Lexical groups of euphemisms denoting the names of animals in the Yakut and Altai languages

Currently, one of the urgent tasks of the modern policy of the Russian Federation is the preservation and development of the native languages of the peoples of the country. Taboo dialect vocabulary, euphemisms are one of the interesting and widely unexplored areas of the Yakut and Altai languages, and therefore relevant for research. Also, the study of euphemisms based on the material of the Yakut and Altai languages is one of the ways to identify their similarities and differences in the field of culture and linguistics. The purpose of this study is to study the lexical features of euphemisms denoting the names of animals in the Yakut and Altai languages. To achieve this goal, the following tasks are solved: to investigate the history of the study of euphemisms in the Yakut and Altai languages; to collect euphemisms of the Yakut and Altai languages from lexicographic sources; to classify the collected euphemisms by semantic fields; to consider the lexical features of euphemisms. The following lexical and semantic groups of euphemistic names of animals in the Yakut and Altai languages are distinguished: by habitat and lifestyle of animals; by appearance, color and distinctive feature of the beast; substitution of the name of animals with the term of kinship; names characterizing the animal on the basis of strength, power; respectful treatment; borrowed words; the lexeme “beast”; pronominal names; names based on a characteristic functional feature; onomatopoeic words; names based on age and gender properties. This study uses a set of methods: comparative, descriptive, structural and quantitative methods. The scientific novelty of the work consists in the fact that the issues of comparative analysis of euphemisms denoting the names of animals in the Yakut and Altai languages were not the subject of special study. Theoretical and practical significance of the research: the results of the work can be used for comparative studies of euphemisms in Turkic linguistics, and can also be applied in teaching vocabulary in educational institutions.