Borrowed words along with native Russians make up a whole layer of the Russian language. Without borrowed vocabulary, any language is dead, since foreign words help it develop and generalize it with new conceptual forms. What vocabulary is referred to as borrowed words in Russian? Find out in this article!
Russian word groups
The entire active and passive vocabulary of the Russian language includes two large lexical groups: native Russian and borrowed words. You need to take a closer look at each of them to understand the relationship.
Indigenously Russian words of the Russian language
This is the name of the lexical layer of our language, which includes the concepts that surrounded the Russian person from the day the language was founded. This is an original vocabulary that reflects the most ancient lexical units of the Russian language.
First of all, native Russian words can beinclude designations of household items, for example: a pot, a samovar, an oven, a barn, etc.
Then there were already those of them that denote the world of animals and plants, for example: a wolf, a fox, a rooster, a birch, a mountain ash, a Christmas tree.
The next step in mastering native Russian vocabulary includes words that are commonly used to refer to types of kinship, for example: son, daughter, father, grandson.
Important! Lexical units such as "mama" and "dad" are not examples of borrowings in Russian. These are words that came to us from a common proto-language. That is why they are similar in sound and spelling among many peoples. For example, English. Mother - "maser", French la mere - "mayor".
In addition, the native Russian vocabulary includes weather conditions, for example: snow, dew, rainbow, rain, as well as other frequently used words related to various parts of speech, such as cunning, young, friend, brother, see, hear, etc.
According to the latest estimates of philologists, the layer of native Russian vocabulary is about two thousand words. It is the core of our language, its heart.
Loanwords in modern Russian
Foreign vocabulary makes up a large proportion of the entire layer of Russian-language lexical units. The value of borrowed words in Russian cannot be overestimated - it is almost impossible to avoid the penetration of foreign words.
Any nation does not live in isolation from the whole world. People interact with each other, and most often words come into our language when the original Russian equivalentnot yet, but the item is already there. It was brought from distant countries or produced here by foreign citizens.
Therefore, many borrowed words in Russian denote the following new concepts:
- Technical terms (carburetor, capacitor, motor, bus, etc.).
- Scientific and medical terms and concepts (therapy, epidermis, philosophy, algebra, philology, etc.).
- Sport definitions (basketball, volleyball, tennis, etc.).
Some examples of borrowed words in Russian coexist alongside native Russians and are synonyms.
In this case, a new lexical unit that came from other languages will complement the meaning of the given subject and be used as giving a special semantic connotation.
For example, "epidermis" and "skin". Kozha is a native Russian word for the top cover on the human body, and “epidermis” is the Latin name for the top layer of human skin. Our version is often used as a common word in colloquial speech, and the borrowed one is used in scientific articles or in medical circles, emphasizing that this is a term.
There are also reverse cases, when a word taken from a foreign language completely replaces the native Russian. A striking example is the pair "room - room".
Earlier in the villages, a separate heated room was called the upper room, since there was a stove and its “crucible”, that is, the heat that heated the entire room. With the arrival of anothertype of heating and the abolition of stoves in everyday life, it was the “room” that came to us from the Polish language that became the most popular in use.
Steps of Borrowing
Any report on borrowed words in Russian includes periods or stages of this process. Our language has gone through five large “influxes” of foreign vocabulary:
- Proto-Slavonic and Old Russian.
- Acceptance of Orthodoxy.
- Medieval (with a tradition that continues to this day).
- Reign of Peter I the Great.
- XX - the beginning of the XXI century.
Each of them is worth a closer look.
Proto-Slavonic and Old Russian
What borrowed words appeared in Russian in that era?
First of all, this:
- Iranisms (master, hut, ax, food).
- Celticisms (dough, servant, belly, pit).
- Germanisms (buy, sell, livestock, king, regiment, armor).
- Gothic borrowed vocabulary (cook, heal, interest).
- Latinisms (bath, cabbage, altar).
All these foreign words have become so familiar to the Russian ear that only linguists can distinguish their true origin.
Later, the Slavs began to trade with the B altic countries, moved to Eastern Europe, and therefore such lexical units as ladle, village, tar, oil, etc. came into the language.
At the same time, Scandinavian foreign words seep into it, among which the most famous are nominal names, for example: Gleb,Olga, Igor, as well as terms related to sea fishing, such as herring, anchor, shark, etc.
Acceptance of Orthodoxy
After the adoption of Orthodoxy and baptism in Russia in 988, the Byzantine state had a strong influence on the entry of foreign vocabulary into our language. Hence the many Greekisms and Latinisms that appeared in Russian speech, since Greek and Latin were the languages of Christian books.
Examples of borrowed words of the Russian language that came to us from Greece:
- The language of church life: icon, lampada, salary, monastery, klobuk, etc.
- Names of animals and plants: buffalo, beetroot.
- Names: Eugene, Andrey, Alexander.
- Household designation of items: notebook, lantern, ruler.
Medieval stage
During this period, Turkisms are actively introduced into the Russian language, as the influence of the Golden Horde and the entire Tatar-Mongol yoke is affecting. This also includes relations with the Ottoman Empire and Poland. It was during the wars, as well as trade and economic relations, that a great many words of Turkic origin penetrated into our language.
For example:
- The Golden Horde brought into our language such words as: Cossack, guard, shoe, fog, badger, prison, money, etc.
- The Ottoman Empire enriched the Russian language with the words drum, noodles, chest, oil, ammonia, cast iron.
Later, such Turkisms appeared as: sofa, fawn, jasmine,halva, karapuz and pistachio.
In Russian and modern speech, borrowed words could appear imperceptibly, as, for example, conjunctions were added: if, supposedly, so, - related to polonism.
Polonisms were most often used in book vocabulary, which was of a religious nature, or in business papers.
These include words such as: sign, voluntarily, plate, dance, bottle, thing, enemy, etc.
How many borrowed words in Russian came to us from the Polish state? According to philologists, a little over a thousand.
Reign of Peter the Great
During the reign of this world-famous tsar, many different words penetrated the Russian language, since Peter I was a very enlightened monarch and was educated in the best European powers.
However, most of the words still referred to seafaring, because it was this tsar who first created a powerful fleet for Russia. Hence the emergence of a huge number of Dutch nautical terms: ballast, harbor, drift, sailor, captain, flag, rudder, tackle, stern.
At the same time, other foreign vocabulary came: rent, act, salvo, torch, army, port, pier, schooner, office, decision, problem.
In addition to many Dutch words, Gallicisms (borrowings from French) also appeared:
- Food name: marmalade, chocolate, broth, vinaigrette.
- Household items: stained glass window, wardrobe.
- Clothes: coats, boots, jabot.
- Art vocabulary: director,actor, ballet.
- Military theme: battalion, squadron, flotilla.
- Political terminology: department, bourgeois, cabinet.
At the same time words came from Spanish and Italian, such as guitar, aria, pasta, tenor, rumba, samba, currency, coin.
XX-XXI century
The last stage of large-scale borrowing occurred at the turn of the 20th - 21st centuries. Well-developed trade and economic relations with England contributed to the fact that most of the borrowings are Anglicisms. For the most part, borrowed words in the Russian language of that time are lexical units related to the discoveries of this century. For example, in the 20th century, thanks to the advent of computer technology, people learned about such Slovak words as a printer, scanner, file, floppy disk, computer.
How to recognize a foreign word?
There are distinctive features of borrowed vocabulary. Here are the most common:
- Grezisms: combinations of "ps, ks", initial "f, e", as well as special roots, of Greek origin. For example: auto, aero, filo, phalo, grapho, thermo, etc. - psychology, philology, phonetics, graphics, thermodynamics, wind tunnel, telegraph, biology, autobiography.
- Latinisms: the first letters "c, e", the endings "us" or "mind", as well as the well-known prefixes counter, ex, ultra, hyper, etc. - centrifuge, electricity, energy, colloquium, omnibus, counterplay, ultrasonic, hypertrophied, extraordinary, etc.
- Germanisms: combinations of "pcs, xt, ft", as well as words with moreconsonants following each other - accordion, attraction, leitmotif, guardhouse, fine, sprats, fir, etc.
- Gallicisms: combinations of “vu, kyu, nu, fyu, wa”, as well as the characteristic endings “er, ans, already, yazh”. A large number of indeclinable words ending in o, e also came to us from France. For example: coat, chimpanzee, coat, puree, nuance, fuselage, veil, blend, director, editor, boyfriend, etc.
- Anglicisms: classic endings "ing, men", as well as combinations "j, tch" - leasing, sportsman, businessman, pitch, image.
- Turkisms: consonance of the same vowels, called in philology synharmonism, for example, ataman, emerald, turmeric.
How many words are borrowed in Russian? It is not possible to calculate this, since our language is very mobile, and Russia is one of the most multinational powers! However, for those who are interested in the origin of a particular word, it is best to refer to the etymological dictionaries of Shansky, Fasmer or Cherny.
