Saule Tazhibayeva, Irina Nevskaya and Sholpan Zharkynbekova
Expression of evidentiality in supranatural and liminal contexts in Kazakh and Shor in a comparative perspective
67th Annual Meeting of the PIAC, Gotemba 2025
The category of evidentiality had attracted the attention of linguists long ago, but it was given especially much attention in the second half of the 20th century. Nowadays, its morphosyntactic description has to be complemented by ethnolinguistic approaches taking into consideration the worldview of the speakers of a language that has developed this grammatical category.
The proposed lecture investigates the use of evidential language forms and their semantics in supranatural and liminal contexts in folklore, mythology, and religious discourse (e.g. in divinations, shamanic revelations, stories and accounts of encounters with spirits and ancestors, myths and epics) in Kazakh and Shor. Evidentiality plays a crucial role in distinguishing between personal experience, second-hand knowledge, and supranatural revelations. The abovementioned contexts reflect uncommon and not-so-straightforward information sources. The ways supranatural and liminal events are described often depend on whether the speaker claims direct experience, heard it from others, or refers to sacred texts.
The Kazakhs and Shors are Turkic peoples having common roots of their traditional cultures and languages. At the same time, they have been divided for centuries geographically, and have undergone different cultural and religious influences. The Kazakhs are Moslems while the Shors have adopted Christianity although both ethnicities have also preserved shamanist traditions and rituals.
The Kazakh material for linguistic analysis is primarily based on the manuscript of Bekasyl Bibolatuly, called also Bekasyl Aulie (Saint Bekasyl) (1822–1915) who was a theologian, astrologer, astronomer, mathematician, philosopher, and healer. His manuscripts, written in Arabic and Persian, were first published in the 2010s. His revelations and prophecies, as well as mythical and liminal contexts in Koran translations into Kazakh and texts in different genres of the Kazakh folklore will be described here in respect to the use of evidential forms.
The Shor language material will include Shor translations of the Bible, Shor epic poems and other genres of the folklore including shaman divinations. We aim at comparing the use of evidential morphological means in Kazakh and Shor, both all-Turkic and language specific ones, often licensed by the traditional views of the Kazakh and Shor people. We strive to delineate common principles of using forms of direct and indirect evidentiality in supranatural and liminal contexts.