Toponymic Research and Scientific Collaborations: in Search of a Common Language

Gordova Yuliana ORCID: 0000-0002-6775-5518 Doctor of Philology Senior Researcher, Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences 125009, Russia, Moskovskaya oblast', g. Moscow, per. Bol'shoi Kislovskii, 1, stroenie 1 onyma-ryazan@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Introduction. The onomastics section, which studies the proper names of geographical objects, has always attracted the attention of specialists in various fields of knowledge. Not only linguists, but also geographers and historians consider the object of toponymic study to be "their own". The explanations for this phenomenon are quite clear: geographical names are closely related not only to the language of the population that creates and assigns them, but also to the place and epoch of their origin. The modern development of science has led to the need for multidisciplinary research, which could combine the knowledge and methods of several sciences in the field of toponymy – primarily linguistics, geography and archaeology. Today, such research is more relevant and in demand than ever, and a number of such joint projects have been launched in 2019-2020. Among them are projects of the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences to create a series of toponymic atlases of Russia ("Toponymic Atlas of the Ryazan Region", 2011-2015 ^[6]; "Toponymic Atlas of the Tambov Region", 2020-2022), carried out with the involvement of specialists in the field of languages of the peoples of Russia, archeology and cartography; and projects of the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences on the study of ancient maps, temple complexes, landscapes and toponyms of the Northern Black Sea region ^{[4, 7]}, uniting geographers (geomorphologists, cartographers) and linguists (projects are carried out with the financial support of Russian scientific foundations).

As practice has shown, one of the main difficulties in the implementation of such joint projects, along with differences in the methodology used, is often the difference in the terminology of individual sciences. There is a need to develop a common terminological base of toponymy, which could be used by specialists of different scientific fields when conducting multidimensional toponymic research. The primary tasks in this regard are: the formation of a glossary of multi-scientific terms, the description of their meanings, the analysis of examples of use in scientific texts, the development of recommendations for further use in joint interdisciplinary work. In this article, we will summarize the experience of using individual terms, show the shift of their semantics in toponymy, and identify terms that may be useful for a modern toponymist. The terms borrowed from geography (geology, hydrology, cartography, physical geography, oceanology), archeology and other areas of linguistics are analyzed. The sources of the material are geographical, historical, linguistic works of 2018-2022, affecting various problems of toponymy.

We emphasize that the work on the selection, analysis and description of multi-scientific terms pursues quite practical goals and is designed to introduce into scientific circulation and consolidate in it the most suitable toponymic terms for linguists, geographers and historians. It seems that this work will become part of a large project aimed at forming, updating, strengthening the terminological base of toponymy and more stable and accurate use of the developed terms in toponymic research and multi-scientific collaborations.

Materials and research. Terms of geography in toponymy. The inextricable connection of a toponym with a specific place, the features of the relief, landscape, water system, settlement structures, flora and fauna determines the importance for toponymic research primarily geographical terminology. Toponymy has already mastered many geographical terms, such as river system, river basin, watercourse, tributary of the first (second, third, etc.) order. A special place in toponymic terminology is occupied by the terms and concepts of cartography (map field, legend, area, etc.), which studies the methods of creating and using maps.

The term landscape is found in the phrases onomastic landscape, toponymic landscape already in the glossary of the Dictionary of Russian Onomastic Terminology (hereinafter – SROT) 1978, author – N. V. Podolskaya. The onomastic landscape is defined in the dictionary as "the spectrum of onomastic types ... represented in a given territory" ^{[11, p. 101]}. The toponymic landscape, or toponymic environment, is explained as "the whole set of toponyms of a given territory, usually diverse, multilingual, of different times." The author of the dictionary notes that these phrases are not terminological, since "they do not have clear boundaries" ^{[11, p. 147]}. It seems that during the time that has passed since the release of the SRO, the term toponymic landscape has acquired not only its terminological framework, but also a special relevance in connection with the strengthening of the role of the spatial factor in toponymic research. Today, the meaning of this term can be defined not just as "a set of toponyms of a given territory." It is the spatial location of toponyms in the representation of a person living here (or a researcher), the known world with a system of geographical names of different types – names of rivers, urban and rural settlements, fields, forests, ravines – in a "synchronous" perception, in which the names are realized not as relics of separate time layers and different languages, but as a modern system of verbal designations of famous objects. At the same time, the requirements of a common history of formation and development and geographical homogeneity are imposed on the territory itself, which to a certain extent brings the territory closer to the concept of a region, as we have already written about earlier, see: ^{[5, pp. 11-13]}.

One of the main objects of toponymy are the names of rivers, and therefore it is important for a toponymist to know the basic terms of hydrology, in particular terms that allow for the gradation of water bodies by their size. This classification of denotations is not linguistic, but thanks to it, differences in the main linguistic characteristics of hydronyms of three groups often become clear: the type of name, the appellative base used, language affiliation, time of appearance.

Small rivers are rivers located in the same hydrographic zone, having a length of no more than 100 km and a basin area of no more than 2 thousand km2 ^[2]. The majority of the Earth's rivers belong to small rivers. Although hydronymy is considered the most conservative category of onyms, of all hydronyms, it is the names of small rivers that are the most mobile in terms of temporary changes: when the population changes, they are quickly forgotten, objects get new names, their shape often (on the scale of several centuries) changes. This is proved by the data of the hydronymic catalogues, in particular, of the Oka and Don basin ^{[13, 9, 10]}: the Kukaska / Kukiska river; the Zhabka /Zhabya river, the Glubochka / Glubokaya river, the Poskokusha river / Skokukha, lake Long Myzgi / Muzg Lake, R. Kukolevka / Kulinka (1290), R. Pilis / Pominovka ^{[13, pp. 166, 165]}, as well as a comparison of large-scale topographic maps of the same area, even published with a small difference of 30 years.  As a rule, the names of small rivers are associated with the language of the population living in a given area at a given time, they are easily explained through common or dialect vocabulary and may even be secondary to the names of settlements located on the banks of rivers (for example, the village of Burminka, the Burminka River).

Medium rivers are rivers that are also located in the same hydrographic zone and have a basin area of 2 thousand to 50 thousand km2. The names of the middle rivers are subject to change to a lesser extent, but their shape is also undergoing changes. Savala River, right tributary of the Khoper River (river length 285 km): Sovala (1937), Savalskaya (1862), Savola (1680), Suvala (1640), Suvola (1640) ^{[9, p. 318]}. The modern Voronezh River (the left tributary of the Don) was formerly called the Great Crow ^{[9, p. 120]}.

Large rivers, as a rule, are located in several geographical zones and have a basin area of more than 50 thousand km2. The big ones include, in particular, the Dnieper, Danube, Volga, and Don rivers. The names of large rivers are the most stable, but they also change over the millennia. So, the Don River in the monuments of writing to ser. The I millennium BC is known by the name Tanais (other -Greek. ) ^{[1, pp. 366-367]}, the Dnieper – in the source of the V century BC is called Borysthenes, and in the VI century AD already Danaper ^{[12, p. 142]}.

Global processes lead to changes in the Earth's water system and shallowing of rivers. This also affects their names. The most common way to transform hydronyms is to add formants to the former name –k(a), -chick and sub.: Syromnya - Syromenka, Sialey – Sialeyka, Willow – Willow, Zelenka – Zelenka, Danube – Dunaychik ^{[13, p. 173, 256, 254, 173, 166]}. Studying and describing this toponymic process, a scientist can use the term hydrology – degradation of a water body. Degradation involves not only shallowing of the river, but also the deposition of river soil, salinization and waterlogging of the floodplain, pollution, and changes in coastal flora and fauna. Thus, this term accommodates all the main processes that provoke a change in the form of the hydronym. It is also important that the main meaning of the reference word – degradation – is understandable to native speakers of the Russian language – not geographers, since it is also used in other spheres, which makes the geographical term with its participation understandable.

In toponymic works, the term can be used when describing hydronyms in the following context. Pihteliai is a stream, a left tributary of the Khmelina River. The object is indicated on the maps of the Mende Atlas of 1860-1862 as "R. Pichteliai" ^[15], the river is formed by the confluence of two sources – the northern and southern, the inscription on the map refers to the northern source, flows along the west-east line into the Khmelina River. On modern maps, both sources are represented by swamps and separate sections of the stream, already without a name, which indicates the gradual degradation of the water body.

The terms of toponymy echo the terms of oceanology, in connection with which the latter can also be used in toponymic research. As an example, let's consider terms of both sciences that are close in meaning: coastal toponym, littonym, lotsia.

A coastal toponym is the proper name of a natural or man–made object located near the shore or on the seashore; it is usually given by sailors when drawing up detailed maps or lots, it may differ from the names of the same objects used by the local population ^{[11, p. 140]}, for example: mount Kriumetopon (ram's forehead) in the Crimea, given by Greek sailors, among the local population – Ayu-Dag (Bear Mountain) ^{[11, p. 140]}.

The coastal toponym is considered an onomastics term, and it is already given in 1978. At the same time, it is clarified that the same meaning (the proper name of the coastal object) has the term littonym borrowed from the French language ^{[11, p. 198]}. As practice has shown, this term has not entered the active lexicon of Russian toponymists and, in fact, has remained "dictionary". At the same time, in the dictionary article devoted to coastal toponyms, the term of navigation – lotsia is mentioned, which seems to deserve some attention.

The lot is a description of the seas, oceans, as well as the coast, compiled by navigators for successful navigation. In addition to purely professional marks, such as a description of the bottom relief, safe routes for navigation, features of the legislation of "maritime" countries, the lot contains a large number of names of coastal objects – capes, bays, bays, ports and other notable places that serve as landmarks for sailors when sailing. Information from historical locales can serve as important sources of coastal toponyms and evidence of the change of toponymic tradition in regions that for many centuries have been a place of attraction for various peoples, served as an object of conquest, for example, the territory of modern Turkey, conquered from the Greeks by Turkic-speaking nomadic peoples. We also emphasize that the considered terms are updated in toponymic works in connection with the conduct of multi-scientific expeditions to the Northern Black Sea region conducted by the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the increased interest in coastal toponymy and issues of cultural and linguistic stratifications in the toponymy of the studied regions ^[3].

Toponymy also includes work on mapping, and therefore the toponymic language inevitably borrows the terms of geographical cartography. Of these, such terms as the base map, the reference (cosmetic) layer, the thematic layer, and the thematic map are the basic ones. And they have already been discussed in detail by us earlier, in the work "Actual methods of processing and presenting onomastic data: 2009-2019" ^{[5, pp. 61-70]}, explaining how to make a toponymic map using modern computer technologies. Two new useful terms for a toponymist are map load, terrain elements.The load of the map (in geographical cartography) is the display of various elements of the terrain on the map field.

Terrain elements are localities, road network, lakes, rivers and other objects shown on the map. Accordingly, in toponymic cartography, they are "transformed" into hydronyms, oikonyms, oronyms, limnonyms and other objects of toponymic study, and for a toponymist it is the onyms of different categories and classes that make up the main load of the map.

Terms of history in toponymy. The connection of a toponym with time – the epoch of its origin – determines the significance of the terminology of historical sciences for toponymy. The frequent reference of toponymists to archaeological data to confirm the estimated time of the origin of the toponym, as well as its possible connection with material culture or a specific ethnic group, especially actualizes the terms of this area.

In the works of toponymists, the geological and archaeological term stratigraphy, or chronostratigraphy, is increasingly being used. In archaeology, stratigraphy is "consideration of the correspondence of time with the order of the location of cultural layers and ancient burials in relation to geological strata and to each other"" ^[8]; ^{[16, p. 102]}.Toponymic stratigraphy refers to the relative chronology of toponymic systems, toponymic types and models, processes and phenomena in connection with historical epochs.

A convenient research tool in this case is the method of synchronous cross–section - the study of toponymy of one chronological period with subsequent "embedding" in the toponymic stratigraphy of the studied region. Today, both the synchronous slice method and stratigraphic analysis are included in the traditional set of onomastics research techniques ^{[14, p. 203]}. The first allows us to study the toponymic state, that is, the state of the system of geographical names of the region in a specific historical epoch ^{[14, p. 215]}, the second – the toponymic process – the natural change of the toponymic states of the region in chronological order. At the same time, the term developed within the framework of theoretical archaeology – Shchapova's ladder (2013), which later transformed into Shchapova's "overlap" ladder, is of interest – "a scheme of the course of development of archaeological epochs that demonstrates the overlap (parallel development) of adjacent archaeological sub-epochs" ^{[16, p. 32]}. In the course of various historical processes (migration, conquest of new lands), indigenous and new populations find themselves on the same territory, and for some time their toponymic systems develop in parallel (for example: Greeks and Turks-Oguz in the XI century. on the territory of modern Turkey, ancient Mordovian tribes and Slavic settlers in Pooch in the IX-XI centuries.). Strengthening the position of one language, one culture leads to a change in the toponymic tradition in the region, to the displacement and assimilation of former names, to the appearance of a toponymic substrate, which will be discussed below. As a rule, these processes also occur "overlapping": for some time the toponymic systems of neighboring peoples coexist and interact, and only then there is a radical change in the toponymic landscape of the territory. In the light of the above, we believe that the term ladder "overlap" by Shchapova requires comprehension within the framework of toponymic science, possibly with the development of another verbal designation for the described meaning.

Terms of linguistics in toponymy. In the period 2020-2022, research directions related to the languages of the indigenous peoples of Russia were updated, in this regard, the term autochthonous toponym can be introduced into the active dictionary of a toponymist.

An autochthonous toponym is a name assigned to an object by the indigenous population of a given territory, in contrast to the names of "transferred" assigned to objects by settlers from other places. For example, autochthonous may be considered ancient Nord place names in the basin of the river. Vad (territory of the Republic of Mordovia, Ryazan and Penza regions): Vodolay, Imlyay, Kashelyay, Oshlyay, and "transferred" are the first Slavic toponyms on the Ryazan land: Trubezh, Lybed, Pereyaslavl, Danube, Plava. The complexity of the application of the term in question is due to the fact that it is often impossible to determine whether a particular population of the region is indigenous, since when and for how long it has lived in a given area (for example, whether to consider as such the Baltic tribes that occupied certain areas of the Pooch region before the arrival of the Slavs?). However, the use of the term when studying the issue of changing the toponymic tradition in the local territory in the past due to changes in the ethnic composition of the population is, apparently, justified, since it allows us to explain the process of the emergence of a toponymic substrate as a cultural and linguistic heritage of previous eras.

Conclusions. Thus, toponymy, being a specific linguistic direction that uses the knowledge of other non–linguistic sciences, actively borrows the terminology of these sciences, transforming it, adjusting it to its needs and to its specifics, filling it with a new meaning. As a result, a group of terms is formed, which can be called interdisciplinary and which can be used both in the works of toponymists-linguists, and in the works of toponymists-geographers / historians. Of course, a common scientific language contributes to a better understanding of the processes studied by scientists of different specialties, a better understanding of each other and greater integration of knowledge in different fields. This work is only a stage in the formation of a glossary of interdisciplinary terminology, in the future it is planned to describe the terms that toponymy borrows from ethnography, cultural studies, oral folk art, information technology, as well as other terms of geography and archaeology that are used in toponymic works.