title: The bear in Eurasian plant names: motivations and models.
abstract: Ethnolinguistic studies are important for understanding an ethnic group's ideas on the world, expressed in its language. Comparing corresponding aspects of such knowledge might help clarify problems of origin for certain concepts and words, e.g. whether they form common heritage, have an independent origin, are borrowings, or calques. The current study was conducted on the material in Slavonic, Baltic, Germanic, Romance, Finno-Ugrian, Turkic and Albanian languages. The bear was chosen as being a large, dangerous animal, important in traditional culture, whose name is widely reflected in folk plant names. The phytonyms for comparison were mostly obtained from dictionaries and other publications, and supplemented with data from databases, the co-authors' field data, and archival sources (dialect and folklore materials). More than 1200 phytonym use records (combinations of a local name and a meaning) for 364 plant and fungal taxa were recorded to help find out the reasoning behind bear-nomination in various languages, as well as differences and similarities between the patterns among them. Among the most common taxa with bear-related phytonyms were Arctostaphylos uva-ursi (L.) Spreng., Heracleum sphondylium L., Acanthus mollis L., and Allium ursinum L., with Latin loan translation contributing a high proportion of the phytonyms. Some plants have many and various bear-related phytonyms, while others have only one or two bear names. Features like form and/or surface generated the richest pool of names, while such features as colour seemed to provoke rather few associations with bears. The unevenness of bear phytonyms in the chosen languages was not related to the size of the language nor the present occurence of the Brown Bear in the region. However, this may, at least to certain extent, be related to the amount of the historical ethnolinguistic research done on the selected languages.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Linguistic Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Tuchkov pereulok 9, Saint-Petersburg, 199053, Russia. chakra@eu.spb.ru.
authors.forename: Valeria
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Kolosova
authors.affiliation: Uppsala Centre for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Uppsala University, Box 514, SE-751 20, Uppsala, Sweden.
authors.forename: Ingvar
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Svanberg
authors.affiliation: Estonian Literary Museum, Vanemuise 42, Tartu, 51003, Estonia.
authors.forename: Raivo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kalle
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK, 99775-7720, USA.
authors.forename: Lisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Strecker
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmaceutical Botany, Faculty of Pharmacy, Ankara University, 06100, Tandoğan, Ankara, Turkey.
authors.forename: Ayşe Mine Gençler
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Özkan
authors.affiliation: University of Gastronomic Sciences, Piazza Vittorio Emanuele 9, I-12042, Pollenzo/Bra, Italy.
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pieroni
authors.affiliation: School of Biosciences and Veterinary Medicine, University of Camerino, Via Pontoni, 5 62032, Camerino, (MC), Italy.
authors.forename: Kevin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Cianfaglione
authors.affiliation: MTA Centre for Ecological Research, Institute of Ecology and Botany, Alkotmány u. 2-4, H-2163, Vácrátót, Hungary.
authors.forename: Zsolt
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Molnár
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacognosy, University of Pécs, Rókus 2, 7624, Pécs, Hungary.
authors.forename: Nora
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Papp
authors.affiliation: Department of Botany; Institute of Applied Biotechnology and Basic Sciences, University of Rzeszów, Werynia 502, 36-100, Kolbuszowa, Poland.
authors.forename: Łukasz
authors.initials: Ł
authors.lastname: Łuczaj
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Acad. Georgi Bonchev Str., bl. 23, Sofia, 1113, Bulgaria.
authors.forename: Dessislava
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Dimitrova
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Humanities, Vilnius University Kaunas, Sargeliai, LT 60433, Žaiginio paštas, Lithuania.
authors.forename: Daiva
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Šeškauskaitė
authors.affiliation: Department of Estonian and Comparative Folklore, Tartu University, Ülikooli 16, 50090, Tartu, Estonia.
authors.forename: Jonathan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Roper
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Prishtina, St. Mother Teresa, Prishtinë, Kosovo.
authors.forename: Avni
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hajdari
authors.affiliation: Estonian Literary Museum, Vanemuise 42, Tartu, 51003, Estonia.
authors.forename: Renata
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sõukand
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001208:Asia; D003469:Culture; D019448:Ethnobotany; D005060:Europe; D007802:Language; D010944:Plants; D009626:Terminology as Topic; D001503:Ursidae
keywords: Brown bear Ursus arctos; Ethnobotany; Ethnolinguistics; Latin calques; Motivation; Phytonyms; Traditional knowledge