The role of somatisms in the Bashkir toponymy

The paper is devoted to the study of the characteristic features of geographical terms and toponyms, formed from somatisms in the Bashkir language on the basis of metaphorization. A diverse landscape of the Republic of Bashkortostan, with steppes and forest-steppes being replaced by taiga, forests, mountain peaks and thousands of rivers and hundreds of lakes cutting through the natural landscape, gave birth to a specific geographical terminology in the Bashkir language. In total, more than 60 somatic terms have been identified, among which the names of the visible parts of the body, rather than of the internal organs, prevail. Most of the geographical terms-somatisms are universal for all Turkic languages. As seen from the factual material, the words baš ‘head’, һyrt ‘back’, arqa ‘back’, qul ‘arm’, moron ‘ nose’, tamaq ‘throat’, күҙ ‘ eye’ etc. are the most frequent in all Turkic languages, including Bashkir. Some words are presented showing the specific use of somatisms in certain Turkic languages. The study reveals the characteristic geographical terms of the Bashkir toponymy and explains the features of their origin in connection with the mythological view and the worldview of the Bashkirs. It is noted that the mountainous and water landscapes differ according to the somatisms used; a specific representation of each of them is revealed. According to the linguistic materials, the Bashkir mountain is personified by a living creature that faces the subject. The subject perceives only its visible part from the top to the slope. Therefore, only the parts of the body above the waist are used among somatisms. As concerns the names of large rivers, they represent a person with all of his/her external body parts from head to foot. The water space is represented in the language picture of the Bashkir world as something being stretched.

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