The word "archaism" comes from the ancient Greek "archos" - ancient. Archaisms are obsolete words. Yet we encounter them daily.
Archaic words can, although rarely, be used in everyday speech, and we will not experience any problems understanding what is said. For example, “if”, “eye”, “finger” - everyone is well aware of exactly what meanings are hidden behind these words. But in everyday speech, we are likely to use their modern counterparts "if", "eye" and "finger".
Philologists divide archaisms into several groups. There are lexical archaisms. This means that the word has simply acquired a modern synonym that is quite different in sound from the original. Lanita became a cheek, forehead - forehead, shuytsa - left hand. The above "if" became "if". Sometimes, as in the case of shuitz, the word has changed very much. In this case, a dictionary of archaisms will come to the rescue.
Another group of archaisms is even more interesting. These are semantic archaisms. The word remained in the language, but changed its meaning. For example, this is the "belly". Now this word refers to a very specific part of the body. But the archaism "belly" means life. Therefore, the ancient heroes were ready to "bellyput "in the battle, in the sense - to die.
Phonetic archaisms are the third group. The meaning of the word is preserved, but it is not pronounced exactly the same as before, but very similar, in accordance with modern phonetic norms. For example, there was a "daughter" - it became a "daughter", there was a "city" - it became a "city" and so on.
The most interesting type of archaisms are derivational. This is a word that has retained its meaning, but is formed in a completely different way. A typical example of such archaism is the word "shepherd". Its modern sound is shepherd. But the origin is obvious - both came from the verb "to shepherd."
You can often find archaisms in proverbs and stable phrases: “an eye for an eye”, “one as a finger”. They are very popular with poets, writers and writing fraternity in general. Those who especially love archaisms are those who come up with names. The names of food products, commercial structures and projects are simply replete with archaisms.
Used to the place of archaism can give additional pathos to the words of the speaker. They love archaisms and satirists, and for the same reason - inappropriate pathos causes a smile and laughter. For obvious reasons, there are many archaisms in books and films on historical topics, as well as in areas that are distinguished by conservatism. The priests hold the palm in terms of the use of archaisms, since the modernization of the text of prayers is extremely rare.
The presence of archaisms, of course, is not a feature onlyRussian language. There are plenty of them in English too. This, by the way, greatly complicates the work of translators, especially translators of poetry. It is not enough to understand the meaning of the word, you need to find its Russian counterpart, and preferably also archaic.
Archaisms must be distinguished from historicisms. Archaisms are obsolete words, but the objects, phenomena, events that they designate have not disappeared anywhere and surround us to this day. Historicisms, on the contrary, designate objects and phenomena that have gone out of use. For example, armor, squeaker, onuchi.
