Toponymic legends and legends about the names of settlements in the Volgograd region

UDC 81`37
DOI 10.20339/PhS.1-26.026

Suprun Vasilii I.,

Doctor of Philology,

Professor of the Russian Language and Its Teaching Methods Department

Institute of the Russian Language and Literature

Volgograd State Socio-Pedagogical University

e-mail: suprun@vspu.ru

Suleiman Mariya M. ,

Candidate of Philology,

Associate Professor of the Linguistics Department

Institute of the Foreign Languages

Volgograd State Socio-Pedagogical University

e-mail: m.sulejman@mail.ru

In the toponymic space of any nation, there are onyms, to explain the origin of which native speakers resort to folk etymology. They become part of the linguistic culture of the people, reflect their literary and creative potential. Such units are commonly referred to as toponymic legends and traditions. The article is devoted to the analysis of these elements of the regional linguistic culture of the Russian people. The material was based on folk etymological versions of the origin of the names of settlements in the Volgograd region that exist in the linguistic consciousness of local residents. The materials were collected by the authors during field expeditions and during the analysis of folklore, historical and journalistic texts of regional content. Toponymic legends and legends allow us to look into the distant past of the region, to understand how the settlement of the territory of the present Volgograd region took place, as well as to tell about the way of life, customs, traditions, crafts of the first settlers and the geographical landscape of the developed territories. The article offers a classification of the analyzed legends and traditions, which helps to understand the development of the linguistic creativity of Russian speakers in the perception of toponymic units. At the same time, the authors urge to fight pseudoscientific etymologies of place names that do not take into account the rules and patterns of language, history, geography, or other scientific fields. Linguists are obliged to refute these lies in a reasoned manner, to debunk unscientific constructions that falsify etymology and toponymy as a science. Toponymic pseudo-etymological constructions are in the general stream of pseudoscientific falsification, which in our days of fake thinking has flooded the Internet, the media and bookstores.

Keywords: linguistic creativity, toponym, folklore, toponymic legends and traditions, folk etymology

The research was funded by a grant from the Russian Science Foundation and the Administration of the Volgograd Region (RSF, project No. 25-28-20081, https://rscf.ru/project/25-28-20081/)

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