The Concept of MOTHERLAND in the Linguistic Worldview of Belarusians. History of Names and System Data

Abstract

The article is devoted to the history of lexemes that nominate the concept of motherland in the Belarusian language, and their characteristics according to different dictionaries. The history of the Belarusian words радзіма, бацькаўшчына, айчына is shown with Ukrainian and Russian equivalents and traced to the modern semantics. The lexemes бацькаўшчына, айчына and later радзіма began to be actively used in the meaning of ʽa country historically belonging to a certain people and inhabited by this people’ at the beginning of the 20^th century. Direct nominations of the concept of motherland are rarely used in colloquial speech and in folklore texts; they are not found in phraseological, paremiological, dialect dictionaries. In the traditional Belarusian linguistic worldview, the motherland is presented differently than in the modern one. Firstly, it is ʽplace of birth, small homeland’, not ʽcountry’. Secondly, instead of direct nominations, the synonyms край, кут, зямля, дом, хата are used.