ИСТИНА

The contribution deals with the hypothetic connection between Russian ethnic slur kalbit ‘a Kazakh, especially rural’—used by Russian speakers in Kazakhstan up until the end of the 20th century—and the ancient tribe phtheirophagoi (phthirophagi) ‘lice-eaters’ mentioned by Strabo, Arrian, Pomponius Mela, Pliny the Elder, Ptolemy, etc. The latter placed them in Asiatic Sarmatia beyond the Rha (the Lower Volga), where the Kazakhstan steppes now are. Young Russian speaking respondents almost do not remember the meaning and connotations of the word kalbit, but the elders believe it as very derogative for native people. Is it a coincidence that they also derivate this word from Kazakh bit ‘a louse’ and even translate it as ‘a lice-eater’? However it is impossible to etymologize kalbit (or kolbit) as a word of Kazakh origin. It can be of Russian origin connected with root kol(o)b- ‘something round’—in particular ‘a wooden block’—compared with Russian ethnic slur churka ‘a non-ethnic Russian, especially from Central Asia’, literally ‘a chunk of unworked wood’. The contribution also contains the etholinguistic analysis of folk nicknames with louse-components according to lexicographical data and field records gathered in Kazakhstan in 2012–2013.