The borrowed words, along with the native Russian, make up a whole layer of the Russian language. Without borrowed vocabulary, any language is dead, since foreign words help it to develop and generalize it with new conceptual forms. What vocabulary is related to borrowed words in Russian? Learn from this article!
Russian language groups
The entire active and passive vocabulary of the Russian language includes two large lexical groups: native Russian and borrowed words. Each of them should be examined in more detail in order to understand the relationship.
Original Russian words of the Russian language
This is the name of the lexical layer of our language, which includes the concepts that have surrounded the Russian person since the founding of the language. This is an original vocabulary that reflects the most ancient lexical units of the Russian language.
First of all, the original Russian words include the designation of household items, for example: a pot, a samovar, a stove, a barn, etc.
Then, those already appeared that denoted the surrounding world of animals and plants, for example: wolf, fox, rooster, birch, mountain ash, Christmas tree.
The next stage in the development of native Russian vocabulary includes words that are commonly referred to as types of kinship, for example: son, daughter, father, grandson.
Important! Such lexical units as “mom” and “dad” do not apply to borrowing in the Russian language. These are the words that came to us from a common parent language. That is why they are similar in sound and spelling among many peoples. For example, English. Mother - “maser”, French la mere - “mayor”.
In addition, the native Russian vocabulary includes weather conditions, for example: snow, dew, rainbow, rain, as well as other frequently used words related to various parts of speech, such as sly, young, friend, brother, see, hear, etc. d.
According to the latest calculations of philologists, the layer of native Russian vocabulary is about two thousand words. He is the core of our language, his heart.
Borrowed words in modern Russian
Foreign vocabulary makes up a considerable share of the entire layer of Russian-language lexical units. The meaning of borrowed words in the Russian language is difficult to overestimate - to avoid the penetration of foreign words is almost impossible.
Any people do not live in isolation from the whole world. People interact with each other, and most often words come into our language when there is no original Russian equivalent, but the subject already exists. It was brought from distant countries or produced here by foreign citizens.
Therefore, a lot of borrowed words in the Russian language denote the following latest concepts:
- Technical terms (carburetor, condenser, motor, bus, etc.).
- Scientific and medical terms and concepts (therapy, epidermis, philosophy, algebra, philology, etc.).
- Sports definitions (basketball, volleyball, tennis, etc.).
Some examples of borrowed words in the Russian language coexist next to the native Russian and are synonyms.
In this case, a new lexical unit, which has come from other languages, will complement the meaning of this subject and be used as a special semantic connotation.
For example, “epidermis” and “skin”. Skin is a primordially Russian word for the upper cover on the human body, and “epidermis” is the Latin name for the upper layer of human skin. Our version is often used as a common word in colloquial speech, and the borrowed is used in scientific articles or in medical circles, focusing on the fact that this is the term.
There are also opposite cases when a word taken from a foreign language completely displaces native Russian. A striking example is the pair “chambermaid - room”.
Earlier in the villages, the separate heated room was called the chambermaid, since there was a stove and it was “burnt,” that is, the heat that heated the whole room. With the advent of a different type of heating and the abolition of stoves in everyday life, the “room” that came to us from the Polish language became the most popular for use.
Borrowing stages
Any report on borrowed words in the Russian language includes periods or stages of this process. Our language has gone through five large “influxes” of foreign vocabulary:
- Pre-Slavic and Old Russian.
- The adoption of Orthodoxy.
- Medieval (with a continuing tradition to this day).
- The reign of Peter the Great.
- XX - beginning of XXI centuries.
Each of them should be considered in more detail.
Pre-Slavic and Old Russian
What loanwords in Russian appeared in that era?
First of all, this:
- Iranisms (lord, hut, ax, food).
- Celtisms (dough, servant, belly, pit).
- Germanisms (buy, sell, cattle, king, regiment, armor).
- Gothic borrowed vocabulary (cook, treat, more than that).
- Latinism (bath, cabbage, altar).
All these foreign words have become so familiar to the Russian ear that only linguists can distinguish their true origin.
Later, the Slavs began to trade with the Baltic countries, moved to Eastern Europe and therefore such lexical units as a bucket, a village, tar, oil, etc. came into the language.
At the same time, Scandinavian foreign words leak into it, among which the most famous are names, for example: Gleb, Olga, Igor, as well as terms related to the marine industry, for example herring, anchor, shark, etc.
The adoption of Orthodoxy
After the adoption of Orthodoxy and baptism in Russia in 988, the Byzantine state had a strong influence on the entry into our language of foreign language. Hence there are many Greek and Latinisms that appeared in Russian speech, since Greek and Latin were the languages ​​of Christian books.
Examples of borrowed words of the Russian language that came to us from Greece:
- The language of church life: an icon, an icon lamp, a salary, a monastery, a hood, etc.
- Names of animals and plants: buffalo, beets.
- Names: Eugene, Andrey, Alexander.
- Household designation of objects: notebook, flashlight, ruler.
Medieval stage
During this period, Turkisms were actively introduced into the Russian language, since the influence of the Golden Horde and the entire Tatar-Mongol yoke was affecting. This also includes relations with the Ottoman Empire and Poland. It was during the wars, as well as trade and economic relations, that a great many words of Turkic origin penetrated our language.
For instance:
- The Golden Horde brought into our language such words as: Cossack, guard, shoe, fog, badger, prison, money, etc.
- The Ottoman Empire enriched the Russian language with the words drum, noodles, chest, oil, ammonia, cast iron.
Later Turkisms such as: sofa, fawn, jasmine, halva, peanut and pistachio appeared.
In Russian and modern speech, borrowed words could appear imperceptibly, as, for example, alliances were added: if, supposedly, so, - related to polonisms.
Polonisms were most often used in book vocabulary, which was religious in nature, or in business papers.
These include words such as: sign, voluntarily, plate, dance, bottle, thing, enemy, etc.
How many borrowed words in Russian came to us from the Polish state? According to philologists, a little more than a thousand.
Reign of Peter the Great
During the reign of this world-famous tsar, many different words penetrated into the Russian language, since Peter I was a very enlightened monarch and was educated in the best European powers.
However, most of the words still related to seafaring, because it was this tsar who first created a powerful fleet for Russia. Hence the emergence of a huge number of Dutch nautical terms: ballast, harbor, drift, sailor, captain, flag, rudder, gear, feed.
At the same time, another foreign language came: rent, act, salvo, torch, army, port, pier, schooner, office, solution, problem.
In addition to many Dutch words, there were also gallicisms (borrowings from the French language):
- Name of food: marmalade, chocolate, broth, vinaigrette.
- Household items: stained-glass window, wardrobe.
- Clothing: coats, boots, frill.
- Vocabulary of art: director, actor, ballet.
- Military subjects: battalion, squadron, flotilla.
- Political terminology: department, bourgeois, cabinet.
At the same time, words came from Spanish and Italian, such as guitar, aria, pasta, tenor, rumba, samba, currency, coin.
XX-XXI century
The last stage of large borrowing occurred at the turn of the 20th - 21st centuries. Well-developed trade and economic relations with England have contributed to the fact that most of the borrowings are Anglicisms. For the most part, borrowed words in the Russian language of that time are lexical units related to the discoveries of this century. For example, in the 20th century, thanks to the advent of computer technology, people learned about such Slovaks as a printer, scanner, file, diskette, computer.
How to identify a foreign language word?
There are distinctive features of borrowed vocabulary. Here are the most common:
- Greekisms: combinations of “ps, cs”, initial “f, e”, as well as special roots of Greek origin. For example: auto, aero, filo, halo, grapho, thermo, etc. - psychology, philology, phonetics, graphics, thermodynamics, aero tube, telegraph, biology, autobiography.
- Latinisms: the first letters "c, e", the endings "mustache" or "mind", as well as the famous prefixes counter, ex, ultra, hyper, etc. - centrifuge, electricity, energy, colloquium, omnibus, counterplay, ultrasound, hypertrophied, extraordinary, etc.
- Germanisms: the combination of “pieces, xt, ft”, as well as words with a large number of consonants following each other — an accordion, an attraction, a keynote, a guardhouse, a fine, sprats, fir, etc.
- Gallicisms: combinations of “vu, kyu, nu, fyu, ya”, as well as the characteristic endings “er, ans, already, id”. A large number of non-declining words ending in o, e also came to us from France. For example: mantle, chimpanzee, coat, mashed potatoes, nuance, fuselage, veil, blend, director, editor, boyfriend, etc.
- Anglicisms: the classic endings “ing, men”, as well as the combination “j, tch” - leasing, athlete, businessman, pitch, image.
- TĂĽrkisms: a consonance of identical vowels, called syngarmonism in philology, for example, ataman, emerald, turmeric.
How many words in Russian are borrowed? It is not possible to calculate this, since our language is very mobile, and Russia is one of the most multinational powers! However, those who are interested in the origin of a particular word, it is best to turn to the etymological dictionaries of Shansky, Fasmer or Black.