Nazewnictwo wschodniosłowiańskie związane z Wigilią Bożego Narodzenia na Białostocczyźnie

Abstract

The present paper, an excerpt from a monographic study on the vocabulary related to holidays, customs and annual rituals in Bialystok sub dialects, presents the lexis connected with Christmas Eve. Alongside dialectal names of Christmas Eve, the paper gives the names of the Christmas supper, the ritual dish eaten on that day, Christmas Eve’s drink, and a bundle of rye which is brought by the host and placed in a corner of the room. The customs, rituals and magic procedures performed at that time by Bialystok region inhabitants were also presented. In this paper the dialectal lexis was presented and discussed in two ways: in chronological order in the descriptive part and in alphabetic order in the Słownik nazw gwarowych (Dictionary of Dialectal Names). In the Dictionary the names collected from Bialystok subdialects were listed with their equivalents in literary languages and in Belarussian, Ukrainian, Russian and Polish dialects. In some cases the etymology of the entries was also given.