PERTANIKA JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

This article examines the colour symbolism of space (the four cardinal directions) in the Turkic languages. The ancient Turks used colourative vocabulary to refer to the four cardinal directions. In studies on Turkology, it is claimed that each ‘corner’ has its colour. In this article, the authors set the task to determine the colour symbolism of the ‘kindik-centre.’ The article uses a mytholinguistic reading of the sign ‘circle with the point inside.’ This sign in modern Kazakh mythology is used in the reconstruction of images and to explain the symbolic meaning of words. The main research material is the colourative vocabulary of the Turkic languages. In the traditions and cultures of different peoples, along with the four sides of the world, there is a concept of a centre that unites these sides. In some peoples, the centre is symbolised by colour, while in the Turkic peoples, this symbolism is absent. However, as a result of the analysis of linguistic, ethnographic and mythological data, the authors concluded that the colour of the centre of qoŋur is brown.

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