Russian Dialects Research Articles

CORPUS OF RUSSIAN DIALECTS OF UDMURTIA AS A TOOL FOR STUDYING PHONETIC AND GRAMMAR DIALECT FEATURES

The possibilities of using materials and interrogative forms of the corpus of Russian dialects of Udmurtia in the study of phonetic and grammatical features of the dialect language of this territory are considered. Initially, the corpus was created for the study of dialect vocabulary, semantics and word formation, the markup is associated with the Program of the Lexical Atlas of Russian Folk Dialects. However, the availability of corpus texts, as well as the ability to search not only individual words, but also their elements, make it possible to obtain information about the specific features of vocalism, consonantism, morphological and syntactic structure of Russian dialects of Udmurtia. With the help of the corpus, linguistic data were obtained and analyzed on the spread of okanya, reflexes of the ancient ѣ , on the loss of intervocalic j, the tendency to unify verbal paradigms, the coincidence of the endings of the dative and instrumental cases of plural nouns, on the use of prepositions when specifying an object in constructions with the meaning of purpose, direction, distribution of constructions with the nominative case of nouns in the words “no”, “many”. As a result of the study of the data obtained, conclusions were drawn about the inconsistency in the manifestation of the features of the Northern Russian dialect, which traditionally includes the Russian dialects of Udmurtia, about their heterogeneity and the need for a more detailed study. In the course of the work, the expediency of using the material and interrogative forms of the corpus of Russian dialects of Udmurtia for phonetic and grammatical studies was confirmed.

Morphemic Structure of Adverbs in the Russian Dialects of the Amur Region

The subject of the study is the characteristic of the morphemic composition of adverbs in the Russian dialects of the Amur region, characterized by secondary formation and localization in the territory of late settlement. In this work, the author analyzes the study of the structure of adverbs in the Russian literary language and refers to the experience of studying this part of speech in Russian dialectology. The novelty of this study lies in the fact that the adverbial lexeme in the studied group of dialects in the structural aspect has not been previously considered by scientists. For the first time, using the methods of continuous sampling, descriptive-analytical and comparative analysis, an attempt was made to classify the adverbs recorded in the second edition of the Dictionary of Russian Dialects of the Amur Region. The material allowed to distribute the selected adverbs into 10 groups. The observations have shown that the main problems in studying the structure of adverbs in this group of dialects are the ratio in their characteristics of all-Russian features and locally limited, the articulability of adverbs of individual groups, as well as the preservation of some relics that make it possible to trace the dynamics of the vernacular vocabulary. The relevance of the work is due to the fact that the study of this group of linguistic units is necessary to build a typology of dialects of the Amur Region, monograph their description, identify the features of the language in the aspect of its regional existence and recreate the structure of the Russian dialect space as a whole.

Оленеводческий лексикон в уральских языках в контексте языковых контактов

This paper provides an overview of the study of reindeer husbandry and vocabulary associated with it on the material of the Uralic languages. The article is based on the methods of etymological and comparative analysis. The source base of the research was the dictionary materials and personal observations of the author. The purpose of this work is to analyze the reindeer herding vocabulary in the context of the linguistic contacts of the Ural peoples. It is noted that the systematic study of various aspects of reindeer husbandry based on the material of different ethnic groups began in the second half of the 20th century. The most important for the analysis are the materials of the Samoyed languages, in particular the Nenets, whose influence extended to adjacent linguistic continua. There is a section on reindeer husbandry in the context of interethnic and interlingual contacts, since the latter is often the result of economic and interethnic contacts. In a number of cases, the Nenets were the source of distribution of certain methods of using reindeer. An attempt was made to comprehensively analyze the Northern Russian dialect borrowed data, possible etymons that are recorded in the Komi language, the Baltic-Finnish, Ob-Ugric languages, as well as in the Samoyed languages. The interaction of the Samoyed, Perm and Ob-Ugric continuums is noted on the data of the vocabulary of reindeer husbandry.

Verbs with Prefix po- in Russian Dialects of Amur Region

The prefix verbal lexicon is analyzed on the basis of the dialect material of the Russian dialects of the Amur region. The relevance and novelty of the work are due to both the general unresolved problem of describing the meanings of Russian verbal prefixes, and insufficient knowledge of the specifics of verbal word formation in dialects. Verbal derivatives with the prefix po- are considered. The linguistic processes accompanying the formation of these derivatives are characterized. A classification of word-formation types and patterns is proposed based on the material presented in the Dictionary of Russian Dialects of the Amur Region, their distinctive features are noted in comparison with their literary counterparts. Attention is drawn to the phenomena of polyprefixation and substitution, in which the prefix po- is involved. It is concluded that the group of Russian dialects of the Amur region is characterized by agglutination with the prepositive prefix po-. Addressing the problems of verbal prefixation in dialects of secondary formation, localized on a vast territory of late settlement, can contribute to a wider involvement of dialect material to illustrate the controversial provisions of prefixology in modern Russian, as well as to identify the features of the verbal derivation of the Russian language in the aspect of its regional existence.

Magic of Words: Lexemes with Semantics ‘Spell’ and ‘to Spell’ in Vepsian (Etymological-Semantic and Linguo-Geographical Aspects)

A comparative analysis of the Veps language lexemes with the semantics ‘spell’ (puheg, puitoomine), as well as verbs with the meaning ‘to spell; pronounce incantations. The relevance of the study is due to the significance of the spell tradition for the worldview of the Vepsian people and the possibility of identifying the semantic and etymological features of the vocabulary group associated with this sphere of life. The names of the concept of “spell” (puheg, puitoomine) are analyzed, where the lexeme puheg, unlike the Russian term spell (< to spell < to speak), is associated not with speaking, but with a kind of “blowing” words from the mouth in the process of speaking. It is known from the literature, about a similar phenomenon that is characteristic of one of the Russian dialects of the Komi Republic (blowing words), about which the authors of this article believe that it may be a kind of tracing paper from the Baltic-Finnish languages, in which such a phenomenon is represented more widely, although they do not exclude and some universality in the development of languages. In the presented author's development, attention is paid to the etymology and semantic nuances of the lexemes sana and vajeh with the meaning ‘word’, one of which (sana) also intersects with the magic of the words of the world of spells in its semantics. The etymological aspects of the verbs of “magical action” (puhuda, puiteida, otvedaida) are analyzed in the study, where both original stems and borrowings from the Russian language are manifested. Linguistic maps illustrate the breadth of distribution of the analyzed terms in the dialects of the Vepsian.

On Compiling a Dictionary of the Early Migration Dialect of the Vologda-Vyatka Group of the Northern Russian Dialect

This article presents main arguments and preliminary information concerning features of the early migration dialect of the Vologda-Vyatka group of the Northern Russian dialect, primarily the vocabulary specificity of Loyma village dialect (Priluzsky district of the Komi Republic). The composition and content of the Loyma Dictionary reflect those traits. As an illustration, this paper presents several original dictionary entries of the gizaurus digital frame-thesaurus version of the Loyma Dictionary. The article briefly describes the main features and fundamental differences of the Loyma dialect from similar ones and the principles of including dialect materials in the dictionary. Creating the Dictionary of Loyma village Russian dialect presents the future possibility to include information about the lexical composition of the territorial (local) version of the early resettlement Russian dialect of the Vologda-Vyatka group of the Northern Russian dialect in the Dialectological Fund of the Russian language and in the general structure of the basic academic national dictionary fund of the Russian language.

РУССКИЙ ЯЗЫК В ЗЕРКАЛЕ РЕГИОНАЛЬНОГО ТЕКСТА (НА МАТЕРИАЛЕ ЯЗЫКОВОГО ПРОСТРАНСТВА ХМАО-ЮГРЫ)

В статье на материале Ханты-Мансийского округа — Югры рассматривается функционирование русского языка в региональном пространстве. Анализируются основные направления лингвистического регионоведения: анализ и изучение особенностей местного диалекта, этнолингвистическое изучение языка города, анализ межъязыковых связей, исследование местной ономастики, языка художественных произведений региональных авторов. The functioning of the Russian language in the modern world is a question that currently worries not only the Russian linguistic community, but also philologists from the near and far abroad. It is no less important to describe the functioning of the Russian language not in the global, but in the local dimension, since it is from such “puzzles” that the general picture of the existence of the language is formed. We will try to present in detail the directions of research of one of the regional variants of the language — the language functioning in the space of the regional text of the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug — Ugra. One of the topical areas of regional linguistic research is the analysis and study of the features of the local dialect. The peculiarities of the northern dialects are also inherent in the group of dialects common in the studied territory, which scientists call the dialects of the Ob-Irshysh interfluve. The language and culture of the first settlers were influenced by a foreign language environment. As a result, a peculiar linguistic complex has developed in the dialects of the West Siberian region, in which, firstly, the linguistic features of the “mother base” have been preserved, i.e. features of the North Russian dialect, and, secondly, arising under the influence of the languages of the indigenous inhabitants of the studied regions. Another topical direction is the ethnolinguistic study of the language of the city. The elements of urban vernacular, the system of individual sociolects and professional lectures (for example, oil workers, gas workers), and urban onomasticon are subject to detailed description. Important and interesting aspects Русский язык: национальная норма, диалект, говор 111 of linguistic studies of local linguistics are the analysis of interlingual relations, the description of the local onomastic space. The description of local toponymy and anthroponymy makes it possible to identify the linguistic foundations of local names, to trace the history of settlement and development of the region, to describe the linguistic picture of the world of ethnic groups inhabiting the region. Such a direction of research as the analysis of the language of works of art by local authors fits into the mainstream of modern linguopersonology — a branch of linguistics that deals with the study of the language of individual linguistic personalities. Thus, the Russian language in the mirror of the regional text is the toponyms and ergonyms that function in the given territory, the names of local realities, urban vernacular and professional jargons of Siberian pioneers, the language of texts of the past and contemporary works of art by regional authors. All this constitutes the cultural and linguistic space of the region, which requires careful research and description.

The second genitive in the history of Russian and across its dialects

Abstract In this paper, we provide a survey of the diachronic development of the Russian second genitive (Gen2). As endpoints of this development, we consider data from Russian dialects representing different dialect groups. Assumedly, the expansion of Gen2 started off as ‘recycling’ of the genitive of a declension type that became obsolete already in the pre-written period. Nouns of this declension type were adopted by another declension, carrying their old genitive over as a variant form. This alternative ending started spreading, always as a variant, to other nouns in the adoptive declension. As the survey of the literature shows, in the course of this expansion new constraints evolved, including phonological, morphophonological, phonotactic, syntactic and semantic conditioning. While there is no declension class or even individual nouns where Gen2 became the only option, it expanded to different extents in different dialects. We believe that the diversity of functions associated with the form, the range of language-internal factors driving its expansion, as well as the current geographic distribution of constraints on its formation weaken the claim that emergence of Gen2 as a morphological category dedicated to partitive was due to contact with the languages of the Circumbaltic area, a suggestion made on a macro-areal basis and also based on comparison with the northern dialects alone. While we cannot argue that the data we present disproves the contact factor, we would at least expect that the increased granularity of dialectal data would provide some data to support it. This is not what happens, which we consider to be an argument against contact-induced change. The aim of the paper is two-fold: to present a synopsis of the discussions of the history of Gen2 and a survey of the data on the use of Gen2 in the dialects, both firsthand and available from the literature; and to question the role of contact in the emergence of the new category of Gen2 in Russian.

Русская речь в китайском Трехречье: языковые особенности

The authors analyse the Russian speech of immigrants' descendants from Russia to the Chinese Three Rivers region in the Inner Mongolia in the 20th century. The relevance of the study is due to the need to study various forms of existence of the modern Russian national language, including those in foreign countries. The research is based on both oral and written sources collected by the authors in 2017-2018 during their expeditions to Enhe Russian Ethnic Township (China). The research has shown deviations in the speech of immigrants' descendants from the norms of the Russian literary language due to the use of Russian in its dialect form, as well as interference from Chinese. The authors have proved that the Russian dialects of the Three Rivers region are genetically related to the Russian dialects of Eastern Transbaikalia, which, in turn, are related to the North Russian dialects. The dialectal features of the Russian dialects of the Chinese Three Rivers quialify them as the translitional dialects on the North Russian basis. Since there were no external factors of influence on the dialectal Russian language from its other idioms, the stated dialectal form of the Russian language remained unchaged until the early 21st century. The article considers both the dialectal originality of Russian speech in the Three Rivers region at different language levels (phonetics, morphology, syntax, vocabulary), and the cases of interlingual interference resulting from the influence of the Chinese language on the Russian dialect system. The authors describe the following factors that determine the intensity of interference: generation, education, profession, and language environment. Having described the active zones of interaction between typoLogicaLLy different Chinese and Russian and determined the areas of interference in the Russian speech of bilinguals, the authors detected “weak points” of the Russian language system in the situation of Russian-Chinese bilingualism. Thus, the authors have studied the variant of the Russian language specific for the Chinese Three Rivers region and concluded that it preserves the Russian dialect base influenced by the interference from Chinese, which is an understudied fact of the Russian language environment in emigration.

Русская лексика рекрутской обрядности в языке и фольклоре (на материалах XX–XXI вв.)

The article analyzes Russian vocabulary of recruit rites in language and folklore based on the materials of the 20th–21st centuries. This lexical layer is practically not studied in Russian science. The purpose of the work is to explore the etymology of the words rekrut, nekrut (i.e. a recruit, a novice) and the functioning of lexemes used to denote a young man going into the army and his wife (bride). The chronological approach of the study allows us to trace the functioning of the terms of recruit rites from the moment of their appearance in the language and folklore in the 18th century to the present. The analysis is based on data from folklore sources, field materials of ethnographic expeditions, official documents, and fiction. The entire lexical array was divided into four thematic blocks: 1) the word rekrut <recruit> and its derivatives in language and folklore; 2) the word soldat <soldier> and its derivatives in language and folklore; 3) lexemes denoting the wife (bride) of a man who has left for the army; 4) other lexemes denoting those who have left for the army. The first block examines the etymology of the word rekrut and its derivatives, the peculiarities of the functioning of these lexemes in Russian dialects and folklore sources. The second block contains an analysis of the word soldat and the set expressions ukhodit’/otdavat’ v soldaty (can be literally translated as to leave to be a soldier/ to send somebody to be a soldier) as used in folklore texts. The third block examines the lexemes denoting the wife (bride, widow) of a soldier in Russian dialects. The fourth block contains other lexemes denoting a person who has left for the army – prizyvnik, novobranets (i. e. a conscript, newly drafted recruit) etc., and the features of their use in Soviet Russia.

Лексика крашения тканей в русских говорах Пермского края

The article is devoted to the analysis of lexical units related to the dyeing of threads and fabrics in the traditional peasant economy of the Perm region’s inhabitants. Homemade threads and fabrics (linen and woolen), often being unattractive in color, were treated with various improvised dyes. There are a large number of words related to the thematic group ‘Dyeing of fabrics’ noted in the Permian dialects. The article analyzes lexical units that have the meanings ‘to dye, to impart color’, ‘names of fabrics by color’, ‘characteristics of fabrics by color and pattern’, ‘pattern, coloring of fabrics’; the names of dyes and coloring materials are considered, and also the names of people engaged in this craft. The author of the article comes to a conclusion that the vocabulary related to the manufacture and dyeing of fabric is a valuable source for studying the life of peasants in the Perm region, their aesthetic ideas. The presence of a large number of lexical units of this thematic group indicates the desire to make fabrics and clothes from them not only comfortable to use but also beautiful. Vocabulary related to the production of fabrics by peasants mainly comprises originally Russian words. Many words of this group are found in other Russian dialects, but some of them are specific to the territory of the Kama region. These are lexemes of purely Russian origin that appeared as a result of new meanings developing in words or due to the formation of new words with the help of affixes. The vocabulary of fabric dyeing is connected with other thematic groups in the dialect lexical system, different names of clothing are often formed from the names of dyed fabrics.

Sentence intonation in Russian dialects with word-by-word melodic contour

The present paper discusses the prosodic system found in the spontaneous dialogue speech corpus of an archaic Northern Russian dialect (the village of Vadyuga, upper reaches of Pinega river, Arkhangelsk Oblast), in which, supposedly, each word bears a pitch accent. A total of 6749 utterances from six speakers were analyzed. The results show that the following tonal parameters are used in this dialect as well as in Standard Modern Russian to convey different communicative meanings: the direction of pitch movement, the interval of pitch accent, the tonal level on which the pitch accent is realized, the timing of pitch accent, the type of phrase accent and the (fi nal) boundary tone. The dialect has fi ve pitch accents, L*+H, L+H*, H*+L, L* and H*, by far the most frequently used of them being L*+H, which is the predominant choice for prenuclear accents. Out of these five pitch accents, only H* is absent in Standard Modern Russian; however, the phonetic realization of pitch accents is dramatically diff erent in the dialect and in the standard language. Another distinction between the two idioms is found in association of prosodic means to communicative meanings; in particular, incompleteness is marked in Vadyuga with the high (downstepped) boundary tone, in contrast with the low tone typical for Standard Russian. The most prominent distinctions between the two idioms are the type of the basic prosodic unit (accentual phrase in the dialect vs. intonational phrase in the standard language), higher frequency of rising tones in Vadyuga, and greater utilization of the postnuclear part of utterance in the dialect. Generally, in terms of phrase prosody, the Pinega dialect (despite its ‘word-by-word melodic contour’) is much more similar to Standard Modern Russian than to the languages with lexical pitch accent, being most closely analogous to Modern Greek in this respect.

A Review of E. D. Bondarenko, Naivnaya lingvistika i dialektnoe yazykovoe soznanie [“Naive Linguistics” and Dialect Consciousness]. Moscow: Indrik, 2021, 584 pp.

The book is based on an analysis of metalinguistic comments by native speakers of different dialects. These remarks concern both self-descriptions and the language of neighbors. The approach is relatively new for Russian dialectology: folk linguists’ perceptions of dialectal variation have not been considered before. The study provides the first systematic description of beliefs about Russian dialects and includes a large volume of new field data. It can provide important insights on speaker opinions and attitudes about language and the constructions of local identity.

О «Фразеологическом словаре русских говоров Тюменской области» Рецензия на книгу: Багирова Е. П., Белякова С. М. Фразеологический словарь русских говоров Тюменской области. Тюмень, 2020. 356 с.

Phraseological Dictionary of Russian dialects of the Tyumen region was prepared by E. P. Bagirova and S. M. Belyakova and published in 2020 by Tyumen State University. The dictionary covers the phraseological spectrum of dialects of all districts of the Tyumen region, including almost 2,400 phrases recorded in the second half of the 20th - early 21st centuries. The material collected reflects a broad understanding of phraseology, with phraseological units, ritual terminology, proverbs, riddles, omens, and well-wishes presented in the dictionary. This paper considers the phraseological material of the dictionary from the point of view of its lexicographic development, with the main attention paid to the micro-structure of the dictionary. Each of the nine parameters proposed by the authors to describe the Tyumen phraseology is commented on. It is worth noting that most of these parameters are presented quite systematically and correspond to the principles declared. However, some critical remarks and suggestions have been made concerning the lexicographical presentation of some facts, which may be useful for a possible reissue of the dictionary. These comments focus on determining the initial form of idioms, distinguishing variant and synonymy, stating combinability, accuracy of definitions, and the selection of illustrative material. It should be pointed out that the dictionary under review significantly enriches modern Russian dialect phraseography and can undoubtedly be useful to scientists, teachers, local historians, and all those concerned with the fate of the folk word and traditional culture of the region.

Peculiarities of naming the time of life in russian dialects

Peculiarities of naming the time of life in russian dialects

On the Participial Functioning of the l-form in the History of the Russian Language in the Light of Russian Dialectal Data and the Material of the Other Slavic Languages

The article analyzes the hypothesis about the participial functioning of the l form in the history of the Russian language in the light of Russian dialectal data and the material of other Slavic languages. Many facts that confirm this hypothesis are found in both Russian dialects and Slavic languages. The first part of the paper discusses the functioning of participles in the dialect of the Opotchesky district of the Pskov region and provides the comparative analysis of the functions of the participle in the examined dialect and the l-form in the Old Russian chronicles. As the material shows, the analyzed forms have much in common, which testifies to the participial role that the l-form used to take. The second part of the paper answers some remarks made in a recent paper by M. Sheveleva by providing other facts from the history of the Russian language, Russian and other Slavic dialects, which are relevant to the correct understanding of the evolution of the l-form.

Мужской деревенский именник одного говора Воронежской области

The study is devoted to the study of a person in the aspect of the anthropocentric paradigm. The purpose of the study is determined by the description of male nicknames, given by name and surname in the dialect of the village of Vysoky Talovsky district of the Voronezh region, clarification of their meaning, metaphor names with associative links, determination of expressive-stylistic coloring, part of speech, ways of forming words. The subject of the study was the unofficial names of men and their reflection in folk speech. The object is the South Russian dialect. The linguistic material is the dialectal speech of older representatives, recorded by the author of the article in the process of direct communication. The work used the following methods: survey and interviewing, stationary observation, analysis, description and comparison. The research results are reflected in 90 anthroponyms that make up the village name list. In it, some street names act as metaphors and are associated with representatives of the animal world, birds, and objects of the surrounding reality. The expressive coloration of anthroponyms speaks of a different linguistic palette, from tenderness to rudeness. The illustration of the data obtained by means of the Russian dialect revealed the functioning of different ways of forming nicknames, among which the suffix and shortening of the surname are productive. The established tradition of communication between people in a rural environment is a convenient and stable structure over time. It became part of the local dialect system. The material is being introduced into scientific circulation for the first time.

Lexico-semantic unit “Man” based on the material of the Nizhnekolymsk old-time dialects of Yakutia

The paper studies the specifics of the linguistic reflection of the image of a person in the Nizhnekolymsk old-time dialects of Yakutia. Despite the available research, the issue of the preservation of the cultural and linguistic diversity of the Arctic remains relevant in our time. It is of great interest in terms of geostrategic location, natural resources and human potential. The purpose is to describe the composition of the lexical-semantic unit “Man” in the Nizhnekolymsk old-time dialects of Yakutia. The source of the material was the four-volume Dictionary of Russian Old-Time Dialects on the Territory of Yakutia by M.F. Druzhinina. The method of continuous sampling was used to identify 95 lexical units that form the LSU “Man”.The structure of the unit includes the following lexical and semantic groups: physical, personal and social characteristics of a man. Intraunit systemic relations are characterized by the presence of a variety of paradigmatic connections: derivational synonyms, inflectional variants, phonemic doublets, antonymic and synonymous pairs, hypo-hyponymic and hyper-hyponymic relations, derivational series. The Nizhnekolymsk dialects are a monument of the Russian old-timers’ culture, which is a result of interethnic and cultural contacts between the newcomers and the local population, as well as the influence of natural conditions. The processes of globalization, integration and industrial development of the Arctic accelerate the assimilation of Russian old-timers from Nizhny Kolyma, which makes the problem of the preservation of their ethnocultural identity relevant.

On semantic and etymological reconstruction of borrowed “cultural words”: Pomor Russian noun <em>gurij</em> ‘landmark sign made of stone’

The article analyzes an extensive etymological word family with the top word gurij, functioning in Northern Russian dialects (mainly near the White Sea). The semantic structure of the word family is considered, in which two blocks of meanings are distinguished: 1) with the semantic center ‘stone landmark’ (‘a sign in the form of a stone pyramid, indicating a camp and serving for other orientational purposes’ → ‘a pile of excrement’, ‘in divination — index signs from the sourdough’, etc.); 2) with the semantic center ‘fishing failure’ (gúrej popal, gúr’je prinesti ‘to return from hunting, fishing, etc. with nothing, empty-handed’, gur’jë ‘naked buttocks, which women show to men when they return from fishing or hunting an animal with empty hands’, otgur’ját’sja ‘complete fishing (hunting) effectively, with a (good) catch’, etc.). The authors explain the relations between the meanings of the first and second block by the significance of the notion itself, which bears orientational, memorial, and ritual functions. Recognizing the existing etymologies of gurij unsatisfactory, the authors offer two new etymological versions: 1) Scandinavian (perhaps mediated by Saami), cf. Old Scandinavian hǫrgr ‘pyramid of stones, sacrificial complex, stone altar’; 2) Finnic, cf. hurri (hurrikas, hurrikainen) ‘sign tree (usually cut off in a special way in honor of the neophyte)’. Mutual attraction of heterogeneous words with their subsequent formal and semantic modification is possible. The authors show the typological significance of the considered word against the background of other sacred terms.

Finno-Ugric words in the Russian dialects of Yakutia

This article analyzes the lexical Finno-Ugric borrowings that appeared in the speech of the Slavs and the aboriginal population of Yakutia with the arrival of the Russians to the northeast Siberia in the 17th century. More than three centuries ago, the Russians, who came from the northern provinces of Russia, introduced the essential vocabulary necessary for the daily life of the people of that time into the active vocabulary of the northern region’s population. Most of the words from the Finno-Ugric languages denoted new concepts and did not have synonyms in Russian, for example, viska, edoma, laida, etc. This research investigates and illustrates the most significant thematic groups of the borrowed words, gives lexical-semantic characteristics of the analyzed notions, and determines the basic word-building patterns. This article presents the results of a linguistic experiment on the interpretation of words, which was conducted in 2021 among the students of Ammosov North-Eastern Federal University to determine the relevance of the Finno-Ugric layer of vocabulary in the modern communicative situation of the Sakha Republic (Yakutia). The authors of the article conclude that the studied lexical borrowings, which became widespread on the territory of the republic several centuries ago, underwent some changes, became the basis for the formation of new words, became part of not only the modern Russian literary language, but also other languages of the republic, where they are part of the active vocabulary.