Tuvan Vocabulary of Birth Rites

The vocabulary of the Tuvan language associated with the birth rite, as in other Turkic languages, is a relatively closed and separate lexical and semantic group that has developed over the centuries. But over time, many lexemes began to leave or disappear from the active vocabulary of the modern Tuvan language, and others limited the territory of distribution or began to be replaced by descriptive new formations. The relevance of the study is due to the lack of works in Tuvinian studies that contain a frontal examination of the vocabulary of the birth rite within the framework of Tuvinians ‘ ideas about the world. Analysis of this group of words and phrases can provide valuable not only linguistic, but also historical and ethnographic information. Available materials and individual works on this issue require systematization and adjustment with the involvement of significant language material for analysis. The source base of the research was made up of the author’s field materials collected during complex expeditions from 1999 to 2019, as well as lexical and phraseological materials extracted from the dictionaries of the Tuvan language, from the works of ethnographers and linguists. Results. Based on the research, the author comes to the conclusion that the vocabulary of the birth rite consists of several actions: bozhuduushkun ‘receiving birth’, urug hini Kezer ‘circumcision of the umbilical cord of the child’, aryglaashkyn ‘purification’, urug chuur ‘bathing the child’, urug syrtyy shygzhaar ‘burial of the child’s afterbirth’. A significant part of the vocabulary of birth rites in the Tuvan language is actually Tuvan words with a common Turkic basis or phraseological units. Concepts related to the birth ceremony are passed euphemisms to protect the mother and protect the child from evil spirits or “evil eye”. The meanings of some words associated with birth rites have been narrowed or expanded.

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