a common characteristic of the Turkic toponymy on the whole, and the reflection of the color characteristics of the surrounding nature and the geographical area where the Bashkir live. The derivational structure of Bashkir place names with color terms as components can be formalized in the following patterns: color term + geographic term, color term + zoonym; color term + phytonym; color term + mineral name or rock name; color term + name of a construction, structure; toponyms derived from personal names, ethnonyms; toponyms represented solely by a color term as such. The most interesting in terms of reflecting the national identity of the Bashkirs are toponyms, following the “color term + a geographical term” pattern. This type of place names refers not only to the color of geographical objects themselves, but also to the color of rocks, the perceived color of water bodies, carrying connotative and mythological implications.

Keywords

• Bashkir toponymy
• color nomination
• color terms
• derivation of toponyms
• color symbolism