A lot of borrowings come into the modern language today. And that's okay. The dictionary of new words of the Russian language is constantly updated with foreign expressions of varying degrees of processing and mastery. But at the same time, the meanings of older, seemingly already accustomed expressions are sometimes forgotten. Now, I'm sure, not everyone can really explain the meaning of the word "bauvais ton" or "consecration", and once these words were quite popular.
The path of borrowings: from Germanisms through Gallinisms to Anglicisms
It all started with Peter. Since the beginning of the 18th century, Russian noble society has been keenly interested in European life, culture, and fashion. Peter I, having built St. Petersburg, cutting through a window to Europe, greatly advanced the Russian Empire on the path of Europeanization. He borrowed a lot from Holland and something from Germany, along with technological innovations, foreign names appeared for them. Since that time, quite a lot of Germanisms have remained, that is, words that came from the Germanic languages, especially in the military and shipbuilding sphere. And the passion for other European countries -France, England - began later. And borrowings from the languages of these countries also appeared in Russian later. At the beginning of the 18th century, people in Russia did not yet know what the meaning of the word "bauvais ton" was.
Too hot passion for France
But after the death of Peter Alekseevich, the interests of nobles and noblewomen began to revolve around a completely different culture. France was under the scrutiny of fashionistas, artists, philanthropists, philosophers and many other not indifferent Russians. The meaning of the word "moveton" in those years could be explained in detail by any child. Fonvizin, a writer of the 18th century, even has a comedy "The Brigadier", in which a nobleman is ridiculed, who ex alts everything French and blindly imitates any manifestation of French culture and culture. According to the author, the behavior of the characters in "The Brigadier" is bad manners. Russian nobles spoke and wrote French, wore dresses of foreign fashion, invited governesses from Voltaire's homeland to their children, so that they would educate them and instill in them the perfect Parisian pronunciation. Naturally, words borrowed from French began to appear. Novelties especially proliferated in the field of fashion, decency and manners, military and household areas. The word "moveton", for example, took root at that time. The same applies to all now familiar words: "battalion", "comme il faut", "mezzanine", "voyage", "parachute", "broth" and others. Words that came from French are usually called Gallicisms, becauseit was the Gauls who were the administrative ancestors of the French.
So what is bad manners?
The meaning of the word "moveton" is a bad, inappropriate act, gesture, word. In other words, bad manners is bad taste, impoliteness. The antonym is comme il faut (yes, that same comme il faut that Leo Tolstoy writes about in his youth). This is not even so much behavior that meets the generally accepted rules of decency, but actions befitting a person in his own honor. In general, in the XVIII-XIX centuries the concepts of decency, norms of behavior, etiquette meant much more than now. Comme il faut and mauvais ton were in many ways the defining concepts by which a person was judged in society.
New century - new borrowings
But then the formidable XX century came, the October Revolution happened, the iron curtain fell. It is clear that there could be no talk of some kind of craze for foreign culture. On the contrary, during the existence of the USSR, borrowings from Russian appeared in other languages. But along with the culture of rock, with the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, along with jeans and foreign glossy magazines, along with everything forbidden and therefore a hundred times more attractive and memorable, Americanisms began to penetrate the USSR - borrowings from the American version of the English language.
XXI century
Today, many words from English come into the Russian language, some new expressions from Japanese (in the technical field and anime) and from the languages of the Caucasus. And to know the meaning of the word "moveton" and useit and others like it remained the privilege of educated intelligent people.
