Search

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 However, in the Klyavlinsky dialect of ErzyaMordovian, the Erzya-Mordovian word itself has since been replaced by a Russian borrowing.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

The Substrate Toponymy of the Mordovian Toponymic Spaces (by Example of Mordva in the Trans-Volga Region) // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2026. Issue 1 (51). P. 9-17

The article examines the issue of the substratum toponymy in the Mordovian toponymic spaces by example of geographical names for the surroundings of the Samara Volga region’s Moksha-Mordovian and ErzyaMordovian villages (and a number of adjacent territories) as well as some territories of the Ulyanovsk Volga region and Orenburg region, located on the left bank of the Volga. These regions are the territories of secondary settlement for Mordva, which occurred mainly during the 17–20th centuries. The main points of view and approaches to the study of the toponymic substrate among prominent onomasticians are given, and discussions on this issue in Russian toponymy are briefly described. The historical prerequisites for the formation of a toponymic substrate in the studied areas are considered, the main types of substrate toponymy in the Mordovian toponymic spaces are identified, and where possible, the etymology of substrate toponyms is proposed. The conducted research allowed us to identify four main layers of the substrate toponymy in the Mordovian toponymic spaces of the Trans-Volga region. In reverse chronological order, they are as follows: the substratum toponymy of the settled agricultural population that preceded the Mordovian region, mainly represented by Russian and Chuvash geographical names; TurkicKipchak toponymy; Bulgarian toponymy; reliably unethymologized archaic toponymy represented mainly by the names of large rivers and common to all modern peoples of the region. Examples of geographical names belonging to the first type in the Trans-Volga region are: Avral, Bezymyanka, Iriklau (Yerykla), Karmala, Sosnovka, Horoshenkaya. The second type includes: Yelgaley, Konduzla, Tallyelga, Tolkai, Tunguz, Yaik-latko. The third type comprises: Savrukha, Savrushka, Bolshoy, Maly and Sukhoi Surush, and Suruzha. The fourth type is represented by the following toponyms: Irgiz, Kinel, Kondurcha, Kutuluk, Samara, Sok, Surgut. It should be especially noted that in this paper we did not aim to cite and etymologize all the substrate names of the Mordovian toponymic spaces of the Trans-Volga region, we limited ourselves here to only the most striking examples. The article is based on the author's field materials obtained during the 2015-2024 field trips.

Keywords: toponymy, toponymic substrate, Mordva, Moksha-Mordovian language, Erzya-Mordovian language, Samara Trans-Volga region