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Toponymy of the Erzya-Mordovian Village Novy Maklaush, Samara Region: Lexical and Semantic Analysis // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2025. Issue 1 (47). P. 11-20

The article presents the scientific distribution and analyzes the system of geographical names of the toponymic space of the Erzya-Mordovian village of Novy Maklaush in the Klyavlinsky district of the Samara region. This toponymic system has not yet been the subject of special research, which determines the relevance of the present work. The article identifies the main features of this toponymic space as a typical toponymic system of the Klyavlinsky Mordva, its peculiarities, as well as similarities with the toponymy of other Erzya-Mordovian villages of the Samara-Volga region and neighboring regions. The work is based on materials obtained by the author during field research in the village of Novy Maklaush in October 2019. For the comparative analysis, data on the toponymy of various Erzya-Mordovian villages of the Samara-Volga region and other areas of the Mordvinian settlement obtained during our expeditions in 2015–2023 are used. As a result of our research, we have found that the toponymic space of the village of Novy Maklaush has convincing parallels in other toponymic spaces of the Klyavlinsky Mordva in terms of clusters of geographical terms, individual toponymic unit markers and their semantics. Significant similarities can also be found with the toponymic spaces of other Erzya-Mordovian groups of the Samara-Volga region and neighboring areas. There were no significant differences between the toponymic space of the Novy Maklaush and other toponymic spaces of the Erzya-Mordovians of the Klyavlinsky district. The name Uksada, which belongs to a small river, a tributary of the Sok River, can be assigned to the substrate layer of this toponymic space. However, the author of this study believes that the name Uksada also originates from the Erzya-Mordovan language, where the lexeme Ukso – elm in this meaning is still preserved in some dialects of the Erzya-Mordovan language of the Shentala district. However, in the Klyavlinsky dialect of ErzyaMordovian, the Erzya-Mordovian word itself has since been replaced by a Russian borrowing. The research presented here will interest specialists in the field of onomastics of Mordovian languages, Finno-Ugric linguistics, regional history, and amateur local historians.

Keywords: toponymy, geographical lexemes, Mordva, Erzya-Mordovian language, Samara Trans-Volga region