CHUVASH SUBSTRATE OF CHEBOKSARY REGIONAL DIALECT OF RUSSIAN

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the peculiarities of the Russian colloquial speech of the inhabitants of Cheboksary, the capital city of the Chuvash Republic, Russia. It is believed that it was the Chuvash language that had a considerable influence on the formation of these peculiarities. The purpose of the paper is to highlight the role of the Chuvash substrate in the formation of the regional dialect of Russian in Cheboksary. The traditional linguistic methods are applied to analyze the language material composed of natural discourses of inhabitants of Cheboksary. The culture of speech is in the focus of the research done on the linguistic data provided by both the Russian and the Chuvash scholars. The authors come to the conclusion that the Russian language constantly exposed to the Chuvash linguistic and cultural environment has been experiencing significant local influence and herewith acquiring unique features. Substrate elements are realized at all levels of the language system. In the Cheboksary regional dialect, the Chuvash influence on the Russian language is expressed in an increase in the frequency of Russian language units, which most closely correspond to the Chuvash counterparts. Phonetic markers are the major elements that make the speech of the residents of Cheboksary sound specifically. Orthoepic peculiarities of Cheboksary residents in a number of cases are characterized by their pronouncing certain words literally and shifting stress in some frequently used words. The lexical specificity of the Russian colloquial speech of the inhabitants of Cheboksary is accounted for by a number of Chuvashisms, local urbanonyms and semantic calques of Chuvash words. Morphological markers are the result of the specific use of Russian language units due to the influence of the process of acculturation. The word-building markers of the Cheboksary regional dialect are associated with the use of derivational formants of Chuvash origin in Russian word formation and Russian suffixes in the composition of Chuvash words. The syntactic level markers are represented in sentence models and by their peculiar features. In the Cheboksary regional dialect instead of Russian SVO sentence model Chuvash SOV sentence model is preferred. It is worth mentioning also that participial constructions are characteristic of oral speech. The authors argue that the regional dialect of Russian in Cheboksary is a variant of the Russian literary language. Its objective existence and functioning is the result of its exposure to the influence of the Chuvash language and culture. The peculiarities of the regional dialect of Russian are revealed in codified language units that have experienced the interfering impact of the Chuvash language.