Tatyana Mikhailova - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Tatyana Mikhailova

Studia Celto-Slavica, 2021

The main goal of the paper is to study Celtic (especially Goidelic) words denoting ‘road’, to col... more The main goal of the paper is to study Celtic (especially Goidelic) words denoting ‘road’, to collect ranked synonyms, to give motivated etymologies, to exercise a diachronic and comparative study of the use of the names of the ‘road’ in Old, Middle and Modern Irish and in Scottish Gaelic (including comparative data from Continental Celtic and Insular Brittonic languages) and to reveal and describe supposed Goidelic innovations (slige, belach, bóthar). The final aim is to introduce Goidelic data into the described scheme of semantic shift.

Journal of Language Relationship, 2012

Stephanos. Peer reviewed multilanguage scientific journal, 2017

This volume comprises a celebratory collection of articles presented to Seamus Mac Mathuna on the... more This volume comprises a celebratory collection of articles presented to Seamus Mac Mathuna on the occasion of his 75th birthday and launched at the 17th International Symposium of Societas Celtolog ...

The paper focuses on a historical episode occurring in a few Middle Irish Annals: the death of th... more The paper focuses on a historical episode occurring in a few Middle Irish Annals: the death of the Munster king Fedemid mac Crimthann: 844 (846?): “Saint Ciaran (dead in 549 - T.M.) gave him a thrust of his crozier, and he (Fedelmid) received an internal wound, so that he was not well until his death”. The compiler presumed his future addressees could understand this deed as a act of vengeance: king Fedelmid Feidlimid, king of Caisel, as Annals say, “put to death members of the community of Cluain Moccu Nóis and burned their church-lands to the very door of their church”. The paper aims at showing that the king was killed by a real person. The narrative structure follows the traditional folk one: S - V - O. The Subject and the Object may be replaced by supernatural beings. So, in our case the Subject (a real person) has been replaced by Saint Ciaran.

Studia Celto-Slavica, 2012

The old Indo-European word for ‘daughter’ (*dhugH [Szemerenyi 1977: 21] or *dhuĝ(h₂)-tḗr [Mallory... more The old Indo-European word for ‘daughter’ (*dhugH [Szemerenyi 1977: 21] or *dhuĝ(h₂)-tḗr [Mallory, Adams 2006: 472]) survives in all major branches of daughter-languages except Albanian, Italian (but cf. Osc. futír?) and Insular Celtic. OI der ‘daughter, girl’ and der- in compound names represents a reduced form of old I.-E. word [O’Brien 1956: 178], “an allegro-form” [Matasović 2009: 110]. Continental Celtic has a well-known Gaulish duxtir (Larzac tablet) and Celtiberian TuaTe[r]es/TuaTeros (Bottorita inscription II) supposed to have the same old I.-E. meaning ‘daughter’ (?, cf. ‘jeune fille initiée’ [Lejeune 1985: 133], cf. also [Sims-Williams 2007: 3]). At the same time, another I.-E. term for ‘girl, woman’ is also attested and even widely used in Gaulish: *ġenh₁ ‘bear, generate’ [IEW: 373 ff.] > Gaul. geneta, genata, gneta, nata [Delamarre 2003: 177, 181] with supposed meaning ‘young girl, young woman, servant (?)’. Cf. also Osc. genetaí ‘daughter’. Insular Celtic conserved t...

Studia Celto-Slavica, 2015

Any personal name found within a charm fits into one of two categories: background name (a name o... more Any personal name found within a charm fits into one of two categories: background name (a name of a deity/saint, referring to the author’s confessional identity) or subject name (the particular name of a person for/against whom the charm is intended). By the ‘subject name’ we understand any proper name in the text of a charm, which transforms a ‘recipe’ (the term of J. G. Gager) of a potentially magical text into a real magical performance. According to the observation of V. N. Toporov, introducing a personal name into a charm is mandatory: “A text of a charm is a mere text and nothing more, until a name is incorporated into its large immutable body. It is only adding the name, uttering it turns a verbal text into a ritual performance, that is, into an actual charm that works as such.” However, in many cases putting a name (subject name) into the charm is impossible, because it is not known either to the charmer or to his/her customer, the charm not being intended against a particu...

Studia Celto-Slavica, 2009

The problem of the so-called ‘five fifths of Ireland’ remains unresolved up to now, in spite of n... more The problem of the so-called ‘five fifths of Ireland’ remains unresolved up to now, in spite of numerous attempts to find a solution to this linguistic and geographical contradiction. In Modern Irish, traditional provinces of Ireland are called cúige (‘a fifth’), but there are only four (Ulster, Leinster, Munster and Connacht) of them. The same names of the four provinces were known in the Early Irish literature (cóiced Ulad etc). The Irish literati envisaged that contradiction and made some attempts to resolve it in early mythological and pseudo-historical sources (in sagas and poetry). According to their pseudo-historical theory, the province of Munster was further divided into ‘the fifth of Cú Roí’ and ‘the fifth of Eochu mac Luchta’. At the same time, the compiler of the saga ‘The Settling of the Manor of Tara’ proposes a theory of the sacred centre (Tara, the seat of kingship, and/or the hill Uisnech, the centre of druidism) of Ireland and of the four subject provinces or zones...

Studia Celto-Slavica, 2010

Banshee represents a specific figure of Irish folklore: it is a female spirit whose cry foretells... more Banshee represents a specific figure of Irish folklore: it is a female spirit whose cry foretells death of a family relative or a neighbour. One may take it for granted that Banshee (Mod. Irish Bean Sí) represents a specific Irish folklore character and has no parallels in other narrative traditions. But if we look at the image of Banshee on the whole, we will find some features that could associate her with Russian Rusalkas as well as with other female characters of the European folklore tradition. The motif of combing the hair is encountered in beliefs and memorates concerning Banshee. The Slavonic Rusalkas also enjoy spending time combing their long hair with a comb (in every instance, it is made of a different kind of material). It can be golden, silver, wooden, made of horn, of fish skeleton and the fabulates point out its magic power. The motif of combing the hair by a supernatural female creature must be divided into two separate concepts. The first is the long hair of a fema...

Studia Celto-Slavica, 2006

Each of the words of this topic needs a special commentary. Our study aims to shed some more ligh... more Each of the words of this topic needs a special commentary. Our study aims to shed some more light on the problem of typology of the magic texts as a special cultural phenomenon that obtains a constant character. NAME. By the ‘name’ in charm tradition we mean two different types of usage of a personal name: (a) ‘background name’ and (b) ‘subject name’. By (a) we mean a traditional use of names of sacred Christian figures as well as of pagan mythological characters that create a specific background of the magic formula. It serves as an indicator of the compiler’s/user’s Christian or pagan character. But, in fact, it is very difficult to draw a strict distinction between the paganism and a so-called ‘naive Christianity’ in the primary sources (esp. in Slavic and, in particular, in Russian). Some further discussion can be provided by a more detailed analysis of a number of ‘background names’ used in charms. At the same time, being unique for the user, the names of celestial bodies, for...

Yearbook of Balkan and Baltic Studies, 2020

Like in many countries of Europe, the 1st of February (Imbolk, the Brigid’day) in Ireland marks t... more Like in many countries of Europe, the 1st of February (Imbolk, the Brigid’day) in Ireland marks the beginning of Spring and is connected with some fertility rites. In old rural Ireland the people spent time watching hedgehogs (to see one was a good weather sign), preparing and eating special food, making straw girdles and caps, putting red ribbons on their houses (Brat Bride ‘Brigit’s cloak’), making special Brigit’s crosses and straw dolls, called Brideog, to visit a sacred spring which had a magic healing and anti-sterile power (wells and springs, worshiped in pagan Ireland, were prohibited by St. Patrick), and finally singing protective charms. In modern urban Ireland all these rites remind in the past, but the Brigid’day is not forgotten or abandoned. In this article, the author tries to outline three main ‘tracks’ of the old tradition: 1. Pseudo-folkloric (fake-lore): singing, dancing, making crosses, storytelling etc. 2. Pseudo (Vernacular)-Catholic: early mass and pilgrimages...

Stephanos Peer reviewed multilanguage scientific journal, 2020

The Round Table «Between the Lines... or Grammar of the Unreal-3». December 20, 2019 20 декабря в... more The Round Table «Between the Lines... or Grammar of the Unreal-3». December 20, 2019 20 декабря в Пушкинской гостиной филологического факультета МГУ имени М.В. Ломоносова состоялось очередное заседание круглого стола «Грамматика нереального», на этот раз уже третье. Формально это заседание проводилось в рамках проекта РФФИ 1 , однако на самом деле для отчетности перед фондом это было не так уж обязательно и, более того, среди мероприятий, планируемых в 2019 г., вообще не предусмотрено. Решение вновь собраться всплыло осенью 2019 г. как-то само собой, и незапланированный круглый стол, на этот раз с названием «Между строк… или Грамматика нереального-3», все-таки был проведен на филологическом факультете МГУ 20 декабря 2019 г., и его материалы вновь были изданы (о предыдущих круглых столах «Грамматика нереального» см.: [Михайлова 2018; Старостина 2019]). На этот раз к участию в заседании были привлечены исследователи, формально не входящие в научный коллектив проекта, но работа которых в той или иной степени соотносится с общей тематикой, а точнее-проблематикой: выявлением грамматических черт, обусловливающих для аудитории своего рода знак нереальности или сомнительности сообщаемой информации. Среди данных приглашенных участников в первую очередь следует назвать Е.М. Чекалину (филологический факультет МГУ). Ее доклад «Неопределенное лицо в шведском языке: man, en, hen» был посвящен маркерам псевдонеопределенности, которые теоретически не предполагают включение субъекта речи в неопределенное множество

Вопросы языкознания, 2018

Journal of Celtic Linguistics, 2019

The substratum theory has been so compromised by numerous fantastic speculations (Basque, Uralic,... more The substratum theory has been so compromised by numerous fantastic speculations (Basque, Uralic, Altaic, Kartvelian, Hamito-Semitic, etc.), that the problem itself has become a perpetuum mobile of Celtic and Germanic studies. Yet, what Kenneth Jackson said about the Picts could be applied to the inhabitants of Old North and Central Europe, too: "The people of Scotland before the coming of the Celts must, after all, have spoken some language …" (Jackson 1955: 152). 1.1. In Celtic languages (both Continental and Insular) we can find words with uncertain etymology which presumably represent loanwords from other language-families. One can see the traces of the pre-Indo-European substratum of Central and Western Europe, "an original non-Celtic/non-Germanic North West block" according to Kuhn (1961). But we may suppose that this conclusion is not sufficiently justified. This problem can have many different solutions, and we may never be in a position to resolve it definitively. Celto-Germanic 'horse'? For example, in both Celtic and Germanic, a special word for 'saddle horse' is used, which is not attested in other Indo-European languages. We mean the root *mark-os: Celtic-OIr. marc 'horse,' MIr. marcach 'rider,' MW march 'horse, stallion,' Bret. marc'h; Germanic-ON m. marr, f. OE mearh, ME mare (< *marhī-), MHG Marah > Mähre 'horse, mare,' OHG marahscalc 'groom,' etc.).