One of the sections of vocabulary is etymology, which studies the origin of a word against the background of changes in the entire vocabulary of the language. Native Russian and borrowed words are considered just from the standpoint of etymology. These are the two layers into which the entire vocabulary of the Russian language can be divided, in terms of origin. This section of the vocabulary gives an answer to the question of how the word came about, what it means, where and when it was borrowed, and what changes it has undergone.
Russian Vocabulary
All words that exist in a language are called vocabulary. With their help, we name various objects, phenomena, actions, signs, numbers, etc.
The vocabulary is explained by the entry into the system of Slavic languages, which led to the presence of their common origin and development. Russian vocabulary is rooted in the past of the Slavic tribes and has developed along with the people over the centuries. This is the so-called primordial vocabulary that has existed for a long time.
There is also a second layer in the vocabulary: these are words that came to us from other languages due to the emergence of historic alties.
Thus, if we consider the vocabulary from the standpoint of origin, we can distinguish the words originally Russian and borrowed. Examples of words of both groups are presented in the language in large numbers.
Origin of Russian words
The vocabulary of the Russian language has more than 150,000 words. Let's see what words are called native Russian.
Originally Russian vocabulary has several tiers:
- The first, the most ancient, includes words denoting concepts that all languages have (father, mother, meat, wolf, and others);
- The second tier consists of Proto-Slavic words that are characteristic of all Slavic tribes (pine, wheat, house, chicken, kvass, cheese, etc.);
- The third tier is formed by words that appeared in the speech of the Eastern Slavs starting from the 6th-7th centuries (dark, stepdaughter, churchyard, squirrel, today);
- The fourth group is actually Russian names that appeared at the end of the 16th-17th centuries (jam, blizzard, shrub, uproot, leisure, once, mason, pilot, deceit, neatness, etc.).
Borrowing process
In our language, primordially Russian and borrowed words coexist. This is due to the historical development of the country.
As a people, Russians have long entered into cultural, economic, political, military, trade relations with other countries and states. This quite naturally led to the fact that the words of those peoples with whom we collaborated appeared in our language. Otherwise it was impossible to understandeach other.
Over time, these language borrowings became Russified, entered the group of commonly used words, and we no longer perceive them as foreign. Everyone knows such words as "sugar", "banya", "activist", "artel", "school" and many others.
Native Russian and borrowed words, examples of which are given above, have long and firmly entered our everyday life and help build our speech.
Foreign words in Russian
Getting into our language, foreign words are forced to change. The nature of their changes affects different aspects: phonetics, morphology, semantics. Borrowing is subject to our laws and regulations. Such words undergo changes in endings, in suffixes, the gender changes. For example, the word "parliament" is masculine, but in German, where it came from, it is neuter.
The very meaning of the word can change. So, the word "painter" in our country means a worker, and in German it means "painter".
The semantics is changing. For example, the borrowed words "canned", "conservative" and "conservatory" came to us from different languages and have nothing in common. But in their native language, French, Latin and Italian, respectively, they came from Latin and have the meaning of "preserve."
Thus, it is important to know from which languages words are borrowed. This will help to correctly determine their lexical meaning.
In addition, sometimes it is difficult to recognize native Russian and borrowed words in that massvocabulary that we use every day. For this purpose, there are dictionaries that explain the meaning and origin of each word.
Classification of borrowed words
Two groups of borrowed words are distinguished by a certain type:
- who came from the Slavic language;
- taken from non-Slavic languages.
In the first group, Old Slavonicisms make up a large mass - words that have been in church books since the 9th century. And now such words as “cross”, “universe”, “power”, “virtue”, etc. are widespread. Many Old Slavonicisms have Russian analogues (“lanites” - “cheeks”, “mouths” - “lips”, etc.) Phonetic (“gates” - “gates”), morphological (“grace”, “benefactor”), semantic (“gold” - “gold”) Old Church Slavonicisms are distinguished.
The second group consists of borrowings from other languages, including:
- Latin (in the field of science, politics of public life - "school", "republic", "corporation");
- Greek (household - "bed", "dish", terms - "synonym", "vocabulary");
- Western European (military - "headquarters", "junker", from the field of art - "easel", "landscape", nautical terms - "boat", "shipyard" "schooner", musical terms - "aria", "libretto");
- Turkic (in culture and trade "pearl", "caravan", "iron");
- Scandinavian (everyday - "anchor", "whip") words.
Dictionary of foreign words
Lexicology is a very exact science. Everything is clearly structured here. All words are divided into groups, depending on the underlying feature.
Native Russian and borrowed words are divided into two groups based on etymology, that is, origin.
There are different dictionaries that suit specific purposes. So, you can call a dictionary of foreign words, which contains foreign examples that have come to us over the course of many centuries. Many of these words are now perceived by us as Russian. The dictionary explains the meaning and indicates where the word came from.
Dictionaries of foreign words in our country have a whole history. The first was created at the beginning of the eighteenth century, it was handwritten. At the same time, a three-volume dictionary was published, the author of which was N. M. Yanovsky. A number of foreign dictionaries appeared in the twentieth century.
Among the most famous are the "School Dictionary of Foreign Words" edited by V. V. Ivanova. The dictionary entry contains information about the origin of the word, gives an interpretation of its meaning, examples of use, set expressions with it.
