The Phenomenon of “Blue-Green” Animals in the Yakut Language: Origin and Semantics

It is of interest for many linguists that in some languages animal coloration is described by colour terms that seem unusual at first glance, e.g. zelen konj in Serbian, голубой песец in Russian and blue fox in English, as there are no green horses or blue arctic foxes in nature. This issue is also relevant for the Yakut language, where not only horses (күөх бороҥ ат) and arctic foxes (күөх кырса) are associated with the blue-green colour through the colour term күөх ‘blue/green’, but also wolves (күөх бөрө), bulls/cows (күөх оҕус/ынах), squirrels (күөх тииҥ) and, presumably, the Yakut “green fox” (саһыл ‘fox’ < Old Turkic jašїl ‘green’). In order to explain the phenomenon, the author examined these lexical units using various linguistic research methods (lexicographic, component, cognitive and etymological analyses) and correlated them with objects of reality in synchrony and diachrony. Preliminary results demonstrate that in the cases under consideration, the Yakut colour term күөх expresses not a solid blue/green colour, but rather a grey shade of a complex, uneven coloration, which can be explained etymologically as a result of the complex semantic evolution of the syncretic Proto-Turkic *gȫk ‘sky; any colour of the sky; green, light blue, blue, blue-grey’. When it comes to the Yakut fox, it is probably “green” due to the fading of the green colour (light green – yellow-green – yellow – yellow-grey), similar to the colour of withered grass when animal fur is compared to grass.