VERBALIZATION OF THE CONCEPT JER «LAND» ON THE MATERIAL OF KARACHAY-BALKARNART EPOS

The article is devoted to the study of the concept “zher” (“land”) on the basis of the texts of the Karachay-BalkarNart epos, as well as proverbs and sayings, which, being custodians of the people's experience, are associated with the concepts as cultural-specific variants of notions that form the cognitive basis of the national language picture of the world. The national picture of the world can be understood by the key concepts of the linguistic culture, which help to reflect the peculiarities of the original culture of the people. For speakers of the Karachay-Balkar language the land acts as the basis for formation of value systems. Our analysis of the texts allowed us to conclude that the concept “zher” belongs to the category of basic concepts of the Karachay-Balkar linguistic culture and influences the formation of ethical and aesthetic norms, it also participates in the formation of individual segments of the phraseological and paremiological pictures of the world that reflect the world outlook and ordinary views of the speakers of the Karachay-Balkar language. Idioms with the component “zher” in the Karachay-Balkar language can represent the following meanings: death, cunning, emotional experience, lack of support, the ability to absorb, and others. The land can be characterized by various qualities and properties of objects, it also has such physiological features peculiar to a human being as sleep, breathing, awakening and others. According to the texts of the Nart epos “zher” acts not only as a part of the physical space, but it can also signify nonphysical entities. The land acts as an orientator in the representation of “top-bottom” spatial division of the world, when describing objects at the level of the earth's surface, the earth's surface in the epos is presented as a point of reference when describing movement