MURMANSK, February 13. /TASS/. A research group of the Clean Arctic - Vostok-77 expedition working in the Murmansk Region, plans to map Pomors' and Sami's historical geographical names in the region. The scientists plan to examine about 20 objects of the kind, Oksana Tolstykh, the expedition's leader and the State Duma's expert, told TASS.
"A group of scientists participating in the Clean Arctic - Vostok-77 expedition is currently working in the ancient Sami village of Lovozero in the Murmansk Region, where one of the tasks is to update the region's map with Pomors' and Sami's geographical names," she said. "They plan to examine about 20 objects."
The work on such a map would be of great cultural and scientific importance, she added. "Toponyms are the most ancient of all names. It is quite likely that we will find not just Sami, but even pre-Sami names from ancient dead languages, which the Sami people had perceived from the ancient population. Other scientists, seeing these toponyms, may identify them, for example, as words related to some existing languages that have been preserved in another part of this planet," she said.
A few objects of the kind have been found in the Lovozero tundra, and the scientists now, together with Sami native speakers, are verifying the names as they exist in the native language of this indigenous small-numbered people of the Far North.
The Clean Arctic - Vostok-77 expedition kicked off from Murmansk on August 15, 2023. The scientific research has been structured to meet the objectives, set by the Russian Academy of Sciences' research centers, and in accordance with due studies under university grants. This expedition performs the tasks of exploring routes and conducting installation studies for the expedition cycle of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2024-2030. The expedition participants are testing Russian equipment, communications equipment, and insulation materials as part of import substitution programs for the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation. Publications on the expedition results should make the basis for a new wave of scientific exploration of the Russian Arctic and demonstration to the research community of new methods and technologies for conducting continental scientific expeditions.
TASS is the expedition's general information partner.