Description:
The article views the main cognitive signs of the concept «the language of the Russians» based on the analyses of A.S.Shishkov’s works. Using the methods of semantically cognitive description of concepts, the author draws a conclusion about the most significant for Shishkov properties of the native language, among which one can mark supremacy of the Russian language over the other languages, its “impoverishment, decline”, the interconnection of the language and the native speakers, their interdependency, the uniting character of the language, etc. Besides, the author comes to the conclusion that A.S.Shishkov, who pointed at the connection between the language and the spirit of the people, who asserted that every “nation has their own cohesion of notions” that “must be expressed with their own words, not the strange ones” was speaking, in fact, about reflection of mentality in the word. In the article there is also a parallel drawn between the views of Slavophiles and those of A.S.Shishkov, who can be distinguished among the forerunners of Slavophilia.