MAPS OF THE COMMON SLAVIC LINGUISTIC ATLAS AS A SOURCE OF MULTIFACETED LINGUISTIC INFORMATION

The article deals with a map ‘lizard’ from “The Animal World” volume (lexical and word formation series). It’s highlighting the dialectal names for the lizard and presenting their territorial localization. Based on the study of materials from other maps in this series, supported by data from Proto-Slavic phonetics found in published issues of the phonetic-grammatical series of the Atlas, we establish a division of Slavia along a northsouth line. Also we propose a hypothesis regarding the existence of an East-West Slavic unity during the late Proto-Slavic period, within which joint linguistic processes are occurred.The article reflects not only the spatial distribution of lexical units across the Slavic dialectal territory but also describes various levels of their temporal affiliation (from Proto-Slavic to the present day). We made a conclusion that the OLA maps serve as a source of diverse linguistic information.