Search

TOWARDS THE GENESIS OF A MARI GAME KLYOK // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2016. Issue 4 (14). P. 119-128

The article deals with a game klyok (kind of pyzh, gorodki) in the Mari gaming culture. We consider the area of term klyok according to earlier sources and contemporary records. In Mari language klyok seems borrowing from Russian dialects. Further etymology points to the North-Caucasian origin of it; original forms (Chechen ģhulģ , Ingush ģholģ, Abaza qual, Ossetian qul I and ğolæ D) means «the dice». The fact that this term is moved onto the wooden ryuhu, plastic bottle finds genetic link of Russian and Finno-Ugric games like klyok with games of the Turkic and Caucasian peoples (with dices), reflects the processes and areas of ethnic interaction.

Keywords: folk games, Mari games, meaningless words, Finno-Ugric languages, Russian dialects, borrowing, ethnic interaction

THE OPENING PHRASE BLIN-TA-TA IN THE ACTIVE GAME “RED ROVER” OF RUSSIAN AND UDMURT CHILDREN // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2018. Issue 1 (19). P. 113-122

The article considers the etymology of the exclamation blin-ta-ta used as a dialogue opening phrase in the active children's game of “red rover” type and as the name of this game. The formation of game terminology in multilingual environment of the polyethnic region is demonstrated, as well as the phenomena of semantisation and re-semantisation (semantical adaptation) in game terminology. A hypothesis is stated for the formation of a semi-semantic exclamation blin-ta-ta through a sequence of changes, distortions in a child's folklore of the misunderstood phrase of another's language: Russian and Udmurt blin-ta-ta(-ta) ~ Udmurt mil’ym tu tataj ~ Udmurt mynta-tutaj *mynda tətəj ' this way, sister' (Tatar dialect). Such a reconstruction of the original phrase is correlated with the fact of reference to the "girl", "sister" in other dialogues in similar Udmurt and Chuvash games. Thus, becomes obvious the substrate origin of the dialogue opening phrase (blin-ta-ta) in Russian and Udmurt game folklore from Tatar, which also correlates with the fact and traditional areas of resettlement of Tatars in the territory of Udmurtia and the Kirov region.

Keywords: child language, desemantisation, game folklore of Volgo-Kama district, languages in contact, language substratum, semantisation and re-semantisation, Turkic languages, Finno-Ugric languages, folk games

ZOONYM "BEAR" IN THE MARI FOLK GAMES // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2020. Issue 1 (27). P. 9-20

The article deals with the traditional Mari games like hide and seek and blind man’s buff in which the catching man is called a bear. The distribution area of these games, their seasonal and ritual timing is detected. A previously unpublished material from the manuscript archive of MarSRILLH (Yoshkar- Ola) is introduced.The correspondences to this character in the games of the Finno-Ugric peoples, Turks and Russians of the Ural-Volga region are established. The article includes an analysis of the etymology of the Mari word maskа ‘bear’, examines the available versions and sets out additional data, including an indication of the correspondence of the Mari bear name (the main dialect forms maska, mas’ka > mäskä; meskä> möskä) to Russian dialect words meaning sheep (mas’ka, mis’ka). Such a naming logic is explained by the prohibition of words meaning wild animals and the metonymic shift of semantics (sheep – wool – bear). The structure of the relationship between this Mari zoonym (historical form aba maska ‘bear’) and the name of a typologically similar character in the Bashkir game – mäskäi-äbei ‘grandma glutton’ is analyzed.

Keywords: folk games, game lexics in Mari, Finno-Ugric languages, Turkic languages of the Ural-Volga region, Russian dialects, borrowing, inter-ethnic interaction, language contacts, characters of folklore

The Vocabulary of Folk Games in the Dialects of the Vyatka and the Ural Mari: Russian Borrowings // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2023. Issue 1 (39). P. 17-28

The article deals with the vocabulary of folk games in the Eastern dialect of the Mari language: Malmyzh, Kungur, and Krasnoufimsk subdialects. Games studied include dice, tip-cat, and a variation of skittles game (in which a stick is thrown at a piece of wood impaled on a stake twisted into the ground). The research is based on Russian and foreign publications on the Mari language, folklore, ethnography, and archival and modern field data, which are being put into scientific circulation for the first time. The main research method is comparative: the words in question are compared with the vocabulary of folk games in the dialects of Mari, Russian, and other Finno-Ugric languages. The Mari dialects studied in the article (in the north of the Mari region) are strongly influenced by the local Russian dialects, while the Mari dialects of the southern region experience a stronger Turkic influence and borrowings from Chuvash and Tatar languages predominate in their vocabulary for folk games. The article deals with the names of playthings (pieces of wood) and the names of games with them (chinok, chizik, chizhik, baklanom, plishka, panok, peshki, shishka, shorchok, sholchok, kapke, babki), as well as with the verbs galitlash, galitlyktash ‘to play a difficult role in the game’. Most of these lexemes are not included in the Mari dictionaries. Some of them are not so much borrowings as the result of changing codes in the situation of Mari Russian bilingualism, especially since some words (baklanom, plyshka, shishka, peshki) were used by Mari informants when they told Russian ethnologists about Mari games in Russian. Thus, the Mari speak local Russian dialects and represent specific local Russian folk game terminology. The Russian words in the Mari language revealed in this article are also found in other Finno-Ugric languages of the Volga-Ural region: Mordovian, Udmurtian, Komi, and Chuvash.

Keywords: Folk games, Mari language, game vocabulary, game terminology, Finno-Ugric languages, dialectology, folk lexicology, Russian dialects, borrowings, language contacts, borrowings, etymology