About N. P. Steinfeld’s Comparative Besermian Dictionary

Abstract

The work is devoted to the study of one of the first written sources representing the Besermian dialect. Such sources are of particular importance, because the problem of the ethnic history of the Besermians is still debatable. In the work the descriptive method and partly the method of etymological analysis were used. In the analysis of the vocabulary material, special attention was paid to the correct reading of words and their interpretation. N. P. Steinfeld did not develop a clear system for transmitting the sounds of the Besermian dialect. However, it seems to us that the confusion in fixing words is primarily a reflection of the pronunciation features that the compiler of the dictionary tried to catch in the process of fixing each word. In some cases, he noticed such features in the speech of the Besermians that eluded even experienced linguists. As for the vocabulary, it should be said that most of the Besermian words have a common Udmurt distribution. The proximity of the Besermian dialect not only to the Northern, but also to the Southern dialect of the Udmurt language is observed. There are few own Besermian lexical units. Among them there are Tatar and Chuvash loanwords that are absent in other dialects. In this source, we have not identified Bulgarisms used only in the Besermian dialect.