DEMONYMS IN MYTHORITUAL TRADITIONS OF THE TATARS
The article is devoted to ethnolinguistic analysis of demonyms in mythoritual traditions of the Tatar culture, which are examined from the point of view of the onomasiological aspect. According to the results, demonyms represent an important multifunctional and multidimensional system based on pre-Islamic and Islamic beliefs and cults. In the article two types of demonyms are characterized: demonyms associated with daily life of a person and his domestic life (for example a brownie, a house spirit, a street spirit, the spirit of a lane, the spirit of a thrashing-floor, the spirit of a bee garden); demonyms constituting supernatural forces standing almost on the same level with the gods. In this study special attention is given to the analysis of demonyms’ names and characteristics of their appearance, age categories and functional features. Experience in mythonyms’ research in the Turkic languages is summarized. The conclusion is justified that in the Turkish-Tatar mythonyms there are archaisms lost in the language, which create preconditions for reconstruction of the ancestor language’s mythopoetic model.