Siberia/Sibir/Sibir’/Sybir: What’s in a Name?

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Siberia/Sibir/Sibir'/Sybir: What's in a Name?

Elena V. Beloglazova^a and Viktor V. Kabakchi^b

^aHerzen State Pedagogical University of Russia St. Petersburg, Russian Federation ^bSaint-Petersburg State University of Economics St. Petersburg, Russian Federation

Abstract

All the coverage Siberia received in both mass and specialized literature not only failed to dispel the biases about the region, but, on the contrary, added to its mysterious and exotic image, which has grown further distorted due to mistranslations, misconceptions and misassumptions. The present research is aimed at outlining what Siberia came to mean in English - the language of international and intercultural communication widely used in secondary cultural orientation.

Theoretically and methodologically the research is based on V Kabakchi's extensive research of language oriented towards an external culture, in this case - Russian-culture- oriented English. Dealing with a contact of linguocultures, the authors resort to the framework of contact linguistics, defining the resulting English as another variety in the family of World Englishes.

Treating “Siberia” as a linguistic sign with its form and meaning poses before the researchers two sets of questions related to rendering “Siberia” in English: firstly, the choice of the correct terms and, secondly, indepth analysis of the concept(s) behind these terms. Thus, the paper covers the set of English-language equivalents to the Russian “Ñèáèðü”, with the emphasis on distinctions between them in both meaning and stylistic function, passing then onto the problem of conceptualizing `Siberia' through the means of the English language.

Keywords: interlinguoculturology, Russian-Culture-Oriented English, Siberia, culturonym, variety of English, interference.

Àííîòàöèÿ

siberia concept english

Siberia / Sibir / Sibir' / Sybir: ÷òî çíà÷èò èìÿ?

Å.Â. Áåëîãëàçîâà, Â. Â. Êàáàê÷è

^à'Ðîññèéñêèé ãîñóäàðñòâåííûé ïåäàãîãè÷åñêèé óíèâåðñèòåò èìåíè À. È. Ãåðöåíà Ðîññèéñêàÿ Ôåäåðàöèÿ, Ñàíêò-Ïåòåðáóðã ^áÑàíêò-Ïåòåðáóðãñêèé ãîñóäàðñòâåííûé ýêîíîìè÷åñêèé óíèâåðñèòåò Ðîññèéñêàÿ Ôåäåðàöèÿ, Ñàíêò-Ïåòåðáóðã

Îáøèðíàÿ çàðóáåæíàÿ ëèòåðàòóðà, ïîñâÿùåííàÿ Ñèáèðè, íå òîëüêî íå ñïîñîáñòâîâàëà ôîðìèðîâàíèþ îáúåêòèâíîãî è äîñòîâåðíîãî îáðàçà ðåãèîíà, íî, íàïðîòèâ, âíåñëà ñóùåñòâåííóþ ëåïòó â ñîçäàíèå îðåîëà çàãàäî÷íîñòè, ýêçîòè÷íîñòè è âðàæäåáíîñòè çà ñ÷åò ëîæíûõ ïðåäïîñûëîê, èñêàæåííûõ ïðåäñòàâëåíèé è íåòî÷íûõ ïåðåâîäîâ.

Íàñòîÿùåå èññëåäîâàíèå íàïðàâëåíî íà îáúåêòèâàöèþ êîíöåïòà Siberia â àíãëèéñêîì ÿçûêå, âûñòóïàþùåì ñåãîäíÿ êàê ÿçûê ãëîáàëüíîãî ìåæêóëüòóðíîãî îáùåíèÿ è øèðîêî èñïîëüçóþùåìñÿ â îðèåíòàöèè ê âíåøíèì äëÿ íåãî êóëüòóðàì.

Òåîðåòè÷åñêîé è ìåòîäîëîãè÷åñêîé áàçîé äëÿ èññëåäîâàíèÿ ïîñëóæèëà èíòåðëèíãâîêóëüòóðîëîãèÿ - íîâîå íàïðàâëåíèå ëèíãâèñòèêè, èçó÷àþùåå ÿçûê âòîðè÷íîé êóëüòóðíîé îðèåíòàöèè, â äàííîì ñëó÷àå àíãëèéñêèé ÿçûê, îáðàùåííûé ê ðóññêîé êóëüòóðå.

Ïîñêîëüêó îáúåêòîì èññëåäîâàíèÿ ÿâëÿåòñÿ êîíòàêò ëèíãâîêóëüòóð, öåëåñîîáðàçíî åãî èçó÷åíèå â òåðìèíàõ êîíòàêòíîé ëèíãâèñòèêè êàê åùå îäíîãî ÿçûêîâîãî âàðèàíòà â ñåìüå World Englishes.

Ðàññìîòðåíèå Siberia êàê ÿçûêîâîãî çíàêà, åäèíñòâà ôîðìû è ñîäåðæàíèÿ, ñòàâèò ïåðåä èññëåäîâàòåëÿìè äâå çàäà÷è: âî-ïåðâûõ, çàäà÷ó âûáîðà àäåêâàòíîãî ñðåäñòâà íîìèíàöèè è, âî-âòîðûõ, àíàëèçà êîíöåïòà(-îâ), ñòîÿùåãî çà ýòèìè íîìèíàöèÿìè.

Ñîîòâåòñòâåííî, â ñòàòüå ñíà÷àëà ðàññìàòðèâàþòñÿ ñëîæèâøèåñÿ â àíãëèéñêîì ÿçûêå â õîäå ìåæêóëüòóðíîãî äèàëîãà ýêâèâàëåíòû äëÿ ðóñèçìà «Ñèáèðü», à çàòåì ôîêóñ ñìåùàåòñÿ íà ïðîáëåìó êîíöåïòóàëèçàöèè Ñèáèðè ñêâîçü ïðèçìó àíãëèéñêîãî ÿçûêà.

Êëþ÷åâûå ñëîâà: èíòåðëèíãâîêóëüòóðîëîãèÿ, àíãëèéñêèé ÿçûê âòîðè÷íîé êóëüòóðíîé îðèåíòàöèè, êóëüòóðîíèì, âàðèàíò àíãëèéñêîãî ÿçûêà, èíòåðôåðåíöèÿ.

Introduction

It would be wrong to say that Russia is a terra incognita for English-language readership. H.W. Nerhood's Annotated Bibliography (Nerhood, 1968) lists 1 422 sources covering the period from 9^th to 20^th century and including world famous writers like Mark Twain, as well as long forgotten ones, like G. Fletcher, the English ambassador and author of Of the Russe ^mmon Wealth (1591). Baron Sigismund von Herberstein's Rerum Moscoviticarum Com- mentarii (1549, in Latin) was the first relatively thorough source of information about Muscovy in the West. But it is to R. Hakluyt that the English-speaking world owes “the strange and wonderfull discouerie of Russia” (Hakluyt, 1599) in his 3-volume collection of travelogues by merchants, diplomats, adventurers.

Almost from the very beginning Siberia emerged as the most puzzling land, luring travelers and explorers. Among earliest accounts of such explorations is Later observations of William Gourdon, in his wintering at Pustozera, in the yeares 1614, and 1615, with a description of the Samoyeds life (Purchas, 2014).

During the rule of the enlightened empress Catherine the Great Russia became the object of closer attention, which enriched the corpus of literature on Russia, or, to be more precise, on Siberia (let us call this corpus Siberica) with John Trusler's Travels into Siberia and Tartary, provinces of the Russian empire (1788-1789), Martin Sauer's An account of a geographical and astronomical expedition to the northern parts of Russia published in England in 1802. More accounts were published closer to the end of the century, in particular by J. Wiggins. English merchants were active in western Siberia in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, till foreign trade was banned along the Siberian river routes in 1617. But there emerged another kind of travelers like K. Marsden - a missionary who undertook a trip to Siberian lepers (Marsden, 1892).

American Siberica features works by outstanding diplomats, linguists, explorers J. Curtin (Curtin, 1909), J. Kennan (Kennan, 1971),

J.W. Buel (Buel, 1883). Later, the launch of the Trans-Siberian railway made Siberia a part of fashionable round-the-world tours.

Yet, despite all that close attention Russia remained an exotic and unfamiliar country. Thus, B. Bonhomme writes that Russia's contribution to the European era of exploration and expansion are “facts that still seem not to have been incorporated all that well in the <...> World History curriculum or popular knowledge” (Bonhomme, 2012). The only notable exception to that is Ermak's conquest of the “Khanate of Sibir'” (Bonhomme, 2012: 4), though the researcher feels the episode has begun “gathering dust” (Bonhomme, 2012: 5).

Thus we face a paradox - piles of literature only adding to the notion of an unknown terrain and Siberia, the quintessence of mysterious land, seemingly more familiar than other parts of Russia.

Yet, at a closer look one could not but wonder what “Siberia” came to mean in English. How does “Siberia” relate to “Sibir”? And what is the right way of translating this Russianism?

Theoretical framework: The family of Englishes

Modern English is amazingly open to foreign influences and, consequently, most diverse in terms of lexis origins. This has not always been so. Originally the language of Anglo-Saxons was very introvert: less than three percent of Old English are loan words from other languages (Bragg, 2003). Later a massive influx of borrowings brought about a heated “Inkhorn” controversy - a debate over the so-called “hard words” viewed by some as enriching the language, while by others - as corrupting it. Yet, mirroring the empire's expansion, the English language had to incorporate many notions that were originally alien to it. It is this openness that made it one of the world's richest languages.

So now English is not only the national language of the British, Americans, Australians, etc., but the global lingua franca of the modern world (Crystal, 2003), rippling all over the world as the three circles outlined by B. Kachru (Kachru, 1991) come to encompass more and more countries (Kabakchi, 2016).

Driven by the complex interaction of centrifugal and centripetal forces - globalization and reaction to it - English emerges as no longer a language, but a family of languages - world Englishes.

These multiple varieties of English emerging at cross-sections of the English and other linguocultures result from “multilingual overlaying”, and “are by definition code-mixed varieties” (McLellan, 2010). Yet, there are certain crucial differences that allow us to identify two distinct types of these mixed languages.

On the one hand we have what is termed “new Englishes” proper - language varieties emerging as a “reshuffling” of two languages, which “are contributing jointly to both the grammar and the meaning” (McLellan, 2010: 435). The degree of their soldering is such as to allow for the idea of their constituting a separate “`third code' distinct from both the languages contributing to the mix” (McLellan, 2010: 435). Being aimed at a particular bilingual community, this mixed language remains intelligible to its members sharing a comparable level of proficiency in the languages involved. Yet, there might be certain doubts as to the mutual intelligibility of various new Englishes. Thus, the former Prime Minister of Singapore Goh Chok Tong in as far as 1999 urged his fellow citizens to abandon the Singaporean variety of English: “Singlish is not English <...>. Singlish is broken, ungrammatical English sprinkled with words and phrases from local dialects and Malay which English speakers outside Singapore have difficulties in understanding” (Singapore Government Press Release, 1999).

On the other hand, there is, and has been for millennia, an objective need in an intermediary language that could prompt interlingual communication. And for a number of reasons, the study of which comprises a good half of D. Crystal's English as a Global Language (Crystal, 2003: 29-123), English has become a global lingua franca of the modern world. This second aspect of English - the ELF - is not to be confused with the simplified constructs such as Globish, originally developed by Madhukar Narayan Gogate and very successfully promoted by Jean-Paul Nerriere, the author of the first learning manual. Globish is meant to meet the most basic communicative needs predominantly in the business sphere and cannot serve as a satisfactory instrument of intercultural communication in all its diverse and complicated forms. These would require not a simplified, but rather an expanded language, enriched with additional expressive means to allow for the task of describing various external cultures. It is this aspect of English - the Foreign-Culture-Oriented English (FCOE) that we shall be predominantly concerned with in the present study.

Russian-Culture-Oriented English vs. Russian English

In the case of both World Englishes and FCOEs we deal with sets of language varieties. In case of world Englishes these are the varieties serving certain bi-(multi-) language communities; in case of FCOEs these are the varieties oriented towards particular cultures that are external to the English language, i.e. which it was not originally designed and provided with means to describe.

According to Z.G. Proshina, the two approaches have a lot in common. First of all, that is the focus on English as a global intermediary language based on constant interplay of English proper and the local languages (Proshina, 2018: 89-96).

Yet, the nature of this interplay is, at the same time, the core difference between them. Indeed, the resulting intermediary language is a kind of bridge between the international English and the local language, a combination of the two. Yet, the mechanism underlying the formation of World Englishes is that of interference, “the transfer of rules from one language to another”, while FCOE is based on transference - “the interlingual transfer of material from the source language while the rules of the base language are maintained” (Davis, 1990: 312).

Thus, FCOE is the result of intentional transfer of certain specific elements of the external linguaculture - xenonymic culturonyms, or xenonyms. Thus, one can compare the FCOE with a variety of ESP, i.e. standard English enriched with specific cultural terminology.

Russian-Culture-Oriented English as the object of Interlinguoculturology

Foreign-culture-oriented language or, in other words, language of secondary cultural orientation is studied by interlinguoculturology. This line of research was pioneered by V. Kabakchi (Kabakchi, 1997) who has discovered certain regularities underlying this formation:

1) A foreign-culture-oriented language is formed at a cross-section of two linguocul- tures - (1) native for the language used and (2) the external one the language is oriented towards. Lacking initially the means to describe a unique exoculture, the language has to adopt these new means, i.e. specific culturonyms of the culture in question - xenonyms. Thus, the intrinsic feature of a foreign-culture-oriented language would be its specific cultural vocabulary, which can be introduced by a variety of ways, as in the following fragment, featuring transcription (Tsay-ee-kah), transliteration (Tchernov and other surnames), calque (the Left Socialist Revolutionaries), semi-calque (the All-Russian Congress of Soviets):

E.g. “In the Tsay-ee-kah three factions immediately appeared. The Bolsheviki demanded that the All-Russian Congress of Soviets be summoned, and that they take over the power. The “centre” Socialist Revolutionaries, led by Tchernov, joined with the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, led by Kamkov and Spiridonova, the Menshevi- ki Internationalists under Martov, and the “centre” Mensheviki, represented by Bogdanov and Skobeliev, in demanding a purely Socialist Government. Tseretelli, Dan and Lieber, at the head of the right wing Mensheviki, and the right Socialist Revolutionaries under Avksentiev and Gotz, insisted that the propertied classes must be represented in the new Government” (Reed, 2000: 4).

2) A culturonym as a linguistic sign is a unity of form and meaning. The ways of introducing it can therefore be classified into form- and meaning-oriented. The former includes formal loans (transplantation, transliteration, transcription) often too alien even to be correctly pronounced, while the latter attempt to render the concept behind the term by either reconstructing the nomination principle (calque), explaining the notion (explication), or drawing intercultural parallels (analogy). It is easy to see that each of the approaches is incomplete and imperfect, while in this case of culture being the main message losses in cultural information are hardly acceptable. Therefore, there emerged complex strategies of introducing culturonyms based on a combination of form- and meaning-oriented techniques, resulting in formation of a full-fledged signs. Thus, the following fragment features a consistent strategy of combining transplantation with calque:

E.g. Feb. 23 in Russia is Äåíü çàùèòíèêîâ Îòå÷åñòâà (Defender of the Fatherland

Day), the latest iteration of a holiday that began as Äåíü êðàñíîé Àðìèè (Red Army Day) in 1922 and then underwent name changes as armies and regimes fell, rose, had new purposes and official titles. <...> Today my sense is that less men get together with their old army buddies to drink, eat, and generally carouse - sometimes with a áàíÿ (bath house) playing a major role ... (Berdy, 2019).

3) The two main concerns of intercultural communication are (1) accessibility to the readership with different cultural background and (2) precision of nomination ensuring the intactness of the cultural information. These two requirements may seem incompatible, mutually exclusive: transliteration will be precise but inaccessible (nontransparent), while explicatory translation may be highly understandable, yet terminologically imprecise. Thus, the choice of the particular technique or combination of techniques will depend on a number of factors, including the genre and goal of communication, the addressee parameters, the keyness of the particular culturonym and the peculiarities of its usage in the system of the emerging FCOL.

Let us consider the Siberia-centered discourse within the Russian-culture-oriented English.

The challenges of describing Siberia in English

Siberia is inevitably part of any description of Russia - be it historical (Millar, 2004, 507 mentions; Martin, 2007, 20 mentions), political (Sakwa, 2008, 12 mentions; Overy, 1998, 20 mentions), cultural (Franklin, Wid- dis, 2004, 61 mentions). Apart from a vast bibliography on Siberia proper, indicating unfailing interest in the land as it is for nearly centuries now, Siberia deserves special entries in all respectable reference materials on Russia, including such as the Encyclopedia of Contemporary Russian Culture (2007) and Encyclopedia of Russian History (Millar, 2004). In the Discovery and Exploration series narration on Russia is rather unexpectedly placed in the volume The Heartland of Asia (Ettinger, 1973), with exploration of Siberia being the focus of attention.

These facts are indicative of SIBERIA being an important node in the English-language frame RUSSIA. Yet, it is exactly the stated key character of the node and the frequency of mentions that result in the concept's developing along its unique route and independently from its source concept and counterpart in the Russian linguoculture.

We shall now try to consider the factors having contributed to the formation of the concept in question and the very essence of this concept.

The challenges of rendering “Ñèáèðü” in English

Russian and English use different writing systems, which accounts for the need of transition when translating Russian culturonyms. At that there is no universally accepted system of the Cyrillic Alphabet Romanization - rather there are multiple systems, developed in Britain, USA and USSR/ Russia. The plurality of these systems and lack of strict guidelines is further aggravated by not too rare misspellings of unfamiliarly sounding names and terms.

One notable example of such a misspelling is the case of Nova Zembla. This name is mentioned in various reference materials and maps, including the British Encyclopaedia of Literature, History and Geography, Law and Politics (ed. by Ch.F. Partington, London, 1736. 3^rd vol.) and the Encyclopedia Americana. A Popular Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature, History, Politics and Biography (Philadelphia, 1832, vol. IX). The text of the entry in the two editions is the same, but in the latter the heading is already modified to “Nova Zembla (Novaia Zemlia, i.e. new land)”. The fact is, “Nova Zembla” is a misspelled version of “Novaya Zemlya”, with the first element Latinized (as in “Nova Scotia”), and the second being a very approximate transcription, possibly affected by a potential confusion with the real Nova Zembla, an island next to Canada.

It is this mistranslation that was at the basis of associating Zembla with Novaya Zemlya in V. Nabokov's Pale Fire, despite the explanation in the novel itself: “The name Zembla is a corruption not of the Russian zemlya [land], but of Semberland, a land of reflections, or `re- semlers'” (V. Nabokov “Pale Fire”)

Another misspelling, also widely disseminated, was “Tartary”, as “the land of the Tartars” came to be known. The nomination “Tartar” adopted by the majority of European languages from medieval lat. Tartarus most likely reflects the close association between the lat. Tartarus “hell” and the ethnonym of Persian origin tatar - not only were the two words near homophones, but for the Tatars' contemporaries they were near synonyms: the Tatars brought hell with them. This link is very evident in a letter of St. Louis of France, 1270: “In the present danger of the Tartars either we shall push them back into the Tartarus whence they are come, or they will bring us all into heaven” (Online Etymology Dictionary).

The difficulties outlined above and the notable deviations in rendering some loans are to explain why Siberica writers pay such a marked attention to the method of Roman- ization they adopt. Thus, the confusion, resulting from the variation between systems of Romanization, is in particular highlighted by B. Bonhomme:

This system [by Library of Congress], like all others, is not perfect and on occasion generates is own peculiarities, such as the attribution of discovery of the Pribilof Islands to a man named Pribylov, or of the naming of Zavadovski Island after a man namedZavadovskii” (Bonhomme, 2012: 7).

What the author means is that the traditional rendering of the geographical names he mentions goes contrary to the transliteration system he chooses for his work, leading to chaos not to be tolerated in a scientific text. The author has therefore nothing else left but to deviate from the adopted system in the cases where convention already dictates a certain norm.

F. Mowat has to admit the same flaw of arbitrariness in the light of absence of a universally accepted standard (Mowat, 2012).

A. Wood provides a special section “Notes on the Text”, outlining the principles of transliteration of Russian terms and names, the essence of his approach being “the Library of Congress system with some emendations” (Wood, 1992: XIV)

As to rendering the name “Ñèáèðü”, the case might appear clear and simple: the traditional equivalent “Siberia” was in use already in the times of R. Hakluyt, as documented by The principal navigations, voyages, traffiques and discoveries of the English nation (Hakluyt, 1599: 315, 486). And in the majority of cases “Ñèáèðü” is rendered as “Siberia”, which is, for example, the title of book by M.P. Price (Price, 1912), as well as the title of a poem by

J.C. Mangan.

Yet there is certain variability. J. Forsyth in his A History of the Peoples of Siberia differentiates between “Siberia” and “Sibir”. The former is the name of the region as viewed geographically, while the latter is the name of the historically restricted entity. It is used mostly to indicate the “Khanate of Sibir” (Forsyth, 1994: 27) or its capital. In fact, here we deal with the confrontation of the traditionally assimilated name (Siberia) and the tendency towards its etymological name (`idionym'), known in interlinguocul- turology as `restoration' (Kabakchi, 1998: 127-129).

The same tendency can be observed in the writings of C. Thubron, J. Forsyth and some others:

<...> the fortress of Sibir, from which Siberia subsequently took its name (Forsyth, 1994: 26).

Near this site, in 1582, the Tartar centre of Sibir had been sacked by a band of Cossacks (Thubron, 1999: 31).

In The Siberian Chronicles by A.J. Frank (Frank, 1994) “Sibir'” is used as part of the name of the political entity “the Yurt of Sibir'” (the alternative name of the Khanate of Sibir'), and of the city, being its political center. So the opposition is the same, yet the author is even more pedantic in spelling it out: his transliteration features the apostrophe symbolizing the soft quality of the final consonant.

Yet, there occur some deviations from the rule as well, as in the following passage: “later the seat of the khan of Siberia was moved to Kashlyk (also known as Isker or Sibir)” (Forsyth, 1994: 25), where the author substitutes the name of the khanate in order to avoid repetition. Despite this inconsistency, confusion is rather unlikely since the very same page features numerous mentions of the khan(ate) of Sibir.

Still, in order to eliminate any possibility of misunderstanding and explain their choices authors may add some etymological background:

Even its name - a mystical conflation of the Mongolian siber, `beautiful', `pure', and the Tartar sibir, `sleeping land' - suggested somewhere virgin and waiting (Thubron,

1999: 113).

A deviation of different kind is observed in F. Mowat's Sibir: My Discovery of Siberia. “Sibir” is first mentioned in the title of the book. Then - in direct speech of the Russians met by the author on his way to Siberia:

“The Ural Mountains! Soon we leave Europe behind. Then is Sibir - the name means the Sleeping Land - but it is not sleeping now.” (Mowat, 2012).

“M. W. Lomonosov, an erudite intellectual of scientific bent whose dictum, “The power of Russia will grow as Siberia grows!” is now one of the guiding principles of the Soviet Union, flatly stated that diamonds existed in Sibir, and predicted they would be

found in quantity if men would seek them with proper diligence.” (Mowat, 2012).

Thus “Sibir” serves as the marker of the Soviet discourse, as contrasted to the author's narrative. And only towards the end, in concluding remarks does the author actually introduce the opposition of “Siberia” / “Sibir”:

“In terms of technological man <...>, the `conquest' of Siberia must stand as one of his most impressive achievements. However, there are other terms ... and other values. Sibir, the Sleeping Land, the Void of Darkness, is no more.” (Mowat, 2012).

“Sibir” would also be a natural choice for translated proper names based on, but not equivalent to “Ñèáèðü”: the newspaper Novaya Sibir of Irkutsk, Russian airline Sibir.

Thus, “Sibir” is opposed to Siberia in (a) form, being based on a different translation method; (b) meaning, being free of stereotypical connotations and, as a new coinage, open for new contextual meanings, which can be “the original, genuine land, the home of aboriginal cultures and nature” or “the name of a certain entity (newspaper, company).

“Siberia” is part of a number of multi-component terms, registered in the Oxford English Dictionary (3^rd edition) (Table 1).

Besides these, being an old loan, “Siberia” has developed in English some derivative nominations, which not always reflect Russian counterparts.

Russian used to have a variety of terms to differentiate between certain cat

egories of Siberian population and their qualities, including nouns “ñèáèðåö”, “ñèáèðÿíèí”, “ïðîñèáèðåè”, “ñèáèðÿ÷üå”; adjectives “ñèáèðêîâûé”, “ñèáèðíûé”; verbs “ñèáèðÿ÷èòü”, etc. (Litovkina, 2008) Yet, the distinctions between them are gone: for L.V. Dmitrieva, writing specifically about Siberia's cultural anthropology, “ñèáèðÿíå” and “ñèáèðöû” are mere variants of “ñèáèðÿêè” (Dmitrieva, 2005).

This development resulted in a certain asymmetry between Russian and English terms involved: the Russian “ñèáèðÿê” corresponds to two terms in RCOE - “Siberians” and “Si- biryaks”. The former term is used to designate indigenous population, including Paleo-Sibe- rians and Neo-Siberians - peoples of various origins, but having been in Siberia for at least 1 000 years. At that Sibiryaks are those who immigrated there since the Russian conquest (Czaplicka, 1920) or else a Siberian descended from European Russian settlers (Oxford English Dictionary Online, 2013).

Yet, despite there being by now a whole family of Siberia-related terms in English, Si- berica authors feel a shortage of expressive means to render certain culturally specific meanings, which drives them to introduce nonce-loans:

Nobody interfered. (Poking your nose into others' business was not sibirski.) (Thu- bron, 1999: 161).

Table 1

Siberian barley	Siberian fowl	Siberian larch	Siberian thrush
Siberian cedar	Siberian grosbeak	Siberian larkspur	Siberian tiger
Siberian cow	Siberian harvey	Siberian oat	Siberian titmouse
Siberian crab	Siberian hawk	Siberian oil-seed	Siberian vetch
Siberian crane	Siberian husky	Siberian pine	Siberian wagtail
Siberian crow	Siberian ibex	Siberian plague	Siberian wallflower
Siberian dog	Siberian ice-pigeon	Siberian plum	Siberian warbler
Siberian elm	Siberian iris	Siberian rabbit	Siberian weasel
Siberian falcon	Si'berianize	Siberian sowthistle	Siberian wheat
Siberian finch	Siberian jay	Siberian stone pine

The graphically marked loan “sibirski” is used to imply a certain particular quality of the Siberian people, which is not part of the accepted concept. This actually brings us to the next aspect of our research - the (trans) formation of concepts behind the loan terms that found their way into RCOE.

The challenges of conceptualizing SIBERIA in English

This topic is best introduced by the words of I. Frazier, author of Travels in Siberia: “for most people, Siberia is not the place itself but a figure of speech”, it is a metaphor for cold, remoteness and exile (Frazier, 2010: 3). Then, closer to the end of the book the writer adds: “In people's minds, the two things most closely associated with Siberia are cold and prisons. <.. .> Any book about Siberia should have cold and prisons in it” (Frazier, 2010: 353). Here I. Frazier makes a very important point: Siberia is a self-feeding stereotype.

A. Wood in his Russia's frozen frontier writes along similar lines, calling “Siberia” a “chilling cliché” and stating that the word “readily stimulates knee jerk responses, stereotyped visions and hackneyed images < ..> of great frozen wildernesses, blinding blizzards, steel-shattering frosts, and, of course, legions of fur-wrapped, fettered convicts and political prisoners” (Wood, 2011). In his other work The history of Siberia the author characterizes “Siberia” as a “byword, an almost proverbial touchstone for extremes of cold, incarceration and sheer human suffering” (Wood, 1992: 1).

The stereotype has sprouted widely. Thus, in a restaurant, Siberia is used to refer to a section of less desirable tables - a kind of exile for customers having fallen out of favour.

That is what Lt. Col. Frank Slade, the protagonist of the movie “Scent of a woman”, means by informing the restaurant manager “I want a table for two, and I don't mean Siberia!”; “Social Siberia” is a kind of social isolation an outcast may face for violating certain norms of behaviour.

Figuratively speaking, one can “depart for the siberias of Brixton”, as does a character from J. le Carré's Tinker, Tailor, or find oneself “exiled to the Registry of Motor Vehicles - the Siberia of state government” (American Heritage Dictionary, accessed March 25, 2018).

The same responses can be traced in the national corpus of the English language: Siberia = prison (“convicts in Siberia”, “arrested and whisked off to Siberia”, “sent off to distant Siberia”, “I'd be arrested and sent back to Siberia”, “exiled to Siberia”, “years of penal servitude in Siberia”, “labour camps, slavery in Siberia”, “banished to Siberia”, etc.) (BNC, accessed March 2018).

This stereotype has deep going roots. A.H. Palmer in as far as 1848 writes about Siberia as a penitentiary, though admitting that it is “the best penitentiary in the world <...>. Each exile is provided with an allotment of ground, a house, a horse, two cows, agricultural implements, and, for the first year, with provisions” (Palmer, 1848: 14).

According to the Corpus of Contemporary American English, “Siberia” collocates echo all the stereotypes mentioned: (a) exile: EXILE, PRISON(S), CAMP, DEPORTATIONS, IMPRISONMENT (b) cold: PERMAFROST, SNOWFALL, WINTER, ICE, CLIMATE; (c) vastness: MILES, WILDS, FIELDS, FOREST, REACHES, TRAVELS, WASTELANDS (COCA, accessed March 15, 2018).

The Index, which C. Thubron provides for his reader includes the following entries on Siberia, also largely symptomatic of the popular stereotype:

Siberia: extent, 1-4; migrants and settlers in, 17-19, 113-14; oilfields, 19; secession proposals, 92; name, 113; mystique, 114; native peoples, 119-20, 127; as place of exile, 168-70; religious dissenters in, 183-5.

Siberia is perceived as an “end of the Earth” (Perkins, 1981), also, paradoxically as both “the heart of Russia” (Greene, 2014) and its curse (Hill, Gaddy, 2003), there being apparently no contradiction between the two concepts to the Western mind.

Notably, expats' wives compare their life in Russia to Siberia: “the closest analogy seems to be `Zhena Dekabrista' (the wife of a Decembrist), a term coined following the exile of the Decembrists involved in the failed uprising against the Tsar in 1825, as the wives followed their husbands on the long journey to Siberia (Moscow In Your Pocket, 2014: 47).

It is exactly the stereotypes-distorted perception of Siberia and Russia in general that prompted F. Mowat to write his book Sibir: My Discovery of Siberia.

Being a ready metaphor, Siberia is widely exploited in literature in a quite predictable repertoire of functions:

(1) To describe the protagonist as a hero-adventurer, who has seen the greatest extremes of the world. Travels to Siberia are often shown as crucial for developing a character:

“But perhaps the mere crossing of Siberia in a sledge drawn by dogs as Ledyard did <...> - this kind of travel, I say, may not be the very best mode of attaining a high social polish” (H. Melville “Moby Dick”).

“Nor could I pass unnoticed the suggestion of the bleak shores of Lapland, Siberia, Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla, Iceland, Greenland, with “the vast sweep of the Arctic Zone, and those forlorn regions of dreary space, that reservoir of frost and snow, where firm fields of ice, the accumulation of centuries of winters, glazed in Alpine heights above heights, surround the pole, and concentre the multiplied rigours of extreme cold.” (Ch. Bronte “Jane Eyre”).

“A flight from Siberia may fix a few elementary facts in the mind, but it does not seem to lead to continuity of thought.” (R. Kipling “The Man Who Was”).

“I have nothing material to say of my particular affairs till I came to Tobolski, the capital city of Siberia, where I continued some time on the following account” (D. Defoe “The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe”).

“They've run away from second class Russian cruisers more than once up there off Siberia” (J. London “Adventure”).

“Grandmother Majauszkiene was a socialist, or some such strange thing; another son of hers was working in the mines of Siberia, and the old lady herself had made speeches in her time--which made her seem all the more terrible to her present auditors” (U. Sinclair “The Jungle ”).

(2) To present the terrain being described as wild, unfriendly, unknown etc., or compare it to Siberia as the epitome of unfriendliness:

“Though he knows that he has travelled it a thousand times, he cannot recognize a feature in it, but it is as strange to him as if it were a road in Siberia (H.D. Thoreau “Walden”).

“I believe I should always be good if the sun always shone, and could enjoy myself very well in Siberia on a fine day” (Von Arnim E. “Elizabeth and her German Garden”).

“With such a partner Dobbin thought he would not mind Siberia” (W.M. Thackeray “Vanity Fair”).

(3) To show the protagonist as highly determined in overcoming difficulties, Siberia included:

“She had worked her way across half Russia and nearly the whole of Siberia to be near him, and, as it seems, with the hope of helping him to escape” (J. Conrad “Under Western Eyes”).

“I said you were, and then they said they had changed their mind and considered it necessary to start at once and visit a sick relative in Siberia” (M. Twain “A Tramp Abroad”).

Conclusion

Upon entering another language, loans almost inevitably undergo adaption / assimilation, both formal and semantic. Thus, the concept they are associated with may undergo a certain transformation, or even substitution.

With “Siberia” coming to mean something different from the source concept, there emerges an objective need in more precise and semantically pure terms, uncontaminated with secondary by-meanings. Thus, there forms the opposition “Siberia” / “Sibir'”, which, though having one and the same source culturonym, are not exactly interchangeable in RCOE.

The expanding taxonomy of Siberia-related terms serves as an indication of demand for precise and unbiased description, unobscured with the distorting stereotypes, myths and misconceptions.

This attitude, discriminating between different aspects of the concept of Siberia, which receive different verbalizations, might rendering the rich cultural heritage from Rus- be instructive for the Russian authors con- sian into English for the benefit of the world tributing to Siberica, as well as to translators readership.

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