To the Problem of Greek Loanwords in the Ukrainian Argots

Abstract

The article considers Greek borrowings in the Ukrainian lyric-craft argots in the context of the genesis and development of the East Slavic „secret languages”. The main linguistic views on the problem of Greek borrowings in the Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian historical sociolects expressed during the XIX–XXI centuries are analyzed, a number of critical remarks on some approaches to the problem are offered. Particular attention is paid to the critique of V. Bondaletov’s „Proto-Ofenian theory”, in particular to the statement of the exceptional influence of the sociolect of Russian itinerant traders as „praargot” on other East Slavic sociolects. The views of ethnographers and linguists on the extra-linguistic reasons for the formation of a common fund of Greek borrowings in the East Slavic „secret languages” are systematized and commented on. Numerous Greek borrowings in the Ukrainian lyric-craft argots have been studied on the background of other East Slavic sociolects: the study is based on a comparative method aimed at establishing substandard lexical units the most similar to the Greek etymon in the internal and external forms. This enabled to conclude to which specific sociolect or sociolect group the analyzed argots belong, as well as how they spread further among other sociolects, undergoing various phonetic, derivational and semantic transformations. The method mentioned above implemented on the basis of Greek borrowings in the domestic substandard systems enabled to emphasize the author’s views on the genesis of the Ukrainian lyric-craft argots, in particular, more clearly revealed the common Belarusian-Ukrainian argotic array and transitional „contact” sociolects, borrowing a great number of lexical units from it.