Aleksey Kulakovsky’s lexicographic work “Russian Words Borrowed and Assimilated by the Yakuts”: a linguistic and historical-cultural analysis

This article presents a comprehensive study of Aleksey Kulakovsky’s work “Russian Words Borrowed and Assimilated by the Yakuts (Excluding Proper Names and Place Names)” (1924). The relevance of the study is determined by the need to reinterpret Kulakovsky’s scholarly legacy within the context of modern approaches to studying language contact and language policy. Given the growing interest in issues of language adaptation and intercultural communication, the Kulakovsky’s work gains particular significance as an example of a systematic approach to describing borrowing processes. The scientific novelty of the research lies in it being the first comprehensive linguistic and historical-cultural analysis of the Kulakovsky’s dictionary as an integral scholarly work. It introduces into academic discourse a systematic description of the principles for organizing lexicographic material, reveals previously unstudied aspects of the thematic classification of vocabulary, and offers a reassessment of the theoretical significance of the “Rules” section for the development of Yakut linguistics. Research methods include historical-cultural analysis for reconstructing the intellectual context of the work’s creation, the descriptive method for characterizing the dictionary’s structure, comparative-contrastive analysis for identifying phonetic patterns in loanword adaptation, and the method of thematic classification for systematizing lexical material. The aim of the work is a multifaceted analysis of the Kulakovsky’s lexicographic work, identifying its system-forming principles, and determining its scientific significance. The main conclusions of the study are: the Kulakovsky’s dictionary is not only a lexicographic monument but also a programmatic manifesto reflecting the author’s scholarly position on language development issues. The patterns of phonetic adaptation formulated in the “Rules” section demonstrate a systematic approach to describing language processes. The thematic organization of the lexical material allows the dictionary to be viewed as a valuable source for studying the interaction of Russian and Yakut linguistic cultures, reflecting profound processes of intercultural communication. Kulakovsky’s lexicographic principles retain methodological value, remaining a relevant tool for researching language contact.

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