Etymology as a way of life (to the 70th anniversary of Academician Alexander Anikin)

Abstract

This paper is devoted to the linguistic works by Alexander Evgenievich Anikin, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, on the occasion of his 70th anniversary. Alexander Anikin, a versatile philologist, has made a significant contribution to Russian, particularly dialectal and Ural-Altaic etymology. The linguistic tradition that Alexander Anikin adheres to is associated with the names of famous etymologists of the Russian language, Max Vasmer and Oleg N. Trubachev. The scientific path of Alexander Anikin as an etymologist includes several stages. The starting point was his interest in Balto-Slavic language contacts and borrowings. Then, Alexander Anikin turned to the study of the language contacts in terms of the vocabulary of the languages of the peoples of Siberia and the Far East and Siberian dialects of the Russian language. Currently, the researcher is working on the Russian Etymological Dictionary. This dictionary is an ambitious project that involves searching for etymons for the maximum possible number of Russian words described in etymological, historical, and dialect dictionaries and studies. The Russian Etymological Dictionary differs from many other etymological dictionaries of the Russian language. It covers the dialectal (including Siberian), outdated, and ancient words lost in modern Russian. Also, the paper considers the principles of selecting the linguistic material and the structure of dictionary entries and characterizes the range of languages, which Alexander Anikin analyzes in the context of etymology.