The Concept Ger ‘Home’ in Linguistic Worldviews of Mongols

Abstract

Introduction. The article examines a basic concept of any linguistic worldview — that of home (Mong. ger). Goals. The study aims at identifying and revealing semantic features of the concept in folklore texts of Mongolic peoples — Buryat, Kalmyk, and Mongolian paroemias. Methods. Folklore texts are analyzed with the aid of the structural / semantic and structural / typological methods that make it possible to consider different semantic aspects of the concept ger ‘home’. The analysis of Buryat proverbs shows the paroemias characterizing the concept can be divided into two groups: group one to include folklore texts that directly characterize somewhat general meaning of the word ger ‘home’, while group two is compiled from proverbs with an additional meaning manifested through the use of the concept ‘home’ depending on various life situations. Results. The work reveals the image of home — through the prism of proverbs — not only essentially expands its semantic content, but also characterizes specificities of ethnic worldviews inherent to Mongolic peoples, their mentality patterns. Our semantic analysis of Mongolic paroemias with the component ger ‘home’ shows the concept comprises quite a number of semes — from ‘house’, ‘dwelling’, and ‘hearth’ to ‘family’ and even ‘homeland’ (metaphorical meanings). The investigation of Buryat, Kalmyk, and Mongolian proverbs proves instrumental not only in revealing a universal nature of the binary scheme ‘us–them’ in cultural contexts, but also in an attempted characterization of the traditional nomadic worldview through the prism of specific economic and sociocultural activities.