NORTHERN RUSSIAN WEDDING VOCABULARY:
ETYMOLOGICAL AND ETHNOLINGUISTIC NOTES Cover Image

ИЗ СЕВЕРНОРУССКОЙ ЛЕКСИКИ СВАДЕБНОГО ОБРЯДА: ЭТИМОЛОГО-ЭТНОЛИНГВИСТИЧЕСКИЕ ЗАМЕТКИ
NORTHERN RUSSIAN WEDDING VOCABULARY: ETYMOLOGICAL AND ETHNOLINGUISTIC NOTES

Author(s): Elena L. Berezovich
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies
Published by: Петрозаводский государственный университет
Keywords: northern Russian dialects; wedding; wedding vocabulary; semantic reconstruction; etymology; ethnolinguistics

Summary/Abstract: The article considers some lexical units of northern Russian wedding ceremonies, recorded by Ural University Toponymic Expeditionto the Vologda and Kostroma regions – i. e. Kostroma word tozminy, used as the name of one of the wedding feasts (and figurativelymeaning social gatherings with feasts during other family ceremonies), as well as Vologda words chikali and sorokachi, Vologda andKostroma word sychi, and Kostroma words sukhontsy, galki and galchata, used as the names of uninvited guests who appeared at thewedding feast on their own will, without an invitation from the hosts. In the article these words are put in the broad context of dialectwedding vocabulary, vocabulary of folk celebrations and visitations, as well as non-verbal components of traditional wedding andhospitality culture. Based on these data and taking into account linguistic and phonetic characteristics, the author offers etymologicalinterpretations for “dark” words or corrects solutions previously offered in academic literature. Presented linguistic commentarydeepens the reading of the entire wedding ceremony “text”: clarifying the internal form of the analyzed words restores the originalrole-playing frames, within which uninvited, but still expected guests are allowed to behave; as well as reconstructs the connectionsof certain northern Russian lexemes with symbolic wedding codes, thoroughly elaborated in the Slavic folk culture.

  • Issue Year: 2018
  • Issue No: 6 (175)
  • Page Range: 60-68
  • Page Count: 9
  • Language: Russian