The Russian language belongs to the numerous Slavic languages, which are divided into East Slavic (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian), West Slavic (Polish, Czech, Slovak) and South Slavic (Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian).
The origin of the Russian language
The first data telling about its occurrence have been discovered since the 9th century AD, at the time when Slavic writing was formed. Reliable information about Slavic tribes dates back to the 4th century. In these times, there were already three main groups of Slavs, and therefore languages. However, until the 9th-10th centuries, when writing arose, they were so similar in their grammatical structure and lexical composition that different tribes could easily understand each other. This indicates that the origin of the Russian language and other Slavic languages starts from the common Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic.
In turn, the Slavic languages are part of the Indo-European, which also includes Greek, Latin, modern Romance, Germanic, Celtic, Baltic languages and some languages of India and Iran. It would seem that there is nothing in common between modern Persian, Albanian, and Russian. However, their comparative historical analysis reveals some common basis, which suggests that all languages belonging to the Indo-European group had a very, very long time ago had a common linguistic “platform” - the pre-Indo-European language, from which they began their independent development. In turn, the Pre-Slavic language was such a basis of the Slavic languages, to which the Russian language belongs. The origin of any of them, therefore, is a very long, complex and rather controversial process, since it is possible to establish the sources of this origin only by comparing very scarce historical data containing grains, the remains of ancient word forms and language structures.
The origin of words in Russian
The vocabulary of the Russian modern language has evolved over a very long time. The process of formation of the lexical composition of each language, including Russian, is closely related to the formation of the nation, the historical development of the people. At the heart of this process, two components are distinguished: these are native vocabulary that existed in the language from ancient times, and borrowed words that gradually become part of its lexical structure.
The original vocabulary of the Russian language combines groups of words that have Indo-European, East Slavic, Old Russian and Russian proper, indicating the origin of the Russian language.
Indo-European vocabulary entered Russian from the ancient system to which the common Slavic language belonged. These are words denoting kinship: mother, father, daughter; animals: bull, sheep; food - bone, meat and others.
Words from the Slavic language are inherited from the time of the linguistic unity of the Slavic tribes, from about the 6th century A.D. These are terms that denote plants and the plant world — linden, leaf, oak, forest, boron, root, branch, millet, peas, barley, etc. This lexical group includes concepts denoting tools and the labor process - hoe, weave, fabric, shuttle, forge, etc .; words related to the topic of housing, food, household utensils, birds and animals.
Some of the words in the Russian language refer to East Slavic or Old Russian vocabulary. They arose during the formation of Kievan Rus, which included the tribes of the Eastern Slavs. These are words that are found only in three East Slavic languages, for example, denoting qualities, actions - good, rumble; some degrees of kinship - stepdaughter, uncle: some names of birds and animals, etc.
Actually Russian vocabulary is composed of words that arose in the language after the formation of the Great Russian nationality, when the national Russian language began to take shape and develop, from about the 17th century. These are some concepts that indicate household items and food - cabbage rolls, kulebyaka, whitewash; designations of actions - defuse, crush, bake; some abstract concepts - experience, outcome, deception, etc.
Finally, a significant lexical group in the Russian language is comprised of borrowing words included in the process of cultural, commercial, military, political relations with other states. Such words were gradually assimilated, i.e. were part of the commonly used and gradually lost their foreign language sound. They penetrated into the Russian language both from related Slavic languages and non-Slavic. Many words were borrowed from Greek during the period of unity of the Slavic tribes. Scientific vocabulary and terminology for the most part came to us from Latin. Words from Turkic languages (most of all from Tatar) penetrated into Russian as a result of early cultural ties and aggressive raids. One of the many groups is borrowed from Western European languages, which is associated with the cultural, legal, military and political reforms of the Russian state, starting from the time of Peter the Great.
The origin of the Russian language and its lexical composition is closely related to the emergence, formation and development of the people, the Russian nation and statehood, because the language is a complex, “living”, developing “organism” that reveals and reflects the underlying processes in human society.