Letters of Khan Ayuka and Their Russian Translations: Revisiting Religious Terms
https://doi.org/10.22162/2619-0990-2023-68-4-948-956
Abstract
Introduction. Religious vocabulary is a means to express a special view of the world, a special value system. Goals. The work aims to identify some specific patterns in the functioning of religionyms in seventeenth-eighteenth century Kalmyk official letters and their Russian translations. Materials and methods. The article examines a total of seventy nine letters by the Kalmyk Khan Ayuka for the years 1685 to 1715 — and their parallel Russian translations. The original texts are housed by the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts and the National Archive of Kalmykia. Results. The analysis of religious vocabulary reveals certain differences in linguistic worldviews articulated by representatives of different religions. The texts contain religionyms associated with Buddhism (in Kalmyk letters), Orthodox Christianity (in Russian translations), and Islam (single mentions in Kalmyk letters and their Russian translations). In most cases, religionyms act as an important tool of diplomatic etiquette. Our comparison of the original texts and their translations made it possible to identify some semantic extensions pertaining to Kalmyk religion-related toponyms — names of places of pilgrimage, while there are almost no traces of Buddhist terms in Russian translations, which may be explained by differing religious ideas and concepts.
Keywords
Kalmyk official letters of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
Russian translations,
religious terms,
Buddhism,
Orthodox Christianity
Supporting agencies: The reported study was funded by government subsidy, project no. 123021300198-4 ‘Universals and Specifics of the Traditions of the Mongolian-Speaking Peoples through the Prism of Cross-Cultural Contacts and the System of Relations between Russia, Mongolia and China’.
About the Author
Galina M. Yarmarkina
Kalmyk Scientific Center of the RAS (8, Ilishkin St., 358000 Elista, Russian Federation)
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Cand. Sc. (Philology), Senior Research Associate, Scientific Secretary
References
1. National Archive of the Republic of Kalmykia.
2. Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts.
3. Azarov A. A. Russian-English Dictionary of Religious Terms. Moscow: RUSSO, 2002. 768 p. (In Russ. and Eng.)
4. Badgaev N. B. Religious lexis in the Kalmyk heroic epic Dzhangar. Oriental Studies. 2014. Vol. 7. No. 4. Pp. 113–118. (In Russ.)
5. Bogatova G. A. et al. (comps.) A Dictionary of Eleventh-to-Seventeenth Century Russian. Vol. 9: M. Deryagin, O. Malkova (eds.). Moscow: Nauka, 1982. 357 p. (In Russ.)
6. Boldyreva I., Alimaa A. M. Tales of Jijeten’s Pilgrimage Tibet: a Comparative Analysis of Multi-Temporal Recordings. Mongolian Studies. 2019. No. 2. Pp. 287–321. DOI: 10.22162/2500-1523-2019-2-287-321. (In Russ.)
7. Budazhapova L. B. Buddhist Terms in Modern Buryat. Cand. Sc. (philology) thesis. Ulan-Ude, 2000. 148 p. (In Russ.)
8. Dondokova D. D. Vocabulary of Buryat Spiritual Culture. Cand. Sc. (philology) thesis. Ulan-Ude, 2001. 187 p. (In Russ.)
9. Khafizova Z. R. Thematic classification of religious lexemes in the Bashkir language. Bulletin of Bashkir University. 2018. Vol. 23. No. 1. Pp. 206–209. (In Russ.)
10. Mechkovskaya N. B. Language and Religion. Coursebook. Moscow: FAIR, 1998. 352 p. (In Russ.)
11. Mirkhaev R. F., Gumerov I. G. Tatar Religious and Linguistic Views of the World: The Evolution of Cultural and Spiritual Values. Kazan: Institute of Language, Literature and History, 2017. 120 p. (In Russ.)
12. Mulaeva N. M., Bachaeva S. E. Outdated words and word combinations in the Kalmyk language (On a material of the novel of A. Badmaev «Arnzlyn Gűűdl»). Mongolian Studies. 2011. Vol. 5. No. 1. Pp. 193–198. (In Russ.)
13. Ochirova N. Ch. Typology of religious lexicon in the Kalmuck artistic text (On material of K. Erendzhenov’s prose). Bulletin of Kalmyk University. 2012. No. 4 (16). Pp. 90–94. (In Russ.)
14. Omakaeva E. U. Kalmyk tales of Geser: [Revisiting] some Buddhist motifs and terms. In: Geseriad — Spiritual Heritage of Central Asian Peoples. Conference theses. Ulan-Ude: Buryat Scientific Center (SB RAS), 1995. Pp. 135–136. (In Russ.)
15. Patyukova R. V. Religious lexics as integral component of Russian monarchs’ spiritual testaments of 14–16 centuries: Diachronic aspect. Theory and Practice of Social Development. 2010. No. 4. Pp. 298–301. (In Russ.)
16. Ramstedt G. J. Kalmückisches Wörterbuch. Helsinki: Finno-Ugric Society, 1935. 560 p. (In Germ.)
17. Rassadin V. I., Trofimova S. M., Bold L. Turkic-Mongolian parallels among the terms of spiritual culture in Mongolian languages. Siberian Journal of Philology. 2018. No. 3. Pp. 222–231. (In Russ.)
18. Sklyarevskaya G. N. Modern Russian Vocabulary of Orthodox Christianity: A Comprehensive Explanatory Dictionary. St. Petersburg: Kontrast, 2016. 684 p. (In Russ.)
19. Sklyarevskaya G. N. The vocabulary of Orthodoxy in modern Russian: An experience of lexicological analysis and lexicographical description. Vestnik NSU. Series: History and Philology. 2012. Vol. 11. No. 9: Philology. Pp. 36–40. (In Russ.)
20. Timofeev K. A. Russian Religious Vocabulary as Manifested Christian Worldview. Coursebook. Novosibirsk: Novosibirsk State University, 2001. 88 p. (In Russ.)
21. Yakimov P. A. About essence of concept ‘religious vocabulary’ in modern linguistics. Vestnik of the Orenburg State University. 2011. No. 11(130). Pp. 74–76. (In Russ.)
22. Yarmarkina G. M. Etiquette formulas as ethnolinguistic components of original and translated 18th century Kalmyk official texts: A case study of letters by Khan Ayuka and related Russian translations, 1714–1715. Oriental Studies. 2021. Vol. 14. No. 5. Pp. 1102–1110. DOI: 10.22162/2619-0990-2021-57-5-1102-1110. (In Russ.)
23. Yarmarkina G. M. Translation strategies for 18th–century Kalmyk official texts: A case study of Khan Ayuka’s letters and Russian translations of 1714. Oriental Studies. 2019. Vol. 12. No. 6. Pp. 1188–1197. DOI: 10.22162/2619-0990-2019-46-6-1189-1198. (In Russ.)
Review
For citations:
Yarmarkina G.M. Letters of Khan Ayuka and Their Russian Translations: Revisiting Religious Terms. Oriental Studies. 2023;16(4):948-956. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.22162/2619-0990-2023-68-4-948-956
Views:
218
Email this article 