Volga-Finnic Dialects in the Historical Merya Lands According to Toponymic Data. Linguistic Calques. I

This article substantiates the possibility of obtaining data on extinct Finno-Ugric languages of Central Russia through a formalized catalogue of substrate toponyms of Finno-Ugric origin within the historical Merya lands (HML). The key to etymologizing lexical facts within the local toponymic system, presumably left by the Merya and Muroma languages, lies in the identification of several dozen instances of geographical name calquing. This approach suggests that the study of the local substrate toponymic system is akin to deciphering the writing through existing bilinguals. The presumable calques provide the most reliable toponymic evidence for these extinct languages. Mapping these calques within the HML reveals a strong correlation with the locations of archaeological sites, which are thought to be left by the Merya in the late 1st to early 2nd millennium AD, indicating their time and history of origin. The recurrence and widespread nature of these cases reduce the probability of random matches to near zero. The number of toponymic bases involved in the calquing process exceeds 70 units. This is sufficient to perform primary observations on the phonetic and word-formation features of substrate lexical facts from the perspective of historical phonetics and historical lexicology of Finno-Ugric languages. The study revealed not only instances of Russian toponymic calques but also repeatedly occurring cases of calquing between different dialects (languages) of extinct Finno-Ugric ethnic groups. This alone indicates the presence of not one but several Finno-Ugric dialects (languages) in the HML territory before Russian settlement. The first part of the article demonstrates examples and the importance of detecting cases of calquing for the formation of an initial set of reliable etymologies. The second part will present an analysis of the phonetic and word-formation features of the identified linguistic facts of the extinct Finno-Ugric languages in the HML and their closest correspondences in the Finno-Volga languages.