Questions tagged [этимология]
The history and the origin of words and phrases.
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Are there words that can be spelled with both т and ф?
Some words of Greek descent use ф as corresponding to the Greek θ, while some use т. The former I think tend to be loaned earlier. However, in "Brothers Karamazov" I have found Mitya using the word "...
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The history and meaning of "ни фига себе"
I understand how the expression is used pretty well, but wonder where did it come from?
What exactly does фиг mean?
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Кофий и кофе - что от чего произошло? Is the кофе derived from кофий or vice versa?
Артемий Лебедев в своем "ководстве" пишет:
Мужской род бедному напитку достался от устаревших форм «кофий» или «кофей».
У Корнея Чуковского в книге "Живой как жизнь" сказано:
Русский язык ...
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Special treatment for plural forms depending on number of objects - where does it originate from?
This has puzzled me for a long time. In Russian, we count objects in a weird way:
Один камень
Два камня
Три камня
Четыре камня
Пять камней
...
Двадцать камней
Двадцать один камень
Then, the pattern ...
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origin of expression "да ладно"
since literal translation of "да ладно!" doesn't mean "are you kidding!" or "no way!" . I am interested to know the origin of such a expression. I guess it may be a ...
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Why do Russians call their women expensive ("дорогая")?
My question is in the title of this post, and I do not know what else to say. I am just puzzled.
Okay, to avoid my post being put on hold for being too succinct, I will add a couple of naive thoughts ...
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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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Racist language in Russia/USA
I really hope this question doesn't get deleted or flagged, so to make sure it doesn't I will try to keep it as academic as possible.
I am currently an American student studying in Saint Petersburg ...
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Russian words for magic. Etymology, usage and connotations
Something that I realised early on when learning Russian were the different words Russians would use where an English speaker would just say magic:
The first word I came into contact with was ...
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Do "русый" and "русский" have a common root?
Does the name of the hair color русый come from the name of the people/land?
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Are the Russian “рыжий” and French “rouge” (red) related? / Как связаны русское «рыжий» и французское «rouge»?
While I since had learned that linguistics works in much more mysterious ways than simply “if words sounds alike, or also mean similar things, they must be related”, for a long time I presumed that ...
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Почему Евклид, а не Эвклид?
Why is Евклид spelled with Е in Russian? All the other words and names with Greek origin starting with E that I can think of are spelled with Э in Russian.
Эратосфен, эвтаназия, эвристика
...
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Этимология слова «аист» / etymology of “аист” (stork)
Считается, что в русском языке нет исконных слов, начинающихся на букву «А». Как объяснить этимологию слова «аист», явно отличающуюся от лексем в родственных языках?
бел. бусел
укр. лелека
русин. ...
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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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Впервые or впервыя (in old orthography)?
In pre-1918 Russian orhography, female and neuter adjectives in pl. nom. had endings -iя, -ыя: новыя вещи, голубыя озёра, but новые наряды, голубые киты.
Pluralia tantum require some etymologic ...
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The original word for a wild boar
I recently accidentally discovered that the Russians call wild boars by a word borrowed from Turkic languages - "кабан." The etymological dictionary by Preobrazhensky clearly states:
Заимств. из ...
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Etymology of the name "Modest" (Модест)
"Modest" is a common Russian name, most famously known as the name of the composer Mussorgsky.
Does the etymology of this name have any relationship to the English/Latin etymology of the word?
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Is the ending "-ция" specific to loanwords from English?
Since childhood I instinctively knew if an English word that ends with "-tion" will have a translation into Russian ending with "-ция". There are some more pairs such as this.
Example:
Moderation - ...
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Thesaurus organization by lexical kinship and etymology
Is there a kind of thesaurus that teaches words based on kinship? An example will make it clear to you what I have in mind:
суд - судья́, суди́ть, ...
коне́ц - наконе́ц, зака́нчивать/зако́нчить, ...
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The strange behavior of “обо” (=about), apparently valid only for two expressions? What is the historical reason?
In Russian, the preposition “o” when meaning "about" becomes “обо” when we say “обо мне” (=about me) and “обо всей книге” (=about all the book) but why do we then say:
“о многих книгах » (=...
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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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