Caucasian Xenoglossary in Modern Russian and Image of “Caucasian World”

Abstract

The Caucasus has always been of interest for Russia. Russian-Caucasian contacts are being studied in political, economic, religious and social aspects. But linguistic horizon has not got enough treatment. The Caucasian loanwords in Russian are examined as a specific semantic field – xenoglossary. The method of intentional analysis is used for its highlighting. Хenoglossary is a lexical corpus borrowed from a definite cultural area. Dictionaries of contemporary Russian language are used as a sample. All lexicon is topically divided in household, military and gastronomic spheres. Only last one has nowadays actual usage. Such situation could be explained by different ways of the Russian-Caucasian cultural contact history. The war was a form of contact with Muslim Adyghe people (Circassians). So, this can explain the borrowed military glossary from the Abkhazo-Adyghean languages into Russian. And vice versa, Georgia was annexed to the Russian Empire in peace. Borrowed Kartvelian glossary is the consequence of that fact. It is stated that the borrowing process is still in progress. The main sources of loanwords are Northwest and South Caucasian languages. It is argued that the Caucasian loanwords are being assimilated. The Caucasian loanwords reflect the objects of culture, not natural ones. The loanwords passed in Russian orally and have low usage frequency. Stylistically, these words are neutral. It indicates the fact of axiological equivalence of “Caucasian” and “Russian” cultural areas in Russian language imagination. Penetration of some Caucasian lexemes in other Slavic languages are occurred by means of Russian. Caucasian borrowings have very limited spread in West European languages. Keywords: Caucasian loanwords, Caucasian languages, xenoglossary, semantic field, language contacts