Hydronymy of the Lower Tavda River

Abstract

The paper is the first approach to study the etymology of the lower reaches of the river Tavda (northeast of the Nizhnetavdinsky and Yarkovsky districts of the Tyumen region) which bears the imprint of an early encounter of the Russian language with the languages of “foreigners”– the Turks and the southern Ugric peoples on the West Siberian territory. The etymological interpretation of the lower Tavda river hydronymic material is very difficult due to its long and complex development in the context of the Ob-Ugric-Turkic-Russian contacts. The names of local rivers and lakes reflect the history of Russian settlement of the region after Yermak’s “Tavda campaign,” but apart from this North Russian trace, they also showcase a number of substrate and adstrate phenomena that are signs of the contact with the indigenous population. Studying the history of the Russian development of the lower reaches of the Tavda allows one to restore the general linguo-ethnic picture of the hydronymy of the region, in which the Russian, Turkic, and Ob-Ugric layers are distinguished. The paper explores the etymologies of the Turkic hydronyms Iska, Kinder, hybrid Russian-Turkic Maksukul, Ob-Ugric Tavda, Anger, Busalka, Mirtur, Muksuntur. The influence of Russian-Turkic language contacts is reflected in the coexistence of phonetic variants which opens up opportunities for new etymological interpretations (e.g. hydronym Kultybaik). An attempt is made to identify “quasi-substrate” (according to Alexander Matveyev) Ob-Ugric hydronyms, both borrowed in the process of Russian exploration of Siberia (Labuta, Pachenka) and brought from the more western Ural territories (Ashmarka). The use of diverse resources: historical, cartographic (starting with Semyon Remezov’s Chorographic Sketchbook of Siberia), as well as field materials made it possible to propose a number of new etymologies and verify etymological solutions.

Keywords

• etymology
• hydronymy
• lower reaches of the river tavda
• russian-turkic-ugric language and ethnic contacts
• western siberia