История освоения карельского Поморья (в свете языковых данных)
On the Historical Settlement of the Karelian Littoral of the White Sea (based on linguistic data)

Summary/Abstract: The article focuses on the toponymy of the western coast of the White Sea. ­Linguistic analysis allows us to conclude that for many centuries the territory has been an area of interethnic communication, traces of which can still be seen in the language and toponymy of the present-day population of the area. The article shows that on the White Sea coast Finnic place names occur side by side with Russian toponymy, which was formed first by Novgorod and then by Moscow colonizations. A number of linguistic facts prove that the south-western coast of the White Sea was an important transport junction of water and portage ways, which were developed by Finnic population as well as by Russian settlers who were in close relations with the local Sami population. The linguistic data also proves that Slavic population settled down nearby the territory which had already been developed by representatives of the Finno-Ugric language family. In the author’s opinion, this is also evidenced by a large number of place names of non-Russian origin as well as by hybrid toponyms in the toponymy of the region.

• Details
• Contents