Fishing and Calendar Vocabulary of the Selkup Language. Methodology of Research

The well-known methods of historical and systemic-structural linguistic domains do not allow revealing many linguistic phenomena of the unwritten Selkup language in their entirety. The article presents an analysis of fishing and calendar vocabulary of the Selkup language within the new linguistic approach called linguoculturology using the original authors' methods and well-known linguistic ones. The main linguistic methods of the research are comparative historical method and word formation analysis. The essence of the original authors' methods is the involvement of data from the related sciences. Within the study of the Selkup fishing vocabulary the method of complex semantic reconstruction was developed and applied including the restoration of the ancient/prior lexical meanings with the involvement of ethnographic and ichthyological materials that help to clarify semantics. The analysis of calendar vocabulary includes the combination of three methods: (A) the interpretation of time intervals by informants and word-based translation of these time intervals by the authors; (B) an original method of "comparison with realities" aimed at a detailed study of all realities that are an integral part of the Selkup vital activities; (C) a well-known method of "ethnographic analogues". The research showed the following results. The representation of fishing vocabulary in the Selkup dialects is varying, which is the consequence of different ways of life and housekeeping depending on the area of residence. The features of semantic meanings were clarified due by applying the authors' method of complex semantic reconstruction. The juxtaposition of language data with ichthyological and ethnographic materials helped both explain the lexical gaps in the Selkup dialects and trace the development of semantic meanings of words and compound units. Calendar lexemes "po" and "irea" are typical for the Selkup language. Their initial meaning was "tree; something related to a tree or tree growth" and "moon" respectively. The appearance of new meanings: "year" in "po" and "month, 1/12 of a year" in "irea" can be a result of semantic development affected by a different (Russian) calendar system. The application of the author's methods made it possible to identify the peculiarities of the Selkup calendar vocabulary and time reckoning. The proposed set of linguistic approaches and original authors' methods is effective enough to identify the Selkup language features and can be applied in research of vocabulary of any unwritten language of an endangered or extinct ethnic group.

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