If we compare our speech, modern, and the speech of at least our grandparents (and even parents), there will be significant changes. And it is worth listening to or getting a grasp of the communication of children and adolescents - we may not understand half of what they said at all. After all, they operate with such words, call such objects (a vivid example is game attributes and virtual things), which we are not even aware of.
All this is evidence that language is a living organism, that it is constantly evolving. What is this development? In the constant replenishment of the vocabulary at the expense of some words, in the care of others in the past. After all, what is a neologism? This is a word that at this particular point in time is perceived as new, entered recently, not mastered sufficiently. As it becomes fixed in the language, it loses its shade of novelty, becomescommonly used. An example would be, say, the word "airplane" or "mobile phone", or even "computer".
At a certain stage of social and scientific and technological development, all these were neologisms in the Russian language. But now we have long been accustomed to them, they have become part of the commonly used ones. Or let's take the word "pioneer", "Komsomol member" - with the advent of the phenomenon, the concepts that call them also appeared. But these organizations have disappeared - and now the words are becoming a thing of the past, becoming historicisms.
So, what is a neologism? This is a lexeme that entered the language or formed in it relatively recently and is perceived by most speakers as a new unit. The appearance of such words is inextricably linked with several points. The main thing is scientific and technological development. There is an invention, development, product - and there is a need for a new word. For example, "search engine", "browser", "laptop" came into active use just a little over ten years ago. To understand what neologism is, we will be helped by an analysis of social shifts and changes. If, for example, at the beginning of the 20th century the words “communist”, “party member” were new, then now, when new parties, organizations and social movements are being formed, “United Russia”, “military men”, “medveputy” enter the language.
The degree of mastery varies. For example, active learningword forms testifies that the word is firmly included in the vocabulary and consciousness of contemporaries. If a few years ago we used the name of the company and the search engine only as a proper name "Google", now you can hear such derivatives as "google", "google". Or let's take the interesting words "like", "tweet", "friend" - this will help us understand what neologism is and how the development of new things in our speech goes. Most often, vocabulary is updated through borrowing. Moreover, often for the nomination of the same phenomenon or object, there are two words in parallel: mastered and new. For example, "pallet" and "pallet". Or "manager" and "manager". Neologisms in modern Russian are also formed by changing the meanings of existing words. For example, "voice" in the sense of "say, say out loud." Or "upload" in the meaning of "transfer files".
Writers and poets are actively engaged in word creation. Examples from Mayakovsky ("hulk", "to star"), Nabokov ("nymphet") will help us to understand what an individual-author's neologism is. Otherwise, such words are also called occasionalisms.
