Linguists call borrowing the assimilation by one language of a word from another. This can happen in different ways: copying, transliteration, creating tracing paper. As a result, the foreign word enters the native language. Often, the fullness of its meaning is lost, leaving one nuance.
The language of any nation develops because it is a living product of people's communication. Some languages are dying, leaving the world stage, but new ones are constantly being born. English is divided into classical and practical, Chinese - into traditional and simplified. A new nationality does not appear, the language simply accumulates words that ensure the smooth communication of some group of people.
It can be slang, slang, professional turns of speech. It is more correct to call such formations sublanguages. Interestingly, they are often the providers of new words to borrow.
Reasons for borrowing in Russian
With the expansion of communication in the modern world, there is an intensive penetration of foreign words into the environment of the native language. Why is this happening,can't you translate some event or name an object using the roots of your native language for this?
This problem is being studied by specialists from all over the world, and this is what they come to the conclusion: sometimes the translation of a word from a foreign language into a native language causes more rejection than direct borrowing. Under Peter the Great, many German words penetrated the Russian language, this was justified by the need for joint production, and led to the emergence of technical terms. How to translate those names of objects and concepts that were not part of Russian culture? Yes, in order to avoid the need to translate technical literature not only into Russian, but also into German. Only by borrowing do they come to a common understanding of things. German borrowings in Russian:
- Overkil, chisel, valve, rasp, paste - these are the words of the Peter the Great era.
- Mine surveyor, accountant, spy, hose, plug - modern Germanisms.
If you open a dictionary of foreign words, you can see that there are a lot of such borrowings. Is this a natural process? Certainly. Language exists to understand each other. How not to remember the builders of the Tower of Babel, to whom God mixed their languages so that they could not understand each other's speech! Construction has stopped. In order not to destroy the joint work begun now, we have to find it difficult and learn the language. Progress does not stand still, new terms are born, new verbs appear. Therefore, the borrowing of words in Russian speech is not surprising. An educated person reacts positively to such a process. It enriches vocabulary andallows you to seamlessly build bridges with different speakers of the donor language.
Categories of borrowed Russian words
The Russian language gave some European words, including English. They are not always used, remaining in the passive reserve of the majority of the country's population. Nevertheless, linguists have deduced several of their categories.
There are three large groups of borrowings in English from Russian:
- Designation of things and events, unnatural for the British. These are the names of national dishes, entertainment and clothing: kvass, troika, kasha, kokoshnik, vareniki - kvass, troika, kasha, kokoshnik, vareniki.
- Historical terms found in literature and textbooks. The words populist, police officer, corvée exist in English - narodnik, ispravnik, barshina.
- Popular words that came from the Russian language. Mammoth and parka have become international, although previously they were known only in Russia - mammoth, parka.
There are more categories, but these are the most significant. In addition, there are four historical periods of Russian borrowings.
The first and second periods of the arrival of Russian words
Of the four borrowing periods, the first is the longest in time. Kievan Rus was reluctant to open itself to the West. The second period began from the sixteenth century. This is the time to get acquainted with Russian manuscripts, compiling dictionaries and scientific works of English scientists.
The first English-Russian dictionary was compiled by Mark Ridley in the early seventeenth century. Ridley served as a doctor in the royal family of Fyodor Ivanovich and compiled a dictionary of six thousand words. Richard James at the same time visited Russia to spread the word of God and left a notebook in which he described some Russian words.
From these diaries and notes of other compatriots Ridley and James, who visited Russia in the 16th-17th centuries, the following borrowings in English from Russian became known:
- Names of government positions, estates, military positions and buildings. These include tzar, cossack, kremlin (Tsar, Cossack, Kremlin).
- Measures of weight, volume and other units for trading. These are rouble, chervonets, pood, verst (ruble, chervonets, pood, verst).
- Russian everyday words: shchi, borshch, vodka, balalaika, samovar, sable, taiga
Third period of Russian borrowings
With the onset of the 19th century, political movements emerged in Russia that published their views in foreign languages. Both social and cultural events are widely discussed. Along with this, the third stage of borrowing in English from Russian begins, which brings new words:
- The widely publicized suppression of the Decembrist uprising brought the word decembrists.
- Political currents like the Cadets bring their names. Cadet is a transliteration of one of many similar words.
- Nihilism, described in the novel by F. Dostoevsky, is included in the English dictionary as nihilism when translated.
- The concept of intelligentsia,discussed in educated circles, also entered as a transliteration: intelligentsia.
In English magazines for a wide audience they begin to publish essays about Russia, articles on current Russian topics and interesting notes, cases of everyday life of travelers. In all these publications there are Russian words. In Russia itself, neologisms are multiplying to denote events and phenomena of political and public life. They are distributed through the printed word to European countries, including the UK.
Finally, the time has come for the Western public to study our country. The popularization of Russian literature begins. William Rolston put a lot of effort into this.
The fourth period of Russian borrowings
The most productive stage of borrowing comes in the twentieth century of the last century. The complex history of not only Russia, but the whole world has had a mutual influence on many languages. Only having appeared in Russian, new borrowings spread throughout Europe:
- The names of authorities, political organizations, administrative units, such as Soviets, Komsomol, collective farms and state farms, are transliterated in English as Soviet, Komsomol, kolkhoz.
- The names of people who stand on a certain socio-political platform - Bolshevik, shock worker, activist - are transferred as activist, bolshevik, shocknik. And the title of Hero of Labor began to look like a hero of labor.
- In Russia at the beginning of the last century, neologisms and abbreviations fill everyday speech. Some borrowings fromEnglish from Russian remain in modern English, others become history, remaining, however, in dictionaries. The five-year plan, familiar to many Soviet citizens, has turned into a five-year plan.
After the revolution of 1917, with the first wave of emigration, the list of Russian words included in the language of Foggy Albion was significantly expanded. The emigrants carried with them the Russian spirit, which through national dishes introduced them to culinary words, and through restaurant performances of domestic artists and salon conversations - with concepts:
- Russian roulette (russian roulette).
- Russian Avos.
- Feat (podvig).
The Second World War brought, in addition to technical words, the concept of a partisan movement (partisan). A little later, the Kalashnikov assault rifle (Kalashnikov) became world famous.
The sixties were marked by scientific and technical terms. This, for example, is a satellite, an astronaut and rationalization: sputnik, cosmonaut, rationalisers. Sputnik, by the way, can also mean a companion - both in Russian and in English.
Further spread of Russian words
The 1990s in Russia had a big impact on the vocabulary of the average person. There was a powerful expansion of it, caused by the penetration of political terms from outside. Words such as "consensus", "referendum", "alliance" were heard.
At the same time, the process of transition of native Russian words to foreign cultures started. Such Russian borrowings in English as“matryoshka”, “perestroika” and “glasnost” (matryoshka, perestrojka, glasnost) were familiar to everyone at that time. At the same time, English includes some Russian special terms.
Examples of such borrowing:
- Gulag, apparatchik and similar concepts: gulag, apparatchik.
- The word "pogrom", which originally meant the oppression of Jews with the robbery of their shops and shops, now has the meaning of the oppression of any group on any basis: Pogrom.
- The speeches of the Russian tribunes brought the following words: new thinking, democratization, self-financing, acceleration, state acceptance. Attempts to translate these terms into English were unsuccessful, it was easier to explain the essence of what was happening. Therefore, the words novoye muishleniye, uskoreniye, gospreyomka and democratizatsia become borrowings.
Such words have enriched not only English. They have firmly entered the dictionaries of both Europe and the whole world.
Interesting transformations of Russian words
Going into English speech, not all words have retained their original meaning. The word “grandmother”, familiar to the Russian ear, began to mean, first of all, the way of bandaging a scarf under the chin, and only then the Russian analogue grandmother. Vinaigrette is also called unusually: in English it is literally “Russian salad” - Russian salad. No less interesting are the following two Russian borrowings in English.
The dacha movement, which originated two centuries ago, when urban residents move to the countryside near the city during the summer season,several times changed the meaning of the word "dacha" in Russian. It was their own country house or estate, and rented from the owner for the summer, and state-owned summer houses for the military. In the 1960s, the government gave out land for gardening, and the word "cottage" acquires the concept of private property - land and a house on it. In English, the word Dacha is now common and means not only summer apartments - a country house, but also a garden with a vegetable garden on an adjacent plot.
Literature published in spite of censorship is called samizdat in Russia. It's funny, but this word, although it could be easily translated into English, entered the language by transliteration - Samizdat. Similarly, foreign borrowings appear in Russian, because a word meaning an event that does not exist in our country cannot be translated. An example is the word "lunch": in both languages it is a meal at noon. Attempts to translate "lunch" as "lunch" or "second breakfast" failed, it became easier to accept the concept itself.
Transition of English words into Russian speech
The process of transition of words and concepts from one language to another is constant. But the language of international communication enriches other cultures more strongly. English is now the language of universal communication. Naturally, the borrowing of words in the Russian environment is very active.
Conversations and correspondence of people, joint projects, films and music - all this acts as a common information field. Where efforts are made to translate something into the nativelanguage, the speed of human interaction will be lower. As an example, modern attempts to Ukrainize some Russian words can be cited, for example, “puporizka” instead of “midwife”.
Besides, for translation you need to deeply understand, love and know your native speech. Be aware of the dialects that make up domestic literary works. Then it will turn out to successfully and competently apply knowledge by translating a particular word.
But such work requires special linguistic training. This is worthy of the institute of the Academy of Sciences, but by no means a simple layman. Therefore, it is easier to adopt a new concept, use a phrase from a movie in your speech, tell an anecdote with anglicisms. The reasons for borrowings in Russian are understandable and natural. One can only save the baggage of Russian words accumulated so far, embellishing one’s speech with a successful well-aimed literary definition as much as possible.
Integration of words in the 21st century
If the word cannot be translated without distorting the meaning, it is transliterated. But to fully understand what it means is not easy. Some concepts not only cannot be accurately translated - they are even difficult to explain. There are many such words in Russian. Examples of borrowing some of them in English are quite interesting:
- Vulgarity (poshlost). Nabokov, lecturing to his students in America, cited the example of a family-bought radio being elevated to the rank of an idol.
- Tear (nadryv). This psycho-emotional state, described by F. Dostoevsky, requires too much explanation. It is translated as exaggerated distortedfeelings.
- Tosca is a word that is spelled the same in both languages. His closest translation term is depression. But if depression is a clinical condition, an illness, then longing happens in he althy, full of life people.
- Rudeness (khamstvo). The writer S. Dovlatov, perhaps, best of all expressed this negative quality, which is not in America: “Anything can happen to you, but there is no rudeness here. The door will not be closed to you.”
- Stushevatsya. The Russian artist understands this: he blurs the shadow, making the borders blurry. So the person fades into the background. Another word from F. Dostoevsky.
One can argue about the role and appropriateness of borrowings in Russian from other languages, but these five words are rightfully included in the world collection as a reflection of the mystery of the Russian soul.
The process of replacing Russian words with foreign ones
Strange as it may seem, the unjustified interspersing of foreign words into native speech was noticeable even in the time of A. S. Pushkin. His friend, the compiler of the explanatory dictionary V. Dal, complained about this problem. But over the past ten years, the situation has worsened. Native speech is subjected to a massive attack by the media, as a result of which there is a borrowing of foreign words in the Russian language. These are TV-introduced anglicisms that could have been avoided:
- Briefing.
- Reality show.
- Money.
- Weekend, happy ending.
Some even joke that this integration of anglicisms resembles an intervention. It is obvious that the role of borrowings in the Russian language is the development andenriching it. But when the usual Russian words "meeting", "money" or "day off" are replaced with English counterparts, it becomes sad.
The role of borrowings in English
If the reasons for borrowing words in Russian are not always justified, then the reverse process has a harmonious system. These are words that reflect Russian realities, many of which are already in the past. They remain for the study of history and are still contained in educational literature. Another group of Russian words is known only to narrow specialists, whether in Russia or an English-speaking country. An example is Sovietisms, which are gradually passing into dictionaries as obsolete even in Russia. And something is happening before our eyes.
The suffix "-nick", previously unknown in English, took root and began independent word formation. An example is the word “flopnik”, created by English journalists by analogy with “satellite”, by which the American artificial Earth satellite was called after numerous unsuccessful attempts to put it into orbit. Derived from to flop - “flop”. Its second name is Yanknik and Kaputnik (Yanknik, kaputnik). The initiative was supported by peacenik - "supporter of peace" and returnik - "returner".
In general, there is a tendency for the penetration of cultures, mixing styles of speech while maintaining the national mentality. In English, as in no other, the number of borrowings from other languages, including Russian, is high. True, in comparison with other languages, Russian has brought a little to the English vocabulary. But this does not detract from his influence, albeitsmall, on the formation of modern English.
Conclusion
English borrowings in Russian, as well as Russian in English, contribute to the rapprochement of peoples and their cultures. If at the same time their own linguistic heritage is carefully preserved, then we can talk about the development of world culture. Otherwise, the language may become impoverished. Some even assimilate with others and disappear. This is happening in the Caucasus now.
That is why it is so important to be a true native speaker, use quotes in your speech and constantly replenish your vocabulary by reading classical literature. Then even communication in English will become more expressive, rich and colorful. Words are expressions of thoughts and the spiritual world. The speech of a person who expresses himself vividly and figuratively in any language will be interesting.
