PECULIARITIES OF VERSE IN T. V. ZAKHAROV – CHAABIY “ALA-BULKUN” OLONKHO

Abstract

The article considers peculiarities of the verse in “Ala-Bulkun” Olonkho by a famous Yakut olonkhosut Timofey Zakharov – Chaabiy. This text is one of the first written texts of the epic of the Yakut people. The history of recording and publication of the olonkho text are given at the beginning of the article, as well as the information about the person who wrote it down and about the narrator himself.

“Ala-Bulkun” consists of two parts, with the total length of the olonkho at 9,097 lines. This epic is an interesting material for the verse analysis; it has a number of features, thus attracting attention of poets.

The text of the Chaabiy’s olonkho was studied with a special technique developed by Professor N. N. Toburokov. A thorough analysis was applied to the rhythm, alliteration and the rhyme. The part of the epic, which is read in recitative, is studied. We believe that the olonkho recitative is very important for the origins of the Yakut versification system.

The analysis of the olonkho vocabulary shows the usage of monosyllabic, disyllabic, disyllabic, and four syllabic words.

The article discusses the sound organization of the “Ala-Bulkun” olonkho. The study showed that the following Yakut consonants are most often used for initial alliteration: K – 22%, T – 10%, X – 9% , C – 8%; and the following vowels: A – 20%, Y – 15%, У – 7%, O – 6%.

Thus, the olonkho is dominated by 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 syllable lines, also there are 12, even 15-17 syllable lines; 5 and 6 syllable lines were used less than in other olonkho, only 5 and 9 versions. The peculiarity of the “Ala-Bulkun” olonkho is long poems: 9 syllabic – 34 versions, 10 syllabic – 40 versions, 11 syllabic – 51 versions, 12 syllabic – 48 variants, 13 syllabic – 58 variants, 14 syllabic – 39 variants, there are many 15, 16, 17 syllabic ones; the initial alliteration is used in “Ala-Bulkun” – 41% of the lines; 57% of the lines of the olonkho is rhymed. Almost all the rhymes are phonomorphological, they consist of exact coincidence of words’ sounds of the same part of speech, or they have the same consonants with only different vowels. There are a lot of samples of the tautological rhyme, verbal rhymes, rhymes with morphemes denoting the belonging of one object to another. Rarely, but there are rhyme-echoes, rhyme with truncation or with the addition of sounds; the language of the olonkho reproduces well the peculiarities of the Yakut speech of the late 19th century, its grammar, syntax, phonetics, all the expressive means are fully preserved: comparisons, epithets, metaphors, figures of speech.

The article is timed to the forthcoming jubilee, the 150th anniversary of the olonkhosut T. Zakharov – Chaabiy.

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