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I often play gomokunarabe on an international server, where I sometimes face Russian opponents, and there appeared a very strong mysterious Russian-speaking player about a year ago. Many players want to know who he is, but he keeps anonymity despite being quite talkative in chats during games.

His Russian, however, is somewhat special, as pointed out by another player in a conversation with me, but the latter player was unable to say which dialect or slang type it is.

As I was told, the most distinctive linguistic feature of the mysterious player is the frequent use of the verb "орнуть," like in the example below:

Как можно было не заметить такой выигрыш? Я прямо орнул.

I was told that he used that verb quite a few times and that it is a highly untypical verb that is not used in the standard Russian language at all, at least in informal communications like online chats.

My question is this: Which Russian dialect or slang type does "орнуть" belong to?

In other words, I am curious as to what reasonable guesses about the geographic location could be made based on the frequent use "орнуть." Apparently this verb is commonly used in the environment of the mysterious player.

Based on some other, non-linguistic signs, we think he might be a well-known strong player from Kharkiv, Ukraine, but we are highly unsure, so I am particularly curious whether "орнуть" is used in the Kharkiv region.

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    It is a slang, the closest English slang word is LOL (laugh out loud). But i can't explain, why орнуть came to this meaning and how it ended up to be like this.
    – RedVarVar
    Jun 27, 2019 at 14:04
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    I've down-voted because this is indeed pretty much similar to asking - to which dialect LOL belongs.
    – shabunc ♦
    Jun 27, 2019 at 14:40
  • @shabunc : I had no idea that it means LOL.. I honestly did research and could not find any answer to my question. And even the Russian player who told me about such a linguistic feature of the mysterious player is apparently unaware that it is just an Internet slang. To be honest, I do not feel any fault of mine in asking such a question. The question is precise, and Elena gave an acceptable answer.
    – Mitsuko
    Jun 27, 2019 at 14:48
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    @shabunc you've downvoted an opinion, a premise, an assumption, though maybe a misguided one, of an inquirer, not of a responder, are you sure this is what downvoting is meant for? the inquirer comes here to be educated and enlightened so you basically downvote their ignorance which they specifically come here to clear up... mistakes and misconceptions are supposed to be corrected by means of accurate answers, not by downvoting, this is an emotional and immature reaction
    – Баян Купи-ка
    Jun 27, 2019 at 15:26
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    Google search gives 489 000 results for the word "орнул", the first ones (at least with me) being different online dictionaries and forums explaining the meaning of the word. I wonder why that word puzzled you... Here is a forum thread discussing hideous words, from the first page of my google search for "орнул", which explains it in full. The next pages provide all sorts of contexts in which the word is used.
    – Yellow Sky
    Jun 27, 2019 at 15:27

7 Answers 7

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OK, so your question have been answered: it's from the internet slang; but I'd like to slightly correct some assumptions made in the comments about how орать became a slang word.

And oh my, where do I even start…

First of all, LOL is not just “the closest English slang word” for орать, it's literally its (grand)father. A lot of Russian slang words came from image boards (today, they mostly come from there and from Twitter), and Russian IBs, while having come up with their own original slang, have borrowed a lot from English IBs. So they used LOL a lot, and even transliterated it (лол).

Now, you have to understand that, being “the finest of the bunch”, IB crowd is known for butchering words to make them sound funnier and whatnot; they do that because a lot of funny things go out of fashion pretty quickly. So, someone started a using “losing out loud” instead of “laughing out loud” because:

a) there was (and probably is) a popular “game” on IBs: you start a thread titled “you laugh – you lose” where people post funny pictures and stuff, and

b) they sound close enough

(I would bet the original “laugh”->“lose” transition happened on English IBs, though)

That got picked up and translated to “проиграл вголос”. Note that “вголос” is a Ukrainian translation of “out loud”, the Russian one would be “вслух”; again, butchered for the sake of fun.

That phrase became popular, oftentimes it was shortened to just “проиграл” or “вголос/вголосину”, and there also was a bunch of variants like “проиграл с подливой” (~ “lost (=laughed) so hard I shit my pants”) but as it always happens, people got bored with the overused words. So, it got changed to “проорал вголос”, again because of sounding close enough and because one of the meaning of “орать” is “to scream / to yell”, which fits perfectly with the theme. But probably because of “вголос” got out of fashion already and because it's easier to write one word instead of two (and because of Twitter's character limit), out of the two “проорал” is more popular now.

And then the last iteration, “проорал” -> “орнул” happened just like Nikolay said.

Not, I'm not saying that this transition happened linearly; there were overlaps in usage for sure, but the chronology of events is about right judging from what I've seen (“проиграть вголосину” got popular around 2014 with “орнуть” gaining traction around 2017(?) or later).

TLDR: Laughing out loud -> losing out loud -> проиграть вголос -> проорать вголос -> орнуть

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  • Thanks a lot for such a detailed answer. Since you mentioned Ukraine, is it true that the slang "орнуть" is more common in Ukraine than in Russia?
    – Mitsuko
    Jun 30, 2019 at 23:20
  • No, “орнуть” is not a country/subculture/group-specific but rather “universal”.
    – Thau
    Jul 1, 2019 at 17:41
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It's the Russian internet slang. Don't use it, just understand it.

It's used mostly by men denoting short and loud laughter.

The neutral word will be захохотал.

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    just an Internet slang. not geographically specific?
    – Mitsuko
    Jun 27, 2019 at 14:00
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    Exactly. Internet is now also a dialect-producing area.
    – Elena
    Jun 27, 2019 at 14:02
  • Wiktionary says it is not a modern word: ru.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BD%D1%83%D1%82%D1%8C . At least the following example is given: А она, как орнёт, да с переливом ― и где ветер, где вой, не разберёшь. А. М. Ремизов, «Знамя борьбы», 1927 г
    – Mitsuko
    Jun 27, 2019 at 14:03
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    And Wiktionary is right, but the meaning is different. At that time it was a literature norm, a stylistically neutral word meaning shouting, and in your examples above it is slangish denoting bursting out laughing.
    – Elena
    Jun 27, 2019 at 14:04
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    @Mitsuko in this example it mean кричать. So the word is not modern, but meaning from your question became popular not so long ago (a couple years, i think)
    – RedVarVar
    Jun 27, 2019 at 14:06
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Орать is the latest (mid-to-late 2010s) slang for loud laughter. It originated on the internet and is not tied to a particular region (not many things are, in modern urban Russian).

The form орнуть is used to add even more expressivity. Forming new, ad hoc perfective verbs with -ну-, instead of a prefix (e.g. заорал), has always had a touch of the inherently funny, or else inherently quirky, partly because the suffix itself connotes a fast and intense action, and partly because such coinages pique one's linguistic sensitivity by being novel but not incorrect. And by "novel but not incorrect", I mean something along the lines of making new nouns into verbs in English, e.g. "I would have Kylo Renned the whole room" (source).

This -ну- situation, unlike using орать as slang for laughing, is not new; it's not a slang feature, just colloquial and jocular.

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"Орнуть" is a slang, commonly used by young not-well-educated people. I would strongly recommend not to use it anywhere.

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I first met 'Орать' and 'Орнуть' used as a substitute to 'to laugh' by a person form city of Omsk (Siberia) in the early 2000s, way before internet culture grew on Russia's youth. Nowadays it's much more common though.

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  • my perception of this word is that it's not just a substitute for "посмеяться" but about a short yet intensive burst of laugh, by analogy with "хохотнуть".
    – shabunc ♦
    Sep 13, 2020 at 13:00
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Used in Ukraine also since early 2000s in the meaning of laughter and I want to specify that it is not necessarily a sudden short laugh - it is used in a wider semantic range of a word laugh. Some examples:

- Ору с него

Means that the speaker thinks someone's behavior is funny.

- Рассказали вчера анекдот - я так проорался 🤣 means: They told a joke yesterday - I was so loud

As mentioned in the comments, it does sound somewhat vulgar when told by a young girl.

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I interpret concepts like "Internet slang" as something more related specifically to the technical aspects of the Internet, etc.

And all sorts of there - "орнуть" or "постесняюсь спросить но спрошу", "дропнуть", the strange using of the phrase "сейчас бы" and the like, ridiculous neo-anglicisms it is or not - this is simply the slang of ignorant schoolie, especially Counter Strike players, and backward, uneducated new-fashioned burghers ... It's quite senseless and merciless, distorting the meanings of words, crooked, cutting ear (it should also be noted especially - the disgusting consonance of such a neologism "орнуть" with the verb "пёрнуть").

Schoolie-frondeur slang, developing according to quite standard school-frondeur's, denying the previous culture, canons for the development of such things. It hasn't geographic links, in any way.

Of course, you (or someone else) can put such things on your shelf (if there is a lot of space), but keep in mind that when you use them, you present yourself in a very specific way and take a very specific position :> ...:

https://youtu.be/lxkK5cVM9VM

https://youtu.be/h7xDfqSAdh0?t=124

https://chert-poberi.ru/umor/perlyi-shkolotyi.html

and canonical one - https://hr-portal.ru/forum/rasskaz-prislannyy-na-konkurs-fantastov

Also more old version of all..this http://lurkmore.to/Язык_падонков

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