Some etymological notes on the words for ground squirrel in Buryat

This paper deals with the names for ground squirrel or suslik in Buryat. There are three different words and it seems they are not connected to taboo designation, there is a clear difference between the Buryat dialects. The majority of speakers of Western Buryat dialects use the word zumbara ~ zumbarā(n), in the eastern dialects the word ürxe is used, while the third word yabrāšxa is adopted by only one western dialect. From an etymological point of view, all three words are connected to Turkic languages. The ürxe was clearly borrowed from Siberian Turkic, while yabrāšxa was borrowed from Turkic via Siberian Russian. The first examined word zumbara ~ zumbarā(n) is of unclear origin – it is certainly connected with Turkic, but its immediate origin has not been determined. An interesting fact is that the word ürxe, which was directly borrowed from Siberian Turkic, is present in Eastern Buryat dialects and is not a typical feature. Because almost all direct Turkic loanwords are present in western dialects and are not observed in the eastern ones (Khabtagaeva 2013: 169), e.g. Buryat balyūhan ‘small fry’1, habagša ‘thread’2, zoto ‘shin of animal’3. The analysis of words shows that the linguistic contacts among Siberian Turkic languages and Buryat dialects took place in the ‘early’ period and loanwords can be present not only in western, but in eastern dialects too.