The Upper Unzha patois ethno-dialect features: timber rafting lexis

Abstract

Timber floating lexis as an ethnographic dialectal marker of Kostroma patois in the area of the Unzha River is considered in the article. Timber floating industry once had a special importance in these places – it was closely connected with the life of peasants and represented practically the only possible source of their livelihood. This creates a special relationship between the customary lexis of the patois and the timber floating terminology system. On the one hand, everyday words often acquire specific semes, contributing to the core or periphery of the lexico-semantic field of "timber floating"; on the other hand, terminological lexis is firmly embedded in everyday life and acquires non-specialised meanings. Numerous nominations of the agentive and object lexis of the forestry rafting patois of the upper Unzha River are represented in the short stories of Kostroma writer Ivan Kasatkin. Their closeness to the documentary narrative and to the language of the locals allows them to be interpreted as ethnographic feature articles. The contexts of the works help to reveal the meanings of specific linguistic units observable in the conditions of the microregion and united by the theme of logging; they help to reveal their ethnographic semes. Although this lexicon does not differ significantly from the terminological system of other Russian territories, revealing distant linguo-geographical connections even with the Belarusian dialects as well, it has peculiar features connected with the peculiarities of the historical and cultural development of the region and the type of economy.