A REVIEW OF FIELD RESEARCH AMONG THE SLAVIC COMMUNITIES OF ARGENTINA AND BRAZIL

The paper discusses the results of a field study carried out in 2024 among Slavic com- munities living in Argentina and Brazil. The purpose of the expedition was to identify the primary dialectal features of the migrant Slavic dialects, as well as to identify and analyze the contact features that arose under the influence of the dominant Romance languages ― Spanish and Portuguese. During the field research, the dialects of the de- scendants of Slavic immigrants in the Argentine provinces of Misiones and Chaco, as well as in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, were examined. The researchers’ archive includes narratives in Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, and Serbo-Croatian. The informants have as their basis eg. the Dniestrian dialect of the Ukrainian language, Hrodna-Baranavichy dialect of the Belarusian language, and South Čakavian dialects of Croatian. Examples of phonetic, lexical, and syntactic interfer- ence are recorded. In particular, the phenomenon of betacism is widespread, as well as the substitution of [c] with [s]. Numerous cases of code switching have been attested, as well as adaptations of Romance vocabulary: cz. po čakrax (sp. chacra ‘farm’), ukr. f’ižón (port. feijão ‘beans’), ukr. dósy (port. doces ‘sweets, candies’). The informants talk about the traditional spiritual and material culture of the regions where they live. The most common stories are about pombero, lobisón, local legends about a black shepherd boy and the traditions of the San Juan (São João) holiday. Stories about Slavic traditions, about celebrating Christmas, New Year, and cooking festive dishes have also been recorded. The perspective of the research is to elaborate a typology of contact phenomena in the migrant Slavic dialects and in the Slavic traditional culture under the influence of Romance languages and traditions of the region.