Lexical borrowing of the second half of the 19th century in the letters of I. S. Turgenev

The paper discusses lexical borrowings from the Western European languages in Russian in the second half of the 19th century in the letters of I. S. Turgenev. The definition of the term “borrowing” is given. The criteria determining the entry of a foreign language unit into the lexical system of the Russian language are specified. The word’s being widely represented in various dictionaries is considered as one of the important criteria to determine the foreign language word’s common usage. The entry dating of foreign words in the Russian language is specified in letters and other sources. The processes of semantic adaptation of borrowings in the Russian language of the 19th century are analyzed: narrowing, expansion of the meaning and scope of the word usage, complication of the semantic structure, appearance of meanings typical of colloquial speech or having individual authorial character, connotation change. This study allowed considering the letters of I. S. Turgenev as a valuable source for compiling etymological dictionaries of the Russian language since the borrowed vocabulary is not fully reflected in them. The author believes that the material of the letters of I. S. Turgenev should be reflected in the Dictionary of the Russian language of the 19th century. With instability and the dynamics of units being the principle of word selection in the dictionary, borrowed vocabulary will take an important place as an significant part of the neology of this era.

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