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Plenary Speeches
Time Differences in Kazakhian and German
Bachyt Spikbajeva (Almaty)
The Words and Word Combinations, which have expressed the idea of time, have represented objective reality. Thus the Kasakh way of living as a nomadic people has influenced the idea of time, as the following examples demonstrate:
- bie bailar kez - the time when one milks the mares.
- Mamyr - (mal örgende), the time when the livestock is brought to the grazing pasture.
- August - (kusem schak) - the time when the sheep are brought for shearing
These words and word combinations exist in all languages, and they are closely connected to the way of living, with the ethnography and with the traditions and customs of each group of people.
One can thus divide the concept of time into five smaller thematic groups:
- With help of the planets
- With help of food and movement of the parts of the body
- With help of the concepts of breeding livestock
- With help of religious concepts
- With help of the seasons and the phases of day and night.
Especially often are the planets and the stars used to express time: Sirius, the Pleiades, the big bear, Venus, the moon, the sun.
People have passed on from generation to generation their knowledge of astronomy, when and from which side the planets and stars rise, in which direction they move and in which direction they set. One can tell the season of the year by the stars, can determine the time of night. This has helped the Kazakhs to begin their farm work or to have their sheep sheared or to determine the beginning of the grazing period in the steppes and in the mountains. For that reason there are very many folk songs, proverbs, etc. about the planets.
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