On the ethno-cultural specificity of color names: Kazakh ⱪonyr ‘brown’ vs. Polish brązowy ‘brown’

The article is based on an assumption of anthropological linguistics, in particular the biocultural theory of meaning (J. Zlatev), that the semantic system of language is determined by a combination of external factors, including environmental determinism. The need to adapt the cognitive system to the environment and geophysical conditions of existence of human groups leads to the fact that cultural worldviews and the corresponding semantic systems of languages differ. The authors consider the relative and culturally variable nature of colour terms using the example of the adjective ⱪonyr in the Kazakh language and its lexical equivalent in the Polish language. The article shows that the presence of a large number of precedent phenomena of the brown colour among Kazakhs is manifested in a more intense functionality of this colour name in the Kazakh language. This concerns several aspects: high frequency, intensive polysemy, phraseology and connotations. To illustrate this, the authors provide language material from various sources, including national corpora of the Kazakh and Polish languages.