What Russian words borrowed from other languages, and why?

Almost all of borrowing Russian language associated with particular historical event. We have close cultural and economic ties with other nations, traded and fought, shared a common history, traditions, bread and salt.

Bolshevik, udarnik, kolkhoz, komsomol, starosta, tundra, taiga, troika, izba, telega, balalaika, vedro, matrioshka, okroshka. All these words - milestones of civilization. But we are not talking about the exoticism - foreign borrowings specific to the political system, life or the natural features of Russian, and other, less obvious words.

Meet Underground Elephant

The word "mammoth" the British have heard for the first time only in 1690. Then, in the XVII century, the Dutch agents visited a secret political assignment in Siberia and then Dutch Mayor Nicholas Cornelius Witz shared his impressions of the journey in his diary, "Memories of Russia", which, based on the stories of Russian residents, wrote that the mammoth - a elephant, who lives under the ground, so sometimes people will find in the land of tusks, bones and horns of a mammoth. In the same year, explorer and scientist Richard James created a vocabulary that the abundance of details and subtleties of phonetic observations is one of the very important sources for the study of Russian oral speech of the early XVII century. In it, he also mentioned for the first time the word "mammoth". Only with time in the course of tracing the word has lost the letter "n", and according to the rules "t" of the English language transcription of recorded sound like "th", so its final shape word has acquired a mammoth. In the German version the word spelled mammut.

In the footsteps of Dostoevsky's

This is the same word, the capacity and the value of which the Russian people there is no need to explain. "Tear" - the key concept in the works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. In the second part of "The Brothers Karamazov" a writer named one of the chapters of "Tears". There was a word in the dictionaries of other languages. However, for the translation, we offer options with relatively narrower meaning - "pain", "suffering". To better understand the mysterious Russian soul, the German "Wikipedia" has produced an entire article dedicated to true and deep meaning "tear" concept.

What does the Japanese?

The Japanese have borrowed from Russian, formed as a result of misunderstanding. One of these words - カ チ ュ ー シ ャ (katyusya] When the Japanese * fingers pointed kokoshniki and other head decorations girls with a question: "What is it?", Uncomprehending Russian replied: "It's Katyusha" For every five ruddy beauty at the end of the XVIII century was.. Katya -. in honor of the great name of the Empress Catherine was the most popular name in Russia until the XIX century, so it happened that in Japan カ チ ュ ー シ ャ translated as "hair band"..

(* Japan for many centuries has been closed by the state, but in 1783, when a crashed cargo ship "Shinshu Maru" in Primorye in the Russian coast, the ice was broken ship's crew survived the great adventures -. From captivity to the audience with Catherine II and then return to . Diplomatic relations home then failed to engage with Japan, but trading began - Ed.)..

Same story with the word "grandmother". In Japan バ ブ シ カ (babusiki) translates as "scarf".

Are there sense to talk?

"If would be a good judge of the drive was, and is, You know yourself, people forever ride, day and night, and all useless," wrote Chekhov in the story "in exile." Values ​​the word "sense" in the Russian language are four: 1) the meaning; 2) talk, gossip; 3) proc use; 4) special doctrine of faith or morals (Fedoseevskaya sense, Filipovski sense, sense samokreschentsev etc.) -.. The concept that came from the Old Believers. However, foreigners have borrowed only one value.

First from the "sense" (talk, gossip) formed the word tulkr ( "interpreter", "herald") in Scandinavian, which eventually migrated to English. So there was talk ( "talk", "conversation").

In England transit

If a secret word is not Russian. It has a Latin root, and in the French dictionary, it occurs since 1761. But only after the American linguist, Eugene Schuyler in 1867 translated the novel "Fathers and Sons", the word "nihilist" appeared in the English dictionary. Creating an image of a skeptic and nihilist Bazarov, Turgenev was not only popularized the term, but a certain ideological direction - the negation of faith, common values, norms and principles.

Work "voluntary Sunday"

There are borrowings from the Russian language, formed by tracing when copied from another language only etymological structure - are the words or phrases, but a literal translation, word for word, is used for derivation.

For example, from the Russian has removed the concept of "voluntary Sunday" in English. The concept of voluntary collective community service in English is transmitted as a voluntary Sunday time ( "Sunday volunteering")

Holiday Home for healthy people

At the dawn of socialism in Russia were holiday homes - not as a sanatorium where people are treated, as well as a place for recuperation and health after a long and fruitful working process. This phenomenon immediately had the heart English-speaking guests. So there was a house of rest.

The five-year plan of

Also, in the English language by tracing has got such a thing as a five-year, five-year plan - a method of economic development planning for five years. Retaining the structural model of expression, turned five-year plan.

The discharge and then reboot

The word "discharge" was known not only Russian, but in 1975 it became a neologism, a new meaning, which, thanks to us, half of the world written in the newspapers. "The discharge - a new word in the diplomatic dictionary", - said the April 6 in the journal World Magazine General Secretary of the United States Gus Hall, Communist Party.

The meaning of "diplomatic detente" word was used in the period of political relations between the USSR and the US with 60 of the 70 years and literally means "weakening" of tension between states during the Cold War. An American writer in his observations about international relations wrote: "" Discharge "- a word which has acquired its own meaning in Moscow."

"Moscow origin" discharge "will always be for us, the Soviet people, a subject of special pride" ( "Komsomolskaya Pravda", 07.24.1975).

Publicity as an independent value of

The word "transparency" is used in English since 1986 - since then, it has become a neologism, has acquired a new meaning. In the dictionary of neologisms "transparency" in the following terms: "The willingness of the Soviet government to be more open about its affairs" ( "The readiness of the Soviet government to be more open in their own backyard"). First glasnost was used in English to refer to our country, the Soviet people in general. So, in 1988 in Birmingham was held Soviet folk art festival. In all the local papers and pamphlets were written: "Glasnost comes to Birmingham" ( "The publicity comes in Birmingham").

Over time, the word is so embedded in the everyday speech, that it began to be used outside the Russian context because of the lack equivalents in the English dictionary, deciding that a synonym - "openness" - is another lexical load. "Openness is the ultimate, intelligent, purposeful substance of cynicism" - a quote from the cult film "17 Moments of Spring" ( "Transparency - it is certainly reasonable, deliberate cynicism substance").

"I do not want the FBI to visit me," one said. Another person pointed out: "We do not have glasnost here", - wrote in the People's Daily World in 1987 ( "I do not want to see is the FBI", - said one Another added: "We have here no publicity.").