On the semantics of the number 40 in the culture of turkic peoples

Abstract

Fairy­tales,legends, rituals of turkic peoples where the number 40 is met are analysed in the article. This number is used in a lot of legends about 40 heroes in the role of whom there often appear girls. Rivers, mountains, castles are named after “forty girls”, these places are often turned into pirs. Stable honouring of “forty girls,” their ties with sacred places, inluencing upon fertility makes it possible to suppose that they were women deities in the past. In connection with the change of mother s kin into father s one, as well as the change of Gods sex following it, goddesses “gyrkh gyz”, chiltans have lost their divine status preserved in legends only as sacral legendary ighters and pious women.