Language can be compared to a constructor, in which the smallest details form larger ones, and those in turn form complex and thoughtful designs. The smallest "cubes" or bricks are sounds and letters that display phonemes in writing. It is from them that words are formed, which then form phrases, sentences, text. Phonetics deals with sounds.
But the question of what vocabulary is is studied by lexicology. In turn, lexicography deals with dictionaries, including the methodology for compiling them. So, the vocabulary of the Russian language is the totality of all its words, its entire vocabulary. It is believed that it is formed in layers: that is, it is possible to distinguish common and limited use words. Separately, you can consider what vocabulary is, say, advertising, technical, medical, borrowed or outdated. Depending on the perspective from which we evaluate vocabulary, we can talk about active and passive use.
In the first case, we are talking aboutmost common words.
By the way, there are not so many of them for each language. Therefore, it is believed that mastering one thousand words can provide 70% of understanding and communication. The vocabulary of an educated person consists of approximately several thousand (up to 20-30 thousand) words. Of these, only 4-5 are actively used in everyday life, and we are able to understand much more.
You can analyze vocabulary at a given moment in time. For example, the vocabulary of the modern Russian language has its own groups, but it differs significantly from the corpus of words, say, of the eleventh or fifteenth century. Looking at vocabulary in a particular time is a synchronic aspect.
In this case, certain layers can be distinguished. In addition to the general division into common and limited vocabulary, it can be considered, for example, from the point of view of emotional coloring. In this case, the following are distinguished: neutral, emotive (emotional), sublime, poetic, familiar, vulgar, obscene vocabulary. If words without emotional coloring can be used in all styles and in any situation of verbal communication, then emotionally colored words are inherent only in colloquial speech. In books, of course, they can also be found, but precisely as a means of expressing a linguistic personality.
In a dissertation, in a report, in official documents, the use of vulgarisms or obscene language is unacceptable.
Vocabularymay be limited geographically. In this case, the so-called dialectisms are distinguished, that is, words inherent in the dialect of only a certain area. For example, "eggplant" is a common word, but "blue" these vegetables are called by the inhabitants of the Kursk region, Krasnodar Territory and southern Russia. Youth slang also operates with words of limited use - in this case, a certain age group. Medical or computer vocabulary is inherent in specific professional layers. Engineers, on the other hand, operate with technical vocabulary.
If we look at what vocabulary is from a diachronic point of view - that is, in history - we can single out a new (neologisms), outdated (historicisms and archaisms) and neutral groups. The vocabulary is enriched by inputs from other languages. Answering the question about what vocabulary is from the point of view of origin, we will name borrowed and native Russian. And then you can divide the words, taking into account mastery: most of them have completely taken root in the language. For example, for us the words "notebook" and "pencil" are no longer alien, although they once came from the Greek and Turkic languages. If the words are not fully mastered, then they talk about barbarisms ("Windows") and exoticisms ("Signor", "Toreador", "Lunch").
