Lexical interference in the speech of Old Believers–re-emigrants from South America to the Far East of Russia

The Old Believers - re-emigrants from South America to the Far East of Russia are descendants of Old Believers of the Chasovennyi type who emigrated in the first decades of the 20th century from Russia to China and then moved to South America in the 1940s - 1950s. These communities began returning to their historical homeland, including the Far East, in the eariy 21st century. Currently, over thirty such Oid Believer re-emigrants reside in the Amur Region, a number that increases annually, which is altering the region's dialectal landscape, making the study of external and internal Lexical interference particularly relevant. The group's complex migration history, spanning both within and beyond the metropolis, has fostered a unique linguistic environment which remains largely unexamined in terms of semantic awareness and structural adaptation, a gap that underscores the novelty of this research. The study focuses on vocabulary of foreign origin that has been integrated into the speakers' linguistic system, Far Eastern regionalisms, and lexical units from modern Standard Russian that serve as synonyms for dialectal terms. Data were collected through continuous sampling from audio recordings of conversations with Old Believers, their manuscripts, and the book The Story about the Life of Danila Terentyevich Zaitsev by the Old Believer writer Danila T. Zaitsev. The paper identifies types of local accents depending on the specifics of speakers' linguistic competence and describes the most typical lexical-semantic groups exhibiting language interference. Borrowed vocabulary is analyzed in terms of its semantic and grammatical adaptation. SocioLinguistic observations indicate that the Old Believers speak a Middle Russian dialectal form of the language, which developed on a Northern Russian basis. They were taught Russian literacy in a home environment, resulting in a predominantly phonetic writing system. The linguistic competence of Old Believer re-emigrants is influenced by multiple factors, including generational cohort, country of origin, level of engagement in socio-economic relations with the state and its citizens, the intensity of migration within the Americas, and individual linguistic profiles. The study highlights specific lexical-semantic groups where foreign-origin vocabulary is recorded. Intralingual interference is evident from Modern Standard Russian and Far Eastern regionalisms, primarily affecting the subject-oriented semantics of conversational discourse. This includes vocabulary related to personalities, diseases and medical conditions, food products and dishes, fruits and vegetables, household utensils, and tools.

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