Gaming Vocabulary in the Middle Ob Dialects

The article is devoted to the vocabulary of children and youth games in the dialects of the Middle Ob region. This lexical group has a significant informational potential in terms of representing a traditional folk culture. The sources of the material are the published Tomsk dialect dictionaries and the Tomsk dialect corpus data. The article aims to characterize the gaming vocabulary content and to examine the motivational basis of some game terms, their connection with various dialect semantic fields. Gaming vocabulary includes names of games, names of participants, actions performed during games, equipment, and auxiliary tools. In total, more than 100 lexical units were analyzed. Among them, there are both common and dialect words. One of the most important, lexicographically represented and analyzed fragment of gaming vocabulary is actual names of games. The largest subgroup consists of names of active games with a large number of participants. Among them are common words (e.g., rucheek (thread the needle), pryatki (hide-and-seek), lapta, gorodki (skittles), zhmurki (blind Tom), gorelki (chase-and-catch)) with matches in dialects. Games with equipment are also quite common. As a rule, these are small objects of peasant life, or things that are part of the natural environment. Names of such games are the result of metonymic transfers. Most lexemes referring to games without an object have a verbal motivational basis, which indicates the main action performed by players. This verb is often present in the description of the rules or in the game-play. A significant number of game nominations have a figurative basis. In the designation of mobile, competitive games, names of animals and birds, names of elements (most often fire) are in demand. Nominations of socializing youth games, as well as their participants, are metaphorical; the direct meaning of these units refers to the social sphere (names elements of public life and social roles). Some games and roles are named after significant sociohistorical events (for example, war). Metaphors based on the physical qualities of a person and the characteristics of artifacts are unique in the studied material. Names of games can also reflect their principles, basic rules. Some names have an unclear motivation, which determines the prospect of further research. The variety of gaming vocabulary functioning in the dialect indicates the importance of this layer of folk culture. Its study is productive for describing the dialect language worldview and gives an opportunity to consider its individual aspects.

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