Abstract
The authors analyze mythical information about the content of hydronyms in onomastic discourse. The article’s aim is to identify mythical information in the content of hydronyms of the Kazakh language, to determine their continuity with other onomastic names. The article’s scientific significance lies in the fact that it studies the discursive and mythological aspect of hydronyms, determines the magical nature of the words contained in them (words “white” and “black”), differentiation of the concepts of “Zher-Su (Earth-Water)” “mistress of water - Umai ana (Umai-mother), Sutkol (milk lake), the master of the lake - Kok buka (Blue bull) in the common Turkic myths, systematisation of mythical knowledge preserved in the meaning of the named hydronyms. The practical significance is explained by providing a model for analysing the mythical content of hydronyms. The methods of discourse analysis, analysis of meaning and etymology of the word were used in the course of the research. The research work’smain results are that the origin of the Turkic names Umai-ana, Mai-ana, Ot ene, Umaiyk and Bai-azhe are variations of the same homonym, Umai/Umaiyk/Mai/Bai/Ot ene/, which constitute “five mothers-in-laws”, and that their semantic fields and scope have been expanded. Value of the research: analyzing the content of 10 hydronyms in the study systematized the mythical knowledge preserved in their meanings: water is connected with all three worlds: water -God (Umai lives in the mountains // heavenly world), water - connection of two worlds (living and dead) or the border of two worlds: after forty days from the birthday the infant is bathed in water consisting of forty spoonfuls, he is categorized as a person; wash a corpse when he’s carried to his last journey, containing the mythical knowledge “to die-water-to resurrect”. The work’s conclusion can be used for practical purposes for research on onomastics, mythology.