Slavic-Finnish Language Connections in the Light of Ichthyological Lexis

The present article considers lexis which is indicative of the language contacts between the Russian and Baltic-Finnish languages. Etymologies of the fish species names are considered and updated taking into account the new etymological data, the ichthyological lexis of the Baltic-Finnish origin  in the Russian North European subdialects is given.  Considering the morphological traits of the fish species, the etymology of the lexical item nel’ma has been proposed and etymology of the names kilets and parik confirmed. Basing on the lexis analyses the authors conclude that there is no Baltic-Finnish  substrate in the lexis of Russian literary language whilst there is substrate-adstrate Baltic-Finnish influence of the Veps-Karelian type on the Russian subdialects in the Lake Onega region and the considerable Russian influence on the  territorially detached subdialects of the Karelian language.