Russian Dialects as a Resource for Finniс Historical Lexicology

• Published in: Izvestia of the Ural federal university. Series 2. Humanities and Arts
• Main Author: Irma Ivanovna Mullonen
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Russian
• Published: Ural Federal University Press 2021
• Subjects: русские диалекты; прибалтийско-финские языки; вепсский язык; карельский язык; лексика; этимология; языковые контакты; субстрат; History (General) and history of Europe; D; Language and Literature; P; karelian; vepsian; Вепсский язык; Карельский язык
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.15826/izv2.2021.23.3.055; https://doaj.org/article/508ace8472034df7974e09fe0cbdc2b2

This article proposes a reconstruction of a number of Vepsian and Ludic Karelian derivatives of lexemes, referring to the dialectal vocabulary of the Russian dialects of Obonezhye region. Having been lost from the aforementioned Finnic languages due to the Russification of the population living along the transit waterways used for the development of Obonezhye region since the time of Veliky Novgorod, they have survived as substratum or borrowed units in geographically adjacent Russian dialects. Vepsian and Karelian language data are traditionally used for the etymological interpretation of the Russian dialect lexicon. The reverse approach, i.e. the involvement of Russian dialects as a resource for Finnic etymological studies has not been widely used. When reconstructing, it is important to consider such parameters as the area of the Russian word, aiming at a well-defined Finnic language etymon; patterns of phonetic substitution and adaptation of specific Finnic sounds and sound combinations into Russian dialects; the existence of a word and its semantics in related languages. Additional opportunities are provided by the use of toponymic data due to the massive character and good preservation of toponyms. The article reconstructs several Vepsian and Ludic derived lexemes which have not been recorded in dictionaries or other sources. Among them, there are lexemes with suffixes -(e)k and -(e)h (*katek ‘thin ice’, *torek ‘noise, crackling, rumbling’, *čapek ‘overgrown undercut’, räbeh ‘damp low place in the forest’), Vepsian verbal name *kütm * kütkim ‘leash for cattle’ with the -im suffix, Ludic term *hörpäk ‘stake with branches for drying hay’ with the suffix -äk and Vepsian landscape term *pugend ~ *pugond ‘swift with a narrow bed on the river’, in which the suffix -nd ( -nto) is embodied. The source of Russian dialectal data is the monumental publication Russian Dialect Etymological Dictionary. Vocabulary of Contact Regions (2019) prepared by S. А. Myznikov. A lot of work was done in it to find Finnic roots for ...