Aizgūtie augu nosaukumi Latvijas–Lietuvas pierobežas izloksnē Rucavā

Abstract

The article examines borrowed plant names recorded in one of the southwestern dialects of Latvia – the Rucava dialect – their spread in neighbouring dialects nearest to Rucava, as well as analyses them. The article is based on a dialect words file in the Kurzeme Humanitarian Institute of Liepaja University, which contains approximately 3200 units from Rucava. Of these 3200 units, approximately 400 lexemes are borrowings, and there are also 39 Slavisms, 130 Lithuanianisms and 189 Germanisms selected as basic lexemes for the article. Descriptive, historical-comparative and statistical methods, as well as techniques of geolinguistic and etymological analysis, were used in the development of this article. Borrowings used in the Rucava dialect represent several thematic groups: a large part of borrowings (16.2% of 303 basic lexemes) in the Rucava dialect consist of names of economic life realia; a large group of borrowings are names of activities – 13.9%; 12.2% are names of objects; part of the lexemes are connected with names of fabrics, clothing and their parts (8.3%); a significant amount of borrowings are names of foods (7.9%) etc. Plant names, which constitute 6.9% of the total recorded borrowings in the Rucava dialect, are significant in all languages. They are an important research object both in the literary language and in the vocabulary of dialects. Plant names not only provide a view of linguistic phenomena, but can often reveal world views and insights on life. The significance of plant names in all languages is proven by the inclusion of these lexemes in local dialect atlases. Out of all Lithuanisms, plant names constitute 9.3%; of all Germanisms, plant names constitute 4.2%; but out of all Slavicisms, plant names constitute 17.9%. The said borrowings are not all used with the same frequency or in the same area: some borrowings are also known in the Latvian literary language, part of the lexemes are known both in the Rucava dialect and more broadly in Kurzeme, but part of the lexemes are local and known only in Rucava or in some of the closest neighbouring dialects. The collected dialect material shows that variations can be observed in stems and genders of the Rucava dialect. Such variations in borrowings could be explained by the influence of the form of the lender language or lender dialect; namely, the Latvian word has preserved the form of the lender language.