Yosyp DZENDZELIVS'KYI

A STUDY OF THE LEXICON OF UKRAINIAN DIALECTS

(PRESENT STATE AND PERSPECTIVES)

Under the influence of socio-historical circumstances dialects, an integral part of a national language, are partly disappearing, process of linguistic diffusion going on. Many years of decline in Ukrainian linguistics caused significant and irreversible losses to the lexicon of Ukrainian dialects as well as great gaps in the development of dialectology. As a result many lexico-semantic groups of national colloquial vocabulary have forever disappeared, particularly, the nomenclature (widely used in the past) of milling, oil-producing, folk-wearing and many other national crafts. To prevent further losses of Ukrainian linguistic and consequently spiritual resources it is necessary to compile and publish dictionaries of regional dialects of all types and sizes, a joint prospectus of the ,,Dictionary of Ukrainian Dialects", manuscript dictionaries retrieved from republican and foreign archival collections, regional linguistic atlases as well as to make research and publish the results in the field of theoretical lexicography of dialects. Work in the direction is expected to lead to the creation of a multi-volume ,,Lexiconal Atlas of the Ukrainian Language" which would not only be the basis for etymological, onomastic and other linguistic studies but a live source for the enrichment of the literary language.