Slavisms in Lithuanian Dialect Dictionaries Cover Image

Славянизмы в литовских диалектных словарях
Slavisms in Lithuanian Dialect Dictionaries

Author(s): Vilija Sakalauskiene
Subject(s): Comparative Linguistics, Sociolinguistics, Baltic Languages
Published by: Instytut Slawistyki Polskiej Akademii Nauk
Keywords: lexis; dialect dictionary; Lithuanian dialects; loanwords; slavism

Summary/Abstract: "This arcticle discusses dialect dictionaries where words are recorded either from living language or from other, written sources of dialect. Up to now, ten Lithuanian dialect dictioniaries have been published and five are being compiled. Dialect changes along with our everyday life. A lot of words from the old dialect are being forgotten. Those words are no longer being used in the common language as well as in other dialects. In addition, some words gain new meanings. The same processes apply to loanwords which are used in dialects and are included in dialect dictionaries. Thee lexical system of a dialect dictionary shows the functioning of loanwords and their relationship with the words of the common language. The majority of Lithuanian loanwords are Slavisms, used in those dialects which have had a direct contact with Slavic languages, such as Polish, Belarusian or Russian. Slavisms and loanwords from other languages are marked variously in different dictionaries. In one of them, shortened language names are written in parentheses after the entry, which indicates that it is a word of foreign origin. Other dictionaries simply indicate Slavisms or additionally present the foreign equivalent from which they originate.

  • Issue Year: 2015
  • Issue No: 39
  • Page Range: 143-158
  • Page Count: 16
  • Language: Russian