А Semantic and Functional Peculiarities of Color Terms in Kazakh and Turkish Place Names

The article is devoted to the study of the semantic and functional peculiarities of color terms (colorative lexicon) in the place names (toponyms and hydronyms) of the Kazakh and Turkish languages. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that color terms in the toponymic systems of the Kazakh and Turkish languages are considered not individually, but as a common comparative semantic field. This approach allows for a deeper revelation of the cognitive and cultural codes of the onomastic lexicon of the Turkic languages, as well as the symbolic shifts in the meaning of color terms when naming geographical objects. The objectives of the study include the statistical and linguistic determination of the frequency and distribution area of color terms such as «White/Ak», «Black/Kara», «Red/Kızıl» and «Blue/Mavi» in the corpus of Kazakh and Turkish toponyms. Furthermore, the objectives include classifying the functional features of color terms in conveying descriptive (describing the real color) and metaphorical (volume, direction, quality) meanings, as well as demonstrating the similarities and differences in the linguistic structures of colorative toponyms by comparing word-formation models (composition, affixation). The goal of the article is to comprehensively reveal the semantic and functional potential of color terms in the place names of the Kazakh and Turkish languages and to scientifically substantiate their role in the linguistic worldview and ethnographic landscape of the two Turkic languages. The results presented in the article allow the authors to determine the cultural and cognitive motivations underlying the emergence of colorative toponyms. They prove the genetic connection of the toponymic systems, as well as demonstrate the distinctive features that formed during the stages of individual development.