Donetsk, June 21 – DAN. Donetsk National University is developing a conceptual map of the Republic's capital.
PhD of Philological Sciences Vyacheslav Terkulov, dean of the Russian Language department of the university, described the project as a study of popular urbanisms – official and unofficial names of streets and other popular locations.
"We explore urbanonyms. For example, Artyoma street is an official name, but the First Line is its common name. If such an unofficial name exists, it signifies the importance of the place for the locals. We want to create a mental map to reveal which locations are of such an importance. It is useful for entrepreneurs, guides, and historians."
Urbanonyms are mostly informatively motivated names in the public space of cities, they can carry commemorative, descriptive and other semantic functions.
Earlier Terkulov said that the university is working on a Donbass dialectal dictionary.
"In this region, there is no Surzhik (a range of mixed sociolects of Ukrainian and Russian languages), there is Russian, and Russian colloquial language with inclusions of Ukrainianisms, but mostly they are not Ukrainian," he said. *ot