Hungarian Loanwords in Lemko and Rusyn Songs: A Contribution to the Study of the Carpathian Convergence Zone

Abstract

 The article examines the layer of Hungarian-origin lexicon preserved in the folk-song repertoire of Lemkos and other Carpathian Rusyns, treating that repertoire as a comparatively conservative oral corpus that retains lexical items lost or marginalised in colloquial speech. Drawing on the song collections of De-Vollan (1885) and Sobolevsky (1967) supplemented by post-1989 fieldwork, the study isolates approximately seventy items of demonstrable Hungarian provenance and classifies them into five semantic fields: pastoral and agricultural life, social and administrative terminology, the world of the soldier and the outlaw, food and drink, and onomastics. The phonological and morphological adaptation of these items is discussed with attention to the substitution strategies for Hungarian phonemes absent from East Slavic, the regular replacement of Hungarian nominal endings, and the integration of Hungarian verbal stems via the productive suffix -uvaty / -ovaty. The discussion is framed within current debate on the Carpathian convergence area, arguing that the song corpus offers particularly clear evidence for the layered character of contact in this region: an older stratum reflecting the Vlach pastoral colonisation, a middle stratum reflecting the multi-ethnic Kingdom of Hungary, and a more recent stratum reflecting Austro-Hungarian administration and military service.