Denominations of railway professions in German-Russian and Russian-German dictionaries of late 19th-early 20th centuries
The article is devoted to the German denominations of persons by profession in the sphere of railway transport at the initial stage of its development from the 30s of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century. The publication provides a brief classification of railway professions by nature of labour. It studies the most common ways of denominations’ word building, semantic changes of some names in the course of time, the transition process of neologisms becoming obsolete words in connection with the modernisation of the sector. The publication indicates the languages that are the sources of a significant part of railway terms’ borrowings during fledging years. It explains the reasons of belonging of names of persons by profession to the word class of nouns. The paper examines the professions both railway exclusively and from other areas that are used on the railway. The sources of language material are general and technical translation dictionaries (German-Russian and Russian-German) published late 19th-early 20th centuries which are rare editions at the moment. The dictionaries are analysed from the viewpoint of railway terms’ presence and features of their translation. The article identifies linguists who were interested in related issues: names of persons, category of professional agent in common and in particular areas on the material both of Russian and German. There are no specific studies devoted to the denominations of railway professions on the material of German, that is why this article seems topical.