Questions tagged [история-языка]
Questions on the history of the Russian language, its origin and changes it underwent through the centuries.
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What kind of Russian orthography is this?
This is a screenshot from Tchaikovsky's Harmony textbook:
(from page 5 of an 1897 edition — link to PDF)
And here is a transcription:
Ученіе объ интерваллахъ.
Хотя предполагается, что приступающій ...
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Is my understanding of the surname suffix -ов correct?
I have two questions about the suffix -ов in Russian surnames.
Is the -ов surname suffix the most common one in Russia?
Does the -ов surname suffix in modern Russian mean "a descendant of the ...
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How pleonastic is "эту работу выполним целиком и полностью"?
... до конца года мы эту работу выполним целиком и полностью
... do kontsa goda my etu rabotu vypolnim tselikom i polnost'yu
I understand what this means from closed captions, google translate and a ...
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How early is the word "животноводство" attested?
"Животноводство" (from "животные") describes animal husbandry, particularly cattle-raising. From how long ago is this word attested?
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What circumstances led to the dramatic change in the Russian language between the 17th and 18th centuries?
The language of the 19th century (even at its beginning), judging from the poetry and prose of Pushkin and Lermontov, was much the same language that we speak today. If somebody decided to compose ...
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What are the differences between "и" and "і" in pre-reform orthography?
In very old texts, sometimes the letter і is used, but it has been replaced by и in modern spelling.
I, like many others, learned modern orthography, so I don't understand why sometimes і is used, and ...
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Old orthography grave accent vs acute accent in words like какъ, такъ, что, то, чѣмъ
I noticed in old russian bibles, the words чѣ’мъ (іудіѳь 8:26), именны’мъ (2-ая ездры) have an acute accent (ó) instead of a grave accent (ò), since if a stressed syllable is at the end of a word, a ...
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Old orthography всѣ, все, всё and издалека vs издалёка
It's redundant to write the two dots above the е in the word все in old orthography (because when it isnt a ё sound, ѣ is written), so why do some old russian bibles do it still? Some places they ...
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Значение слова кощун в средние века
Современные словари определяют слово кощун как "насмешник, богохульник".
Однако в "Материалах для словаря древнерусского языка" Срезневского напротив слов кощуна, коштяна, коштюна написано "μύθος, ...
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Was the genitive case of personal pronouns ever used to show possession?
For example, nowadays, one might say Собака женщины - большая, but not Собака меня - большая(cf. When should I use genitive personal pronouns versus possessive pronouns?).
Was it ever historically ...
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Any way to trace when «учёный» became a noun?
I need to know the approximate time учёный was substantivised.
Dahl has no separate entry for the word as either noun or adjective, but he does use it as a noun when defining other terms (e.g. «...
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Did Russian language brought any thing from Tamil language?
My mother language is Tamil (which considered to be a very old language). While creating Russian language did they got any words or characters from Tamil language?
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Why are German soldiers of WWII commonly referred to in the Russian language as fascists (фашисты)?
I read quite a few Russian materials about WWII and noticed that Russians commonly refer to German soldiers of WWII as фашисты (fascists). Here are some typical examples:
(1) Фашисты заняли ...
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History of /f/ sound in Russian
My wife is Russian and I am learning it. One thing I seem to see is that no "native" or "elementary" words seem to start with the letter ф (other than the name Fedor perhaps, and I ...
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How to explain two almost opposite meanings of "лихой"
I am puzzled by the fact that while most earlier usage of лихой have distinctly negative connotations (лиходей, лихой человек is most certainly a villain, лихие времена - bad times, лихоимство - deeds ...
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Why do Russians call a joke a stake (прикол)?
In modern Russian, прикол is a very frequently used word and means a joke, a funny incident, or just anything funny, but the original meaning of this word is very different: a stake to which a ship, a ...
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Why are there so many Dutch words that sound similar to Russian words?
Some examples:
Dutch
Russian
English
appelsien
апельсин
orange
broek
брюки
pants
dam
дамба
dam
jacht
яхта
yacht
kajuit
каюта
cabin
matroos
матрос
sailor
meubel
мебель
furniture
paprika
...
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Why has the word Жид (Jew) become a taboo in Russian?
As far as I know, it is a neutral word in some Slavic languages, and it was legal in Russian before the Russian Revolution. However, now, it's completely illegal and, thus, Russians utter it only to ...
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When was the expression "фунт презрения" introduced?
I am wondering when the expression фунт презрения was introduced. On Google Books, the oldest occurrence of фунт презрения seems to be in Slezkin's Козел в огороде (1923):
Но только в силу моего ...
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The history of which case to follow after a number in the nominative case
In the nominative case, if we are counting something of size that ends with 1 (literally in Russian), then the object being counted is in the genitive singular case, e.g., тридцать один час. if we ...
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Comprehensibility of "Sub-Standard" Speech?
I suspect that this question may be both too specific and too vague for this forum, but here goes...
I recently tried to watch the film "Жила-была одна баба" (2011) -- I'm not sure I'd recommend it ...
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Why do so many Russian words sound similar to the ones in English and Sanskrit? [closed]
I have been trying to learn Russian and have come across many words that sound very similar to English words. This is particularly surprising because, unlike other European languages (which would ...
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Why doesn't Russian have native words beginning with А?
I've heard that Russian has no native words beginning with the letter A. The claim is that the words appearing under A in dictionaries were all imported at some stage or another. Browsing through the ...
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Why is this Russian expression an idiomatic example of mutually exclusive things?
The Russian idiom "и рыбку съесть, и на хуй сесть", whose literal meaning is "to eat fish and sit down onto a dick too," is an idiomatic way to say that your interlocutor is ...
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Is there an ancient language related to Russian that can be easily studied? [closed]
I am a native American English speaker. To improve my SAT verbal score, I studied Latin. Is there an analogous ancient language for Russian?
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"Красная" Площадь
It seems to be relatively common knowledge that the name "Красная Площадь," while translated in English as "Red Square," does not actually mean "Red Square" in Russian, but rather "Beautiful Square." ...
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Why do phonetically same Russian and Polish obscenities mean very different things?
Let us compare the meanings of some phonetically same Russian and Polish obscenities:
Заебать (Russian): to get to, to pester. Zajebać (Polish): to beat someone up, to steal something, to brutally ...
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How come the Russian cognate for the Czech word "čerstvý" (fresh) means entirely the opposite thing (stale)?
In Russian, черствый хлеб (chorstvy khleb) is stale bread.
And to my great surprise, I recently learned that in Czech, čerstvý chléb is precisely the opposite thing: fresh bread.
My question is: ...
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Why was it decided in 1956 to abolish the spelling чорт (devil) in favor of чёрт?
I read in Wiktionary:
чорт
This spelling of the word was officially abolished in 1956 in favor of чёрт and is no longer in use. Both variants are pronounced identically.
(Source)
I see in Ngram ...
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Was "Novgorod" in 1815 one city or the other?
This question is not about grammar or syntax, but about historical toponymy.
In 1815 an employee of the Russian-American Company was taken prisoner in Spanish California. An interpreter from a ...
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Why did the frequency of the word "черт" (devil) in books increase by a few times since the October Revolution?
I see in the Google Books statistics that the frequency of the word "черт" (devil) per unit of text length in books increased by ~3 times since the October revolution: Link. I used the case-...
CommunityBot
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Kamchadalskii dialect
The native people of southern Kamchatka are Itelmen. The arrival of Russian men around 1700 created a mixed group called Kamchadals. By 1800, the Itelmen languages were mostly extinct and the Russian ...
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"дочерям их не будет ни в пути, ни при Дворе никаких обид"
The ИСТОРИЧЕСКИЙ ОЧЕРК ГЛАВНЕЙШИХ СОБЫТИЙ В КАМЧАТКЕ. 1650—1855 by Sgibnev, 1869, contains this passage:
Января 13-го 1758 г. прибыл в Нижнекамчатск штат-фурьер Шахтуров для выбора ко двору ...
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Was "сладкий" ever synonymous with "пресный" in Russian
Fresh (non-salt) water is also called sweet in English.
Surprisingly, the word sweet is also used in some Slavic languages.
To be precise:
in Polish, woda słodka
in Czech, sladká voda
in Croatian (...
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Why is there a "ц" in "Сан-Франциско"?
San Francisco, Сан-Франциско in Russian, is a Spanish name meaning "Saint Francis".
The Сан in the city name is a direct phonetic adoption, but the Франциско differs from the Spanish in the inclusion ...
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The exact origin of шёл
I'm aware of шёл's derivation from Proto-Slavic *xьdlъ, related to ходить, but that form still seems irregular — given that вёл, which has the exact same relation to водить, had e rather than ь in the ...
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From where does "это" come?
Sorry if this is not exactly about Russian language, but I do not know where else to ask.
What is the origin of word "это" in Russian language? Is it some kind of a combination of "je co"/"jest to" ...
CommunityBot
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Mainland Russia as seen from Kamchatka circa 1800
Kamchatka is a peninsula, but overland access is so difficult that it also resembles an island. The road and rail networks of Siberia are a long sea or air voyage away.
Around the year 1800, how ...
CommunityBot
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Have technology changes had any effect on the usage of идти vs. ехать (and similar verb pairs)?
I've only been studying Russian for about a year (and slowly at that), so I'm probably misunderstanding a lot.
From what I understand, though, идти and ехать are both unidirectional verbs of motion ...
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Origin of Валюта
I am curios about Валюта meaning currency. What is the origin of the word? Does it come from greek or latin or somewhere else?
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Origin of Валюта
I am curios about Валюта meaning currency. What is the origin of the word? Does it come from greek or latin or somewhere else?
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Why did the meaning of the loanword креол change?
The term креол was adopted in Russian a couple of centuries back. Just possibly, it was introduced by Nikolai Rezanov after he visited Brazil and California. The term's origin is described as the ...
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Почему с конца 30-х перестали употреблять словосочетание "в Украине"?
В русском языке сочетание "в Украине" используется издавна.
Господин гетман, <...> того ради вам надлежит итти по Киева, в Украйну свою и смотреть того, о чем уже вы известны.
(К Мазепе)
...
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Had any Spanish words been established in Russian by 1800? [closed]
I started wondering about long-established loanwords from the Spanish language. It's easy to find some lists of same, but not with dates of attribution. Here's a great list from Wiktionary.
Had any ...
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common-usage term for pre-1861 Russian agriculture system?
When referring in English to the dominant agricultural system in the southern US pre-1865, one typically says something like "plantation slavery," and reasonably-educated people "know what you're ...
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Cathedral, "Кафедральный", why is ф in there?
After reading this article I got curious how ф is in place of "th" in English for the word Cathedral (Кафедральный)? Sounds almost like a coffee-place. (I know it is not Café or Kafee in russian but ...
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Talking of historical grade systems, how should I call "отличник"?
In pre-prevoluationary times in Russian gymnasiums there was a 12-level grade system. In Soviet Union, as well as in Russian Federation, schools stand with 5-level grade system, but there is an ...
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Use of "да" instead of "и"
In Mussorgsky's operas Boris Godunov and Khovanshchina it strikes me how often "да" (usually meaning "yes") is used as a substitute for "и" ("and"). Is that how they normally spoke in the late 19th ...
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Lomonosov's three literary styles [closed]
According to Serhii Plokhy's Lost Kingdom, at a time of linguistic-nationalist tension, Mikhail Lomonosov prescriptively defined three styles:
the high style, to be used for the composition of ...
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What are some Russian shibboleths? [closed]
I just read about shibboleths and I was wondering: what are some Russian shibboleths used today or in the past?
A shibboleth is a phrase (or a custom/tradition) that is used to distinguish between ...
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