Наименования игры типа Snow Snake (нырок) в уральских языках
Designations of Games of the Type Snow Snake in Uralic Languages

Summary/Abstract: Snow Snake is a general designation for a class of games in which darts or javelins are hurled along snow or ice in a competition to see whose dart will go the farthest. From a global perspective, this antique winter game is most common among the natives of North America and the Uralic peoples. Based on ethnographic and linguistic sources, the area of the game in Northern Eurasia is mapped. It is found among almost all Uralic peoples of the Russian Federation and is known to Russians and the Teleuts (a Turkic-speaking people of Western Siberia). The paper also deals with the vocabulary of the snow snake game in the Uralic languages (Nenets, Khanty, Mansi, Sámi, Karelian, Udmurt, Komi, Mari), primarily from the point of view of etymology. It is dominated by native Proto-Uralic words. Interestingly, in these languages (except for Khanty), the designations of the game include words derived from Proto-Uralic * ńęle (*ńōle) ’arrow’. Ethnographic and linguistic evidence suggests the Proto-Uralic origin of the game with an icy stick.

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