What is vernacular? Literary language and colloquial words

What is vernacular? This is a fairly common phenomenon in Russian. Now, such “buzzwords” can be heard from representatives of various sectors of society. There is no exact definition of this concept. In this work, we will try to parse the words of vernacular from different angles and understand their role in the literary Russian language.

Definition of a concept

So what is vernacular? It is very difficult to define this phenomenon. It is believed that poorly educated residents of our country use such language forms. The latter is of great importance, because there is not a single language using such forms. We also note that the literary language and vernacular are related. Most authors use this technique to distinguish between social layers in a work.

Watch how you talk with family members, although we don’t notice this, but use a lot of vernaculars, the words “telly”, “dividend”, “mess up”, “squabble” and so on slip in your conversation. This is easier than saying: TV, DVD-player, add unnecessary optional work, and the like. Everyone understands us, because Russian vernacular is firmly entrenched in our lives.

Education addiction

It is believed that colloquy in a person’s oral and written speech directly depends on his status, position and education. The most susceptible to the use of vernacular people in the following positions:

• Drivers
• Laborers.
• Trade workers.
• Builders and so on.

That is, the dependence on these word forms is inversely proportional to the status of the person. Also in this category are people serving in law enforcement. Why is this happening? In the army during communication, the so-called soldier argo is used, that is, vernacular with an admixture of vocabulary of argo of a technical nature.

Vernacular classification

The following types of this phenomenon are divided in Russian:

• Vernacular-1.
• Vernacular-2.

It’s quite simple to remember, but they are often confused, we will analyze each of them in more detail so that there is no misunderstanding in this matter. To systematize knowledge, we will provide a table below that will help you consolidate the studied material once and for all.

Vernacular-1

Consider the first view. What is vernacular-1 and for whom is it characteristic? L.I. Skvortsov, a famous researcher, identified a group of people who are inclined to use these words:

• Aged people.
• With a low degree of education.
• With a weak cultural level.

Note that it is very important that the basis of the group is elderly people, usually women.

Phonetics

Colloquialism is a form of the Russian language that is not characteristic of everyone. We will analyze the phonetics of the first kind.

1. Mitigating consonants where appropriate (e.g. con'vert).
2. Missed vowels (e.g., aradrome).
3. Inappropriate use of the sound “in” (for example, rad'iva).
4. Insert vowels (rubel).

For some reason, the talk of my beloved grandmother is immediately recalled, pictures of the village outskirts, calm come up.

Features of the vernacular of the first kind

Let's analyze the most popular moments:

1. Changing the word by cases or persons leads to the incorrect formation of the received (I want, want, want, want).
2. Inconsistencies of childbirth in phrases (thick jam).
3. Change in the ending of masculine nouns with the letter “u” (on the beach, on gas).
4. The ending on –ov and –ev (rubles, places and so on).
5. Declination of words that do not bow (we go from the kin).

Vocabulary

As for this section of the Russian language, there are also a number of features, for example: the use of words inherent exclusively for everyday communication, they are not literary words (crawls, very, very often, just now, and so on). The second feature is the use of words in a meaning different from the literary meaning. An example is the replacement “respect” instead of “love”: I do not respect salty tomatoes.

Incorrect use of the word "plague", for example: plague, where did he run ?! Here, adhering to the norms of the literary language, it is more appropriate to be crazy or unbalanced. Another striking and memorable example may be the use of "walking" in the meaning - "have close relations." Example: She walked with him for about a year.

To whom the use of colloquialisms of the second type

Researcher L. I. Skvortsov found that representatives of the young generation with a low level of education and cultural development use this form. We have already said that it is possible to make a separation by gender, the first type is used mainly by older women, but vernacular-2 is mainly heard from men.

Note that there is no such abundance of characteristics as in the first species, since it is younger and less studied. So what is vernacular-2? This is something between literary speech and jargon (both social and professional).

Such literary vernacular is a bridge through which new words and their forms enter our language. Carriers:

• Natives of the countryside.
• Urban residents characterized by a dialect environment.
• Citizens with a low level of education and engaged in unskilled labor.

The most popular professions: sellers, cleaners, movers, hairdressers, waiters and so on.

The relationship of literary language and vernacular

You probably noticed that in everyday life you often use words that are not characteristic of the literary language. How did they get to us? Thanks to the jargon inherent in a particular social group or profession. In order to make it clear what is at stake, we give examples: "puncture" - failure; "Have a break" - to relax; "Scumbag" - a person who does not recognize any normativeness in his behavior and so on.

Despite the fact that this is not a literary language, the words are very tightly entrenched in our lexical set.

Table

To consolidate the material, we move on to the promised point of systematizing knowledge.

In conclusion, we say that the use of vernaculars in oral and written speech is characteristic of the urban population, but solely in order to give a specific shade. In order to convey their feelings, to more saturate their story with colors, people use this technique, while fully aware of its incorrectness. Only in this case, vernacular does not carry any negative color.

Many people use it as profanity, as a rule, it is a poorly educated population, unable to express their thoughts in literary language. All this leads to the stratification of the language and its degradation. Vernacular is appropriate only in those cases when it is used as a stylistic device, but if you use it in everyday life, then speech will have a negative color. We strongly advise you not to use such words in communication with other people, as the interlocutor may doubt the quality of your education and cultural level.