The historical name of Leka is Jalmat, which comes from the the name of the neighbouring river Jalma. The village, which now belongs to the Moscow region, is located on the former territory of the Rjasanskaja Meshtshera; later, in the 17th century, it was a part of the Vladimir region. Today, the word "meshtshera" is used in a derogatory sese; in fact, the inhabitants of Leka categorically refuse to belong to the area of the Meshtshera. They claim that the Meshtera lies further to the East and that they speak "just like in Moscow". A.A. Schakhmatov, the famous Russian dialectologist, visited Leka in 1912-1913. The results which he delivered gave rise to the general interest in this village and caused Prof. Sappok and his group to travel to Leka. In his work, Shakhmatov writes: "The dialect of the entire Jalmat can hardly be seen as a coherent linguistic entity. This can be ascribed to the uneven influence of the Moscow dialect on the male and female populations. While the latter have retained old elements of the dialect, the Moscow dialect has slowly repressed such elements in the male population. Putting this aside, I would like to note that even in the male population, not everyone speaks like in Moscow by far." Even if the contemporary inhabitants of Leka hardly culivitate the relationship to their neighbours, their historical cohabitance has left many traces, which include the dialect spoken in Leka.

Yekaterina Tangian