Toponymic Area of the Erzya Bagana Village, Samara Region: Lexical- Semantic and Structural-Comparative Analysis

Abstract

The article presents a lexical and semantic analysis of the toponymy of the Erzya Bagana village in Shentalinsky district of the Samara region. The obtained results are compared with the materials of the author’s research in other villages of the Mordva of Shentalinsky district, in the Erzya settlements of the Samara Volga region, as well as with the data on the Erzya dialects of other territories of the settlement of the Mordva-Erzya. The Shentala ethnoterritorial group of Mordvins includes the Erzya population of the villages of Bagana, Staroe Surkino, Novoe Surkino, Vasilevka, Senkino. The toponymy of the Bagana village and its environs has not yet been subjected to a comprehensive study, at the same time, such work should be intensified, since modern demographic processes contribute to the rapid disappearance of microtoponymy of rural settlements. To carry out a lexical and semantic analysis of the Bagana toponymy in order to identify its characteristic features and, at the same time, common features with the Erzya toponymy of other territories. The research materials were collected in the Bagana village during the 2021 field season with the help of G.M. Kert’s questionnaire developed specifically for the Finno-Ugric languages. When working on the collected material, lexico-semantic and comparative types of analysis were used. As a result of the conducted research, 31 toponymic units and a cluster of geographical vocabulary of the Bagana dialect of the Erzya-Mordovian language were introduced into scientific circulation, the main characteristics of the toponymic space of Bagana were revealed, which allowed for its comparative analysis with other Erzya toponymic spaces. The toponymic space under study reflects both the peculiarities of the Bagana dialect and the features of nomination and semantics of geographical names characteristic of the Shentala Mordva. In general, this toponymic space reveals common features with the toponymy that we find in villages with a significant proportion of the Erzya population in the Samara Volga region at the present stage: most names come from the Erzya and Russian languages, hybrid Erzya-Russian and Russian-Erzya names are also found in the toponymy, the main markers of the Erzya toponymic area are: the dual urban system of Alo pe – Vere pe, the formula of toponyms typical of Mordvins is “definable + appellative”.