TOPONYMS AS REFLECTION OF THE PECULIARITIES OF CRAFT ACTIVITY (ON THE MATERIAL OF SMOLENSK-VITEBSK BORDER-ZONE)

Abstract

The geographical names are important units, representing the connection with the cultural and historical traditions and national-specific context of a specific time period; due to the inherent cumulative functions they fix and retain the essential features of a variety of information: linguistic, cultural, social, historical, psychological, ethnographic. The article deals with the toponyms, spread on the territory of the Smolensk-Vitebsk borderzone and recorded in modern lexicographical sources (toponymic and dialect dictionaries). The card index of geographical names collected by the author includes 1196 units, 604 of which are registered in the Smolensk border-zone and 592 in the Vitebsk border-zone. The conducted analysis allowed us to identify nine groups of the studied units, depending on the semantics of motivating word. Special attention is paid to the toponyms formed from appellatives associated with industrial activity, which was widely spread on the territory of Smolensk region in different historical periods. These units reflect the linguistic, historical, cultural and economic specifics of Smolensk-Vitebsk border-zone. The toponyms which present the development of mining, brick production, the manufacture of household utensils (glass and clay) are the most frequent. The author reveals that the dialectal units and borrowed words confirming the close language contact among the frontier inhabitants, as well as Slavic vocabulary, were used as appellatives that served as the basis for toponyms. The results of the linguistic and culturological analysis allowed to conclude that the fragment of toponymic system, based on the craft activity of Smolensk-Vitebsk border-zone residents, testified to the community and the interaction between cultures and languages of closely related peoples – Russians and Belarusians.

Keywords

• toponym
• toponymy
• toponymic system
• Smolensk-Vitebsk border-zone
• craft activity
• language contacts.