BALTIC HYDRONYMY OF CENTRAL RUSSIA

The article presents the linguistic analysis of hydronyms of the Central Russia. The origin is considered of the names of large rivers (more than 100 km long) from the Moscow, Kaluga, Oryol, Yaroslavl, Ivanovo, Vladimir, Ryazan, Kostroma, Tver, Nizhny Novgorod, Vologda regions. The systematization of hydronyms that appeared in the Baltic language environment was carried out. The results indicate that the names of the rivers have an etymology associated with such concepts as a river, channel, stream. The basis for river names are verbs in Present Tense, third person singular, while the lake names stem from verbs in Past Tense, third person singular. It was also discovered that in modern river names, Slavic and Finno-Ugric vowels of the Baltic hydronyms are very common. The suggested approach helps accurately localize the settlements of Slavic and Finno-Ugric tribes in space as well as time. At the same time, the range of Baltic hydronyms turned out wider than it had been expected. The obtained results enable to clarify the archaeological and historical aspects of the life of ancient people in the Central Russia.