COLORS IN RUSSIAN FOLKTALES Anna Rafaeva

Russian Folktales and the Project “SKAZKA” The aim of the research is to describe Russian tales of magic as a whole system with the main subsystems: – Plot system; – Motives system; – Character system; – Loci system; – …and others (numbers, colors, feelings). Tools: some programs, DB of Russian folktales, dictionaries, visualization, graph and string mathematics.

Step 1: automated search for keywords in dictionaries

Data and Program Tools Dictionaries: of Dal’, Ozhegov, Ushakov, Small Academic Dictionary (MAC), Zaliznjak to compare Texts: Afanasiev Program tools from SKAZKA and open source: – Full-text search; – Making concordances; – Program to deal with graphs (ProSeCa); – Open source package GraphViz to deal with graphs and visual represent the results

Full Search in Dictionaries and the Rules The aim of this part of the work is to: – Select keywords to be searched in folktales; – Automate the process; – Find and visualize rules to see the semantic area in different dictionaries, i.e., dictionary articles

Some graphs for the words: аленький, алый, красный, золотой, багровый, каурый, рыжий, желтый

Rules for Dal’ Dictionary

Rules for Ozhegov’s Dictionary

Rules for МАС

Results of the Step 1 More than 400 words and expressions were selected to be used as keywords

Step 2: “raw” results

Colors: > 10

Colors: < 10

Step 3: manual processing

We have to distinguish color semantics from the other cases of usage of the same keywords. For example, красна девица (literally *read girl) means beautiful girl, золотой (gold) represents color, material and money, green may mean young or be used in expression зелено вино

Frequency after manual processing Золотой, белый, красный, серебряный, серый, синий, зеленый, черный, сивый, вороной, каурый, бурый, алый, седой, сизый, рыжий, голубой, желтый, багровый, червонный, лазоревый, изумрудный. Gold, white, red, silver, grey, dark blue, green, black, (grey), (black), (brown), light red, (grey), (grey with blue), (red, like in red-headed), light blue, (between red and purple), (red), (blue), (emerald)

Step 4: interpretation

Compartibility Золотой (golden) Серебряный (silver) Gold and silver objects are often magic! Белый (white) Черный (black)

Compatibility of White Snow Salt (described as white sand); Human body and body parts (face, hand, neck), including bones; Animals, frequently domestic animals, and birds; Animal body and body parts, including bones бил коня по крутым бедрам, просекал мясо до белых костей; Old aged person; Plants (tree, flowers, berries); Clothes; Textiles and textile artefacts; Other artefacts ; Buildings (in the forms белокаменный (of white stone), and беломраморные (of white marble)): As part of the character’s name (царь Бел-Белянин, Белый Полянин)

Compatibility of Black Cloud ; Human body (rare) and body parts (hair, eyebrows, eyes; black blood is the sigh of hero’s death); Anthropomorphic being (night, morning and so on) Animals and birds (for horses the lexeme вороной is used); Plants (tree, flowers, berries); Forest; Clothes, bad clothes; Textiles and textile artefacts; Other artefacts: seal

Compatibility of Red Human body (rare) and body parts: hair (рыжий- красный), nose; Animals and fishes: horse, bull, eyes of the animal or fish; Plants: berries; Clothes, good and beautiful, but not magic or “king’s”, clothes; Shoes; Textiles and textile artefacts; Other artefacts: paint. Not red, but light red (алый): blood, flower

Three Color Subsystems “Main”, most frequent colors with wide compatibility: (gold, silver and copper), black, white, red, (blue, green, yellow) Colors of the animals and their lexical representation: black, grey, brown седой, рыжий, сивый, бурый, вороной, сизый, каурый Colors and lexical representation of “beauty” (red, blue, green, gold and silver) алый, багровый, изумрудный, голубой, лазоревый, …

Tales of Magic and Animal Tales Colors in animal tales: grey, brown, black and white, a bit of red and gold: (серый заяц, серый кот, серый волк, сиволапый медведь, белый волк, петушок золотой гребешок, лиса в золотом гнезде, красные глаза, лисица – желтая княгиня)

What is colored in the tales? Buildings (especially in the magic or other world) Artefacts Some “naturfacts”: landscapes (sea, mountains); plants, stones, sand, snow Clothes All kinds of magic objects Animals (with the special lexica for them) Some parts of human body “Beauty”

Thank you for your attention!