"Sam scarlet, sugar, caftan-green, velvet" - what is it? - "Watermelon", - they will answer in Russia. "Kavun", - they will say in Ukraine, Belarus, as well as in the south-western regions of Russia. Where did these two completely different words come from in closely related Slavic languages?

The fact is that they are borrowed from different languages: watermelon goes back to Persian, and kavun-through Turkish to Arabic, and in both languages both these words meant a completely different plant (and its fruit) - melon. At the same time, all etymological dictionaries note that, denoting melon, the Persian word harbuza literally translated as "donkey cucumber". However, here is what L. V. Uspensky wrote in his book "A Word about Words": "Following the generally accepted etymologies, I told readers of the journal Nauka I Zhizn about the origin of the word" watermelon "in 1965. But soon after I received a letter from Tashkent. M. Davron informed me that, in his opinion, "kharbyuz" should be understood not as "donkey cucumber", but as"donkey cucumber". In the Iranian languages, he wrote, the word "donkey", when joined to other nouns, can give them a kind of amplifying or magnifying meaning. So, "harmush", i.e.

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"donkey-mouse "means " rat"; "harsang" - "donkey-stone "means" block of stone". Therefore, "harbusa" should also be understood as "cucumber the size of a donkey", "cucumber". Consultations with prominent Iranian scientists confirmed this report" (L. 1971).

The word harbuza meaning "melon" has been preserved in modern Persian, as well as in the Hindi language that borrowed it. Having undergone certain phonetic transformations, it has entered many languages-but with different meanings. So, in the meaning of "watermelon" it exists in the Turkic languages (Turc. karpuz, kypch., kum. harbuz, tat. karbuz - according to the" Etymological Dictionary of the Russian language " by A. Preobrazhensky, which contains other variants, probably earlier-for example, in Tatar (karbuz also karpoyz, karpuz), and through them into some Slavic languages: Russian watermelon, Polish arbuz.

It should be noted that Preobrazhensky's Dictionary contains several phonetic variants of this word in Polish, probably existing at the time of its emergence under the influence of different Turkic languages: karpuz, garbuz, harpuz. The form arbuz preserved in modern Polish is borrowed through the Russian language. Preobrazhensky's Dictionary also includes the Serbo-Croatian word karpuza and the Bulgarian word karpuz with the same meaning "watermelon". However, modern dictionaries of these languages give completely different variants: lubenica (Serbo-Croatian) and dinja, lubenica (Bolg.).

Sources of borrowing the word watermelon in the Russian language are defined differently by different dictionaries. There is a group of Turkic languages in general and specific ones in particular: Tatar (Shansky N. M., Ivanov V. V., Shanskaya T. V. Short etymological dictionary of the Russian language, 2nd Ed., 1975), Kipchak, Turkish, Crimean Tatar (Fasmer M. V., etc.). Etymological dictionary of the Russian language, Moscow, 1986), Tatar, Kumyk (Preobrazhensky A. Etymological Dictionary of the Russian language, Moscow, 1910-1914).

In turn, Russian became a source of borrowing this name not only in Polish, but also in a number of Baltic languages: Latvian arbujs, Lithuanian arhuzas, Finnish arbunsi (along with vesimeloni ).

Meanwhile, in the Ukrainian and Belarusian languages closely related to Russian, the word garbuz, which goes back to the same source, has acquired a different meaning - "pumpkin". Watermelon in the Ukrainian, Belarusian languages, in South Russian dialects, as well as in Polish (along with the arbuz variant ) received the name kavun (Polish. kawon), borrowed, as noted in all etymological dictionaries, from the Tatar language, where this word means melon, as in a number of other Turkic languages. Etymological dictionaries include the following:

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examples: Kaun - Tatar, Kazakh; kogun, Kavun - Uyghur, Chagatai; Kovun-Uzbek, Kavyn-Nogai. The forms kavun and kaun are still preserved in modern Bulgarian dialects. In the Chuvash language, according to the Preobrazhensky Dictionary, the word kovan is used in the meaning of "pumpkin".

In turn, the origin of the word kavun in the Turkic languages is traditionally ascribed to the Arabic kavun - "melon", and this statement consistently wanders from one etymological dictionary to another (see, for example, the listed dictionaries, as well as " Etymological dictionary of Ukrainian movi. 1982. Vol. 2). Meanwhile, in modern Arabic, melon is denoted by another word: shammam.

The Etymological Dictionary of the Ukrainian language also indicates the presence of the word kavun in some Western and South Slavic languages: Czech kavon-meaning "watermelon", Bulgarian kavun, kaun - meaning"melon". In the Dictionary of Preobrazhensky, the Polish word kawon is given in the meaning of "pumpkin". However, these data are not confirmed by modern dictionaries of these languages: Czech meloun - "watermelon", Bulgarian ppesh - "melon", Polish dynja - "pumpkin".

It should be noted that the transformation of the Persian and Turkish names of melon into various variants of the names of watermelon and pumpkin occurred only in other Eastern and Slavic languages. In most European languages, the name of the melon goes back to its Latin name cucumis melo: melon (English, French, Spanish), Melone (German, Italian, Latvian), melao (Portuguese), meliuonas (Lithuanian), melooni (Finnish).

In turn, watermelon in some of these languages began to be called "watery melon": watermelon (English), Wassermelone (German), melon d'eau (French, obsolete; now the word pasteque is more commonly used in this sense), melon de agua (Latin American. spanish version. sandia in Spanish), vesimeloni (Finnish; used along with arbuusi borrowed from Russian).
The Western European name melon also penetrated into some West Slavic languages, but also turned into the name of watermelon, replacing in some cases earlier borrowings from Eastern languages: Czech meloun, Slovak melon, Slovenian melona.

For melon, most Slavic languages have retained the common Slavic name: Russian, Belarusian melon, Ukrainian dinya, Slovak dyha, Serbian and Macedonian din>a, Slovenian dinja. At the same time, in a number of Slavic languages, there are also discrepancies in the meaning of this word: for example, in Czech , dyne is the name of a pumpkin (along with tykev), in Bulgarian, dinya is the name of a watermelon (along with lyubenitsa). The origin of this common Slavic word is considered unclear.

In etymological dictionaries, there are two main variants: "Some consider it derived using the suffix-nya from the same os-

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new, but with a mutation of what to blow. In this case, the melon is literally "puffy, plump". Others explain the noun melon as a borrowing from Latin. cydonea, derived from Greek. kydonia - "Kidon apple" (Kidon is a city on the island of Crete), which has experienced phonetic changes: cydonea > *kddunja > *gdunja > *dunja > melon". (Shansky et al. Op. ed.; See also: Fasmer. Указ. соч. Т. I; Етимологiчний словник украiнськоi мови. Т. 2).

The meaning of "puffy, plump fruit" can also be found in another word of common Slavic origin pumpkin: "It goes back to the common Slavic pumpkin, which is an ancient borrowing from the Thracian language. The original root of this word had the meaning "to swell, to swell", therefore, the name of the object is given by the appearance of the fruit. The common Slavic tyky (<*tuku), vin. p. tykv, on the Old Russian soil was influenced by the words zh. r. na-a " (Shansky et al. Edict. op.). However, many authors (A. Preobrazhensky, M. Fasmer, L. V. Uspensky) considered the origin of this word unclear. With some phonetic changes, it has been preserved in the same meaning in many modern Slavic languages: Bulgarian and Serbian-tikva (along with bundeva), Slovak - tekvica, Czech - tykev (along with dyne), Slovenian - tikva (along with huca). The dictionaries of A. Preobrazhensky and M. Fasmer also indicate the presence of the word tikva in the Ukrainian language, but this is not confirmed by modern dictionaries of the Ukrainian language, since it has been preserved only in some dialects. In the literary Ukrainian and Belarusian languages, this plant and its fruit have a borrowed name garbuz. In addition, in the Ukrainian language it has another name borrowed from the Turkish language-kabak, and this word, just like in Turkish, in a number of other Turkic languages means not only pumpkin, but also another plant of the cucurbita family, known in Russian as zucchini.

Its origin is quite transparent: "Actually-Russian. It is formed as a deminutive with the suffix-ok from the kabak borrowed from the Ukrainian language, which goes back to the Turkic [kabak] - "pumpkin", k alternates with h in the type of suk-suchok " (Shansky et al. Edict. op.). With the same meaning of a certain variety of the pumpkin family, this word was then borrowed by some other languages: Polish-kabaczek, Czech-kabacok, Latvian-kahaci. In some Slavic languages, the name zucchini was also formed as a deminutive, the original form of which was the name of pumpkin in this language: tikva-tikvochka (Bolg.), tikva-tikvitsa (Serbian.), tekvica - tekvicka (Slovak.).

A similar process occurred in some non-Slavic European languages: zucca - zucchini (Italian), calabaza - calabacin, calabacita (Spanish), abobora - abobrinha (Portuguese). One of these forms is Italian

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the name zucchini was later adopted by many languages (including Russian) to refer to a particular variety of zucchini, which corresponds to a pattern: if there was an original name for a generic concept, the borrowed names were usually extended to its specific varieties. In the Russian language, in the presence of the generic name pumpkin of common Slavic origin, foreign words were consistently borrowed to denote the type - zucchini, and then certain varieties of it - zucchini, patisson, etc. And if the word zucchini, which has undergone a certain processing in the Russian language, is, in fact, a Russian entity, then the names of its varieties were borrowed almost unchanged.

Observations show that in the complex process of linguistic interaction and lexical mutual influence, the names of this group of plants that were Oriental in origin were not borrowed by Western European languages and were distributed only in other Eastern and Slavic languages. Common Slavic names in origin also did not go beyond the borders of Slavic languages. Borrowings from European languages (although later) penetrated into some Slavic languages, including Russian, but for the most part - with limited lexical meaning.

Simferopol, Ukraine

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