Interpretation of Religious Vocabulary Units in the General Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language

The article analyzes way semantics of religious lexical units are described in the general explanatory dictionaries of the Russian standard language, published in the beginning of the 20th century. We make a comparison of the information in the dictionaries and the information from previous linguistic dictionaries and with data from encyclopedic sources. The article specifies the main characteristics of religious vocabulary units that determine the peculiarities of their semantic (the sacred nature of many designated concepts, which requires a correct theological approach; the essential role of encyclopedic information in the description of religious lexemes (this information is included in the interpretation zone); the relationship between “non-religious” and “religious” meanings of a commonly used words). The article discusses the difficulties of lexicographic presentation of the semantics of this lexicon, their main reasons (the complexity of the designated concept, its historical and confessional variability, etc.). The problem of reflection in the interpretation of the authors’ worldview is touched upon (see the words причащение ‘communion’ and причастие ‘the Blessed Sacrament’). The article describes cases, where the meaning of the word is changed (духовенство ‘clergy’, сорокоуст ‘forty day’s temple prayer for the living and the dead’), as well as lexical archaization (дьячок, пономарь ‘sexton’). The paper presents us with the examples of erroneous, inaccurate or incomplete dictionary representation of the word meanings of the sphere “Religion and Church” (see ектения ‘litany’, епитрахиль ‘stole’, прошение ‘petition to God’, список ‘handwritten repetition of an ancient text, icon’). The article emphasizes the need for a more attentive lexicographers’ attention to the analyzed group of vocabulary. At the end of the publication there is a dictionary entry “Clergy” from the “Academic dictionary of Russian language” (this dictionary is being developed at V. V. Vinogradov Russian language Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences).

Keywords

modern Russian standard language, religious vocabulary, lexical semantics, explanatory dictionary, interpretation, encyclopedic information

Received

24.12.2020

Publication date

25.12.2020

Number of characters

24909

Cite

GOST	Tsumarev A. Interpretation of Religious Vocabulary Units in the General Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language // Russkaya Rech’ – 2020. – Issue 5 C. 70-84 [Electronic resource]. URL: http://ras.jes.su/rusrech/s013161170012132-4-1-en (circulation date: 27.04.2025). DOI: 10.31857/S013161170012132-4
MLA	Tsumarev, Alexey E. "Interpretation of Religious Vocabulary Units in the General Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language." Russkaya Rech’ 5 (2020):70-84. DOI: 10.31857/S013161170012132-4
APA	Tsumarev A. (2020). Interpretation of Religious Vocabulary Units in the General Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language. Russkaya Rech’ (5), pp.70-84 DOI: 10.31857/S013161170012132-4

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