Hydronyms Ending in -zha (-жа) in the Russian North-West (Structure, Etymology, Microsystemic Ties, Linguo-Ethnic Attribution)

Abstract

The article deals with river and lake-names ending in -zha in the Russian North-West, notably on the historical territories of Novgorod, Pskov and Toropets, analyzing the abovementioned hydronyms in the structural, derivational, microsystemic, semantic, etymological and lingo-ethnic aspects. The study of the names in question soundly reveals the basic ancient strata of the region: Slavic, Baltic and Finno-Ugric.

Keywords

• Baltic languages
• Russian language
• Slavic languages
• Finno-Ugric languages
• Russian North-West
• hydronymy
• river and lake-names ending in -zha
• etymology
• substrate hydronymy