NAMES OF DEATH AND ARCHAIC THINKING Cover Image

Номинация смерти и архаическое мышление
NAMES OF DEATH AND ARCHAIC THINKING

Author(s): Margarita V. Žujkova
Subject(s): Anthropology, Language studies, Language and Literature Studies, Applied Linguistics
Published by: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Marii Curie-Sklodowskiej
Keywords: the names of death in Slavonic languages; two different interpretations of death preserved in Slavonic languages and cultures; death from ‘natural’ causes; an ‘unnatural’ death

Summary/Abstract: The names of death in the Slavonic languages are culturally determined and contain reflexes of archaic thinking. The author presents two series of names and two different interpretations of death preserved in the Slavonic languages and cultures: the “natural”, prepared, good death named with the words based on the proto-Slavonic root *mr- / *mer- / *mir- (Polish śmierć, Ukrainian and Russian smert’, Russian phrase krasnaya smert’, Polish dobra śmierć), and the “unnatural”, often surprising and had death named with the words based on the proto-Slavonic root *gyb-/*gúb-/gub- (Polish ginąć, zginąć, Russian pogibnut’, Ukrainian hynuly, pohybel). The author analyses in more details the other type of name, which has interstingly developed from the meaning of being curved/crooked (well preserved in the Polish verbs giąć, zginać, czynić nieprostym, wykrzywiać [bend, make uneven, crooked]) and the accompanying sense of being incomplete (the proto-Slavonic word *kriv-, which also meant 'lame' can be etymologically tied with *krili- 'cut') through the sense of 'suffer', 'cause to suffer' (cf. Polish ginąć, gubić [perish, cause to die] towards die' and 'cause death'. Such a semantic evolution was culturally and mythologically rooted in the system of Old Slavonic oppositions of right/left, straight/crooked that applied not only to the physical but also to the social and ethical spheres and were subject to higher-order evaluation in terms of good/evil as attested by the folklore sources (proverbs, fairy-stories, magic spells).

  • Issue Year: 9/1998
  • Issue No: 10
  • Page Range: 67-80
  • Page Count: 14
  • Language: Russian