Russian dialect adjective rakhmanny in the national image of appearance

We investigate the origin of the Russian dialect word rakhmanny and history of the meanings of appearance in its semantic structure. Rakhmanny adjective describes a person's appearance in the dialects in parametric ('thick') and aesthetic ('beautiful' and 'ugly') aspects. The semantic structure of the adjectives rakhmanny widely represents enantiosemy. With a wide distribution area (North Russian, Central Russian, South Russian dialects), this adjective has a variety of other meanings that characterize the person from different sides: 'quiet, calm' and 'cheerful, riotous', 'sluggish, slow' and 'lively, agile', 'bad' and 'good', 'prudent' and 'simple-minded', 'kind' and 'heartless', 'unhealthy' and 'healthy'. The word rakhmanny has other, non-antonymous, meanings in dialects that mainly evaluated a person's character, especially behavior, cultural development, attitude to work ('relaxed', 'sly, cunning', 'hospitable', 'generous' 'fearless', 'educated, cultural', etc.). The derivation basis of the adjective is the noun rakhman: 'humbled man' (Kaluga), 'bully, robber' (Novgorod). Single rooted dialect words have no meaning of a person's appearance, and mainly reflect the semantics associated with the behavior of a human or an animal (often a 'quiet, gentle'). In order to reveal the inner form of the word, the origins of the primary motivation of the adjective rakhmanny, the occurrence of the appearance semantics, the author refers to the historical data of the Russian language. The adjective is fixed from the 17th century in the meaning 'simple-minded'. In the 19th century the Russian literary language has this adjective in the meaning marked as 'non-brisk, inert'. Old Russian recorded a single rooted noun rakhmane: 'Indian philosophers, the Brahmins'. Further the material of other Slavic languages is analyzed. The adjective in the main meaning 'peaceable, gentle, calm' is presented in the Ukrainian and the Belarusian languages. As an East Slavic word it is fixed in Polish. The semantics of a person's appearance is not represented in the Slavic material. In the literature on etymology there are two hypotheses on the origin of the word rakhmanny. Firstly, words rakhman and rakhmanny go back to the Greek ppax^avoi, ppax^avs^, 'Indian priests' (from Old Indian brahman) (A.I. Sobolevsky, M. Vasmer, A.F. Zhuravlev et al.). Secondly, they are characterized as Turk-isms, cf. Turkish and Tatar rahman 'compassionate, good-natured' (F. Miklosic). The development of the semantics of the adjective rakhmanny in Russian dialects and the predominance of the meaning 'quiet, modest' in the southern territory of Russia allows speaking in favor of the first hypothesis. In the conclusion, the development of the semantics of the word rakhmanny is given: 'Indian priest, philosopher, ascetic' > 'resident of a fairy tale, the righteous' > 'quiet, modest person'> 'too humble' > 'not like the others, different from the others'. Spreading of the word orally in Russian dialects facilitated the emergence of an extensive system of meanings with both positive and negative connotations. The meanings of a person's appearance (parametric characterization 'thick' and aesthetic - 'beautiful', 'ugly') also estimate the deviation from the average and go back to the 'different from the others' semantics.

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