Verbal toponymic associations (features of perception of the hydronym Manja by Russian and indigenous population of Yugra)

Introduction: in recent decades, in the domestic and foreign linguistics there is a comprehensive approach to the study of ethno-linguistic processes due to the need to determine the specifics of the interaction of unrelated languages. Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug - Yugra is the multi-ethnic and poly-linguistic region of the Russian Federation. The analysis of active processes of language consciousness of inhabitants of Yugra, the description of a picture of the world of one of the most interesting regions of the Russian Federation include also research of onomastic space, verbal-associative network of toponymic units of the region. Objective: verbal associations obtained in the process of the mass free associative experiment conducted on the basis of the Yugra Stat. University. Research materials: statistical data were obtained by modeling the verbal associative field of the hydronym Manja in the process of the associative experiment conducted on the basis of the Yugra State University. As a result of the mass associative experiment, a set of reactions was obtained, which is ordered by frequency: in the first place the reaction called the first by the majority of subjects. This ordered set of reactions will be the verbal associative field of the toponym-stimulus Manja. Results and novelty of the research: the received verbal reactions allow to assert that for respondents of the Khanty and Mansi it is characteristic indistinguishability of a toponymic name and a toponymic object. In this case we see the immediate analogy between a subject and a word, instead of distinction of details. The Russian participants (71%) of the experiment in the identification, comprehension of an unfamiliar toponym, formed according to the rules of the native (Russian) language, use a strategy of similarity of sound and letter complex, through which they try to establish semantic links between similar-sounding words, functioning in their speech, the meaning of which they know. The scientific novelty of the work is that for the first time the verbal-associative network of the toponymic unit, functioning in the territory of KHMAO - Yugra is analyzed in the lexicon of an individual as one of the possible ways to determine the specifics of interaction of unrelated languages.