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The History of Alder’s Names in the Russian Language
The article reviews the history of naming plants. The study aims to show the history of naming the alder in the Russian language as an example of how a fragment of the lexical system of the Russian language was formed in all its diversity, including
the dialects. In the Slavic languages all the names of the alder in their numerous world –building variations originate from Proto-Slavic roots *elъха and *olьха that in their turn come from indo-european world *alisā, with its root meaning ‘light color.’ All the forms of the word alder are present extensively in written texts and vernaculars. The forms with *о- in the beginning of the word are more common, but along with them the forms with *е- or в- in the beginning can be used in the same region at the same time.
The only world that remained in the Russian literary language is ольха (alder). Yet, all previous variations of this word’s roots can be observed in contemporary Russian vernacular languages. They feature a large number of word-building variations with different suffixes and first sounds of the root.
the dialects. In the Slavic languages all the names of the alder in their numerous world –building variations originate from Proto-Slavic roots *elъха and *olьха that in their turn come from indo-european world *alisā, with its root meaning ‘light color.’ All the forms of the word alder are present extensively in written texts and vernaculars. The forms with *о- in the beginning of the word are more common, but along with them the forms with *е- or в- in the beginning can be used in the same region at the same time.
The only world that remained in the Russian literary language is ольха (alder). Yet, all previous variations of this word’s roots can be observed in contemporary Russian vernacular languages. They feature a large number of word-building variations with different suffixes and first sounds of the root.
history of words, etymology, world-building variations