ИЗВЕСТИЯ СОИГСИ

Morphological features of the English word leman contradict to its etymological interpretation, which categorizes it as a compound native word. Its semantic and phonetic similarity with the Ossetic word лымæн / lymæn give solid ground for classifying it as a direct loan from the Iranian language. The geographical proximity of the Sarmatians-Alans and the Teutons on the continent, the union of the speakers of Iranian and Germanic languages for numerous military campaigns and expeditions could not but lead to a multi-level mutual influence of these languages in the period of antiquity and the early Middle Ages. This accounts for the fact, that some phenomena should be viewed not in the context of the genetic relatedness of these Indo-European languages, but in the light of their later language contacts. The phonetic and semantic similarities between the Ossetian лымæн / lymæn and the English lexeme leman in the absence of parallels in other Indo-European languages prompt to regard this fact as separate borrowing. The greater age of the Ossetian lexeme, its wider semantic volume, historical data on the time and forms of the contacts between the ancestors of the speakers of both languages indicate the possibility of borrowing by the English language of the word leman from the Sarmatian, Alanian. Moreover, a serious argument in favor of the borrowed character of the English word leman is a violation of the usual morphological rules for words with the word-formation element -man and the development of the regular plural form: lemans. This fact contradicts with the traditional interpretation of the word leman as a result of the composition of two roots in the early Middle English period.

Keywords: loans, etymology, language contacts, semantics, archaizing.

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