This article examines regional features of oikonyms that reflect the perspective of the nominator as a contemplative observer. The study complements previous findings concerning the image of the nominator as an active agent. The approach adopted here aligns with the anthropocentric trend that has been actively developing in Russian toponymic studies, which focuses on how people perceive and conceptualize the surrounding space within particular regions, such as the Russian North, the Urals, Siberia, and, to some extent, Central Russia. By contrast, the toponymy of southern Russia has received little attention from this perspective. The material for the study consists of 530 official oikonyms of the Volgograd Region that reflect the worldview of the contemplative observer (35.5% of the total number of regional oikonyms). Based on the notion of an “object of contemplation,” three semantic and motivational groups of oikonyms are identified, each comprising several subgroups. These groups are analysed in order of decreasing frequency. The first group includes names that highlight water bodies as a key feature of local life: (1) oikonyms derived from hydronyms, and (2) names formed from hydrographic terms and common nouns belonging to the semantic field “river, water.” The second group comprises oikonyms that characterize the location of a settlement within specific geographical conditions shaping the quality of life in the region: (1) relief features, (2) soil quality, (3) vegetation, and (4) fauna. The third group includes oikonyms that describe the settlement itself: (1) in relation to other settlements, (2) independently of other settlements, and (3) in terms of the emotional or aesthetic evaluation of the settlement. The results contribute to the broader scholarly discussion of how features of human perception of the surrounding world are reflected in the toponymy of a regional microsociety.
In Russian linguistics, the term zoonym, introduced into scholarly use in the 1960s, was formed according to a productive onomastic model and serves as the key term for a distinct branch of onomastics — zoonymics, the study of animal names and of the patterns governing their emergence, development, and functioning. At present, however, zoonymics remains one of the least developed areas of onomastic research when compared with other branches, most notably toponymy and anthroponymy. The lack of sustained development in this field, together with the inconsistent use of the term zoonym in its proper sense, has influenced the way it is employed in contemporary linguistic scholarship. The article examines the use of this traditional onomastic term in modern Russian linguistic literature. It highlights the increasingly widespread and largely unjustified expansion of the term’s semantic scope and argues for the need to coordinate and standardise its usage. According to linguistic dictionaries, zoonym has a single established meaning — ‘a type of proper name; the proper name (nickname) of an animal’. Nevertheless, the term is increasingly applied to common nouns denoting animals. Such usage inevitably complicates its application in its proper sense, as it leads to the confusion of onyms and appellatives, which differ in many respects and therefore require different methodological approaches to their analysis and description. It also blurs the boundaries and composition of zoonymy and disrupts the systemic relationships within onomastic terminology. The article further discusses the prospects for the development and use of more specific zoonymic terms, which have begun to appear with increasing frequency in recent studies in this field. Particular attention is given to the priority of developing such terms for the designation of the names of domestic animals belonging to species traditionally common in Russia.
This review examines the collective monograph Anthroponyms in the 18th Century Russian Verbal Culture, prepared by an international team of scholars, and notes its strengths and weaknesses. Currently, the role and functions of anthroponyms in 18th-century Russian literature, the systemic connections within the corresponding anthroponymicon, and its historical dynamics are clearly understudied, which determines the value and novelty of the publication under review. The authors of the book address various genres of panegyric literature, ceremonial poetry, drama, narrative literature, official-bureaucratic writing, etc., and identify common and specific mechanisms of functioning of anthroponyms during an era marked by the formation of a new national anthroponymic canon and the assimilation of the European cultural thesaurus. The researchers’ attention is focused on various aspects of pragmatics, referential connections, as well as the historical, cultural and literary conditionality of authorial and genre-based anthroponymicons in Russia throughout the 18th century. The book contains rich linguistic and statistical material on individual genres and authors that will be in demand by modern humanities scholarship. However, different spheres of anthroponymy in 18th century verbal culture are covered in the work with varying degrees of completeness, and the previous literary and rhetorical tradition is ignored or used only sporadically, which makes unconvincing several conclusions about the innovative character of the early modern literary anthroponymicon. Despite the debatable nature of certain propositions and the lack of a single methodological framework, the publication fills many gaps in the study of 18th century anthroponymy and successfully integrates the methods and achievements of various historical and philological disciplines.
The article examines the geographical terms of the Ossetian language related to oronymy. For the first time in the scholarly literature the article discusses Ossetian dur//dor ‘mountain’. This meaning is attested exclusively in the toponymy of Ossetia, and in a residual form also in the language of the Ossetian folklore. The distribution of oronyms containing this component is assessed from the perspective of linguistic geography. The paper also provides an etymological analysis of other geographical terms and traces the evolution of the entire system of geographical terminology describing mountains and mountainous landscapes from the Proto-Iranian stage to modern Ossetian. It is shown that Proto-Iranian terms denoting a high mountain have disappeared from the Ossetian language, while only terms referring to low mountains and hills have been preserved. The authors suggest that this development may have resulted from the migration of the ancestors of the Ossetians from their original homeland to a plain lacking high mountains and mountain ranges. In the Caucasus, however, where the need to distinguish between high and low mountains became essential, Ossetian appears to have mobilized its internal lexical resources, employing words meaning ‘high’, ‘rising’, etc. One of the Proto-Iranian lexemes meaning ‘mountain’, *gari-, could have been preserved in Ossetia in the name of the sacred mountain Qæriw. Apparently, this lexeme acquired a sacred status at the Proto-Ossetian level, which saved it from oblivion. The survival of this term was likely supported by Ossetian mythology, which contains narratives about sacred mountains. The paper also presents typological parallels from Indo-European, Caucasian, and Turkic languages.
