LINGUOCULTURAL INTERPRETATION OF SOIL SCIENCE TERMS IN UZBEK PROVERBS AND IDIOMS: A LINGUISTIC MODEL OF FOLK AGRO-ECOLOGICAL THINKING

The article examines, from a linguocultural perspective, soil-science lexemes used in Uzbek folk proverbs and phraseological units: yer (land, earth), tuproq (soil), loy (mud), gil (clay), qum (sand), sho‘r (salt, saline), kesak (clod), chang (dust), shudgor (ploughed fallow), go‘ng (manure), qo‘riq (virgin land) and taqir (takyr). These units within paremias are classified into agrotechnical-pragmatic, axiological, anthropocosmic, moral-didactic and ecological-warning groups. By comparing folk agricultural experience with the concepts of scientific soil science (fertility, salinization, erosion, soil structure), the study substantiates the existence of a distinctive linguistic model of “folk soil science” in the paremiological fund. The mechanism by which the lexeme sho‘r shifts from denoting a soil property to expressing human fate is revealed, as is the status of the lexeme tuproq as a cultural code of the cycle of life and death.