Anthroponyms in Chuvash and Russian Riddles About Body Parts: Cultural Codes

Abstract

The riddle is a kind of a world model and a way of representing the mentality of a people. Identifying the role of anthroponyms in the structure of a riddle is important for the interpretation of objects of the surrounding reality. Thus, while in a proverb an anthroponym is a social type, in a riddle with a proper name denoting a somatism, the described object that is located in the zone of the “alien” moves into the area of the familiar and becomes knowable. This article aimed to study anthroponyms in Russian and Chuvash riddles. The focus was on riddles constructed according to the anthroponym = somatism model. The main methods included continuous sampling (from collections of Russian and Chuvash riddles) as well as comparative (to determine typological similarities and differences in the use of names in Russian and Chuvash folklore) and linguocultural (to analyse the data of the “language of culture” obtained) methods. The novelty of the research lies in studying anthroponyms as codifiers of cultural information in a national riddle. The authors note that parts of the human body in riddles are ambivalent: they can be presented as an inanimate or as an animate (human or animal) object. It is emphasized that a person is perceived as a single entity, and body parts are conceptualized through terms of kinship. Most Chuvash riddles with an anthroponym (“Alikhman”, “Alistar”, “Altakkim”, etc.) present a figurative interpretation of hands (ala), which includes a number to indicate the quantity and a language game (the initial letters of real and fictional Chuvash names coincide with the answer). The majority of Russian examples focus on the tongue as an organ. It is concluded that in the anthroponym = somatism model, a human is viewed as a single entity, emphasis being placed on the function of a body part and on the person’s social role.