Astyonyms in the songwriting of Mari and Tatars

Abstract

Toponyms as the most important component of geography are a kind of link between a person and a geographical object, indicating its geolocation. They represent a source of information accumulated over a long period of the existence of an ethnic group and the associated traditional culture reflected in the songwriting of the people. The aim of the study is to describe astyonyms and their functioning in Tatar and Mari songs. The scientific novelty is accounted for by gaps in knowledge in the research on this issue in modern regional linguistics. The paper is the first to determine the general themes of the astyonyms in the semantic content of the songs of the Tatars and the Mari in a comparative aspect and also analyze the differences caused by the historical and cultural peculiarities of the peoples’ development. In both languages, the names of cities are endowed with the nominative, informative, deictic, appellative and communicative functions. Astyonyms function in various song genres: historical, lyrical, folk. They are divided into two groups: a) national toponyms (“small homeland” and Russia) and b) toponyms outside the country (foreign topological objects – Western European and Eastern). The results showed that the geographical space in the songs is represented by the names of real geographical objects reflecting the migration and event history of ethnic groups, their interaction with other peoples, national and cultural identity, chronotopic landmarks, national personalities, ways of self-presentation of inhabitants of regional territories.