“Demonological” root čert- and hiisi- in Russian toponymy of the Russian North and the Republic of Karelia
The paper presents a comparative study of “demonological” root čert- and hiisi- in the currently used Russian toponymy of the Russian North (Arkhangelsk, Vologda regions, the surrounding areas of Yaroslavl, Kostroma regions), and the Republic of Karelia. In the toponymy of Russian origin, the most f...
| Published in: | Linguistica |
|---|---|
| Main Authors: | , , |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | Russian |
| Published: |
Založba Univerze v Ljubljani / University of Ljubljana Press
2015
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.uni-lj.si/linguistica/article/view/6310 https://doi.org/10.4312/linguistica.55.1.187-205 |
| Summary: | The paper presents a comparative study of “demonological” root čert- and hiisi- in the currently used Russian toponymy of the Russian North (Arkhangelsk, Vologda regions, the surrounding areas of Yaroslavl, Kostroma regions), and the Republic of Karelia. In the toponymy of Russian origin, the most frequent names are toponyms with the root čert- (80 % of “demonological” names), which continue Proto-Slavic *čьrt-. The places named using čert- have a number of common features: often these are places with a negative relief, usually filled with water (names of water objects dominate in this type); the economic exploitation of čert- places is either impossible or extremely difficult. The popularity of the root čert- in toponymy is also supported by the use of *čьrtež ‘cleared arable land’, and may be associated with the archaic tradition of the perception of a place in relation to the “spirit of the place”. There are certain factors which caused an increase of čert- toponyms: “landscape” (their number increases in the areas rich with swamps, rapid rivers, dense forests etc.); agricultural activity; a significant number of churches and monasteries. Factors mitigating the productivity of čert- toponyms are: hunting activity; the onomastic tradition of contact languages (e.g., low productivity of the corresponding word in Komi); linguistic taboos. In Finnic toponymy the corresponding root is hiisi-/hiite-, which can be traced back to *hiite. The popularity of the root in toponymy is connected with the semantics that originally included a “local” component. Hiisi was originally used for a pagan cemetery located on a hill, with a large conspicuous stone in the centre. Gradually the word came to mean a grove which developed on the site of the cemetery. With the spread of Christianity in the eastern dialects, the word acquired the meaning ‘devil’. The most likely source of the model in the substrate toponymy of the Russian North is the Karelian tradition. In the toponymy of Karelian Priladozhye, this root is used to denote ... |
|---|