Vocabulary for hopscotch in the Mari language

Hopscotch, a game where players hop through a pattern of rectangles outlined on the ground, is known all over the world. In Russia, the first recording of the game dates back to 1863. Among the Mari people, hopscotch games spread no later than the 1920s–1930s. The subject of the article is the semantics and genesis of the hopscotch vocabulary in the Mari language. The research is based on a wide range of sources, mainly field recordings, both archival and contemporary. The article documents and analyzes the names of the game in different dialects of the Mari language, the names for markers (stones etc.) used in the game, for elements of the pattern (spaces) drawn on the ground, etc., as well as the players’ formulaic remarks. The system of Mari verbal vocabulary in narratives about the game of hopscotch is also explored. Two main sources for the formation of the game lexicon have been identified; these are 1) the general Mari vocabulary and 2) the contact language as it existed at the time of the borrowing of the game. The Mari vocabulary of hopscotch includes quite a lot of Russian loanwords and somewhat fewer words from the con tact Turkic languages — Tatar and Chuvash. The verbal vocabulary appears to be the most conservative part of the lexis, since in the system of Mari verbs associated with outdoor games, loanwords are in the distinct minority, while the native vocabulary of the Finno-Ugric origin definitely predominates. Specific semantics of a borrowed lexeme may undergo significant changes in the course of the borrowing when, as a rule, the borrowed word both undergoes phonetic changes and takes subordination to the grammatical norms of the recipient language. Bilingualism and “code-switching” are observed, including in narrative memoirs about children’s games recorded from older consultants. Thus, the linguistic processes that accompany cultural borrowing such as the game of hopscotch, are represented in the Mari gaming folklore in a fairly wide spectrum and in all their complex multi-vector nature, characteristic of such multi-ethnic regions as the Ural-Volga Region.