Romanyuk M.Y.
ETYMOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF US TOPONYMY (BASED ON ALASKA'S TOPONIMS) ^{[№ 2 ' 2016]}
Being a significant part of the lexical system of any language onims of different nature attract the attention of linguists. Toponymy, which has once remained an underdeveloped part of any language, is one of the areas that characterize the development of onomastic sciences at present time. The article discusses the place names of Alaska, the USA, in its etymological aspect. The aim of this study is to determine the characteristics of the functioning of borrowings from French, German, Spanish, Russian, as well as the indigenous languages in the United States toponymy taking as the basis Alaska's place names. In this regard, borrowed toponyms are considered; the statistics on the frequency of their use is adduced. As illustrative material, the author offers the existing geographical names in Alaska. According to the obtained results, the largest number of names is borrowed from the languages of local residents — 40 %. Borrowings from Spanish language — 5 %, from German — 7 %, Russian — 10 %, French — 5 %. The remaining 33 % of names are of English origin, which means that they are etymologically related to the official language of the state. Thus, in the state of Alaska the place names of Russian, French, Spanish and German origin are found. However, the most widely spread are the borrowings from indigenous languages of peoples living in this area, namely the Aleuts, the Yupiks and Inupiks. This paper presents statistical data on the quantitative ratio of toponimic borrowings from different languages, which clearly characterizes the degree of productivity of this method in forming geographic names.