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A comparative analysis of the Veps language lexemes with the semantics ‘spell’ (puheg, puitoomine), as well as verbs with the meaning ‘to spell; pronounce incantations. The relevance of the study is due to the significance of the spell tradition for the worldview of the Vepsian people and the possibility of identifying the semantic and etymological features of the vocabulary group associated with this sphere of life. The names of the concept of “spell” (puheg, puitoomine) are analyzed, where the lexeme puheg, unlike the Russian term spell (< to spell < to speak), is associated not with speaking, but with a kind of “blowing” words from the mouth in the process of speaking. It is known from the literature, about a similar phenomenon that is characteristic of one of the Russian dialects of the Komi Republic (blowing words), about which the authors of this article believe that it may be a kind of tracing paper from the Baltic-Finnish languages, in which such a phenomenon is represented more widely, although they do not exclude and some universality in the development of languages. In the presented author's development, attention is paid to the etymology and semantic nuances of the lexemes sana and vajeh with the meaning ‘word’, one of which (sana) also intersects with the magic of the words of the world of spells in its semantics. The etymological aspects of the verbs of “magical action” (puhuda, puiteida, otvedaida) are analyzed in the study, where both original stems and borrowings from the Russian language are manifested. Linguistic maps illustrate the breadth of distribution of the analyzed terms in the dialects of the Vepsian.

Vepsian designations of some diseases, according to popular beliefs, sent to a person by three active elements — forest spirits (mec), water (vezi) and wind (tullei) — for disobedience, bad behavior in the forest, in the water, in nature are considered. The authors note that all names are complex words with a mythological background that are of interest in relation to the principles of the nomination. It is indicated that the first components of such words are usually referred to as “subject of influence”; the second components are the naming of the “result of the action”: -/nena ‘nose; letters. edge of impact’, -/išketiž ‘impact, blow’, -/tegend ~ -/tegotiž ‘directed punishment, deed’, -/ehtind ‘sending illness’. The presented analysis results indicate that only the components -/kibu, -/kibuine ‘pain’ and -/pagan ‘rotten; pagan’ (< paganyi (nasty) Russian) are neutral and, obviously, their activation is due to the spread of Christianity. It is emphasized that, most likely, for this reason -/pagan has become quite often replaced by all other parts of complex names of diseases. The question is raised that the studied Vepsian names of diseases, in addition, can be considered as a kind of moral code of behavior of the ancient Vepsians, since they illustrate the punishments that could be imposed by the elements of the forest, water and wind for inappropriate human behavior.

The results of a comparative analysis of the vocabulary of a thematic group of Vepsian-speaking naming concepts of “boy” and “girl” are presented in the article. The authors believe that it is the historical realities of life and the special position of males in the Russian state, primarily associated with the allotment of land, reflected in the formation of vocabulary of the Veps language of this group. The question is raised about the Vepsian special desire to present and embody in language images certain complete, terminological, correspondences to Russian naming, which initiated the appearance of borrowings from the Russian language and Russian dialects. Attention is drawn to the studies of etymologists regarding the lexeme denoting a boy, a young man, which is considered to be Russian borrowing in the Veps and Karelian languages: Veps. priha Kar. Briha

The relevance and novelty of the study is based on the material of the “Linguistic Atlas of the Vepsian Language” (St. Petersburg, 2019), an etymological and linguo-geographical analysis of terms important from the point of view of spiritual culture that characterize the group of wedding vocabulary. The terms in question (designations of a wedding, bride and groom) fit both in the cultural background and in the language processes that were reflected in the formation of the dialectal areas of the Veps language. The results of a comparative analysis indicate the impact of the Russian language on a significant group of Veps dialects, which led to the supplantation and replacement of the main terms of the wedding ceremony with Russian lexemes ( wedding, bridegroom, bride ). The study emphasizes the peculiarity of the eastern (Belozersky) dialects (the periphery of the Veps language range), which retained their own terms for the names of the analyzed concepts. It is shown that these dialects are characterized by the conservation of archaic characters, the presence of rare (in this case, sai) and etymologically darkened (oluh) lexical items, which so far have not been able to detect etymons in related languages. The authors believe that this fact, coupled with other features of dialects, may indicate traces of the substrate, the origins of which have yet to be clarified.