Original and Borrowed Verbs Indicating the Encounter with the Souls of the Dead in the Komi-Permyak Language

This article analyzes the Komi-Permyak ideas about the souls of the dead and their implementation in oral narratives, the use of Russian borrowings in the Komi-Permyak language. We have used the method of contextual analysis, which aims to describe linguistic features that reflect the links between the language and the culture of the Komi-Permyaks. The Komi adhere to the idea that man has two sous – lov and ort. The first is the inner soul, the soul breath that leaves the body at the time of death, the second is the outer soul, the shadow, the doppelganger of a person that can become visible before death. Modern Komi-Permyaks do not distinguish between two forms of the soul, although there are still stories about various harbingers of death, including doppelgangers. In addition to the original word ort, the word urös has also survived in various dialects: Among the Komi-Izhma, this word refers to a figure close to the ort; among the Kochevo Komi-Permyaks, it is used in texts about harbingers of death; among the Russified Onkovites, it is a spirit that appears before death. The soul of the deceased remains in the house until day 40 (six weeks). It manifests itself in various sounds, and the Komi-Permyak language has a developed system of onomatopoeic words. In addition, there are also Russian loan verbs meaning 'to imagine, to wonder' blaznite, verzhitchyny, versishchyny, vӧrzhitchyny, prikashaytchyny, as well as the original verb kazmö́tchyny 'to remember, to make oneself known'. The main reason for borrowing this group of verbs from the Komi-Permyak language is obviously their abstract character, the abstraction from concrete manifestations (mostly sound), which describe the appearance of the souls of the dead in the Komi-Permyak language.

Komi-Permyak language, ort soul, lov soul, onomatopoeia, imagining things