Dairy Terms in Languages of the Ural-Volga Region: A Linguistic Geographical Aspect

Introduction. The article deals with names of dairy products used by peoples inhabiting the Ural-Volga Region. Goals. The study seeks to identify general (characteristic of the Ural-Volga peoples at large), genetic (characteristic of a specific language family — Turkic or Finno-Ugric), and areal (characteristic of a certain language area) features pertaining to origins, development and functioning of lexemes denoting dairy products. Our efforts involve the use of digital technologies in the study of material culture-related vocabulary, namely the LingvoDoc platform which makes it possible not only to upload, systemize, and store language data but also to conduct automated searches and analyses according to required options, including mapping of lexical materials. The fact names of dairy products in the Turkic and Finno-Ugric languages of the Ural-Volga Region have remained understudied never to enjoy any standardized description makes the work relevant enough. Materials and methods. The paper examines studies on ethnography of the Ural-Volga peoples, etymological, lexicological, lexicographical insights into the Turkic and Finno-Ugric languages. In terms of theory and methodology, the study rests on writings dealing with linguistic contacts across the specified region, as well as works discussing food and dairy vocabularies. The work employs a variety of research methods, including the comparative historical one and those of lexical semantic analysis and linguistic mapping. Results. It has been revealed that there are no original names ascending to common stems for dairy terms across the Turkic and Finno-Ugric languages of the Ural-Volga Region. However, in etymologies of names for milk, butter, cream some genetic features can still be traced: in Turkic languages, such names do stem from a common root that stands for milk and cream, while in Finno-Ugric languages — it is about the lexeme for butter. Terms for butter, ghee, and cottage cheese in all the examined languages tend to meet motivational characteristics. There are also some areal phenomena in designations of yogurt and cottage cheese (for example, these in Mari and Chuvash attest to certain affinities between the languages). Finally, original names for ayran and kumis are available only in Turkic languages, and only loanwords be observed in Finno-Ugric ones.

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