31
Looking at the meanings of cognates of the Proto-Slavic čь̑rstvъ, one can notice the common meaning 'hard', 'strong', 'sharp'. I guess the Czechs and the Slovaks view fresh bread as 'hard on the outside', i.e. having a crispy crust, while Russian, Polish and others see it as 'hard on the inside', i.e. stale. It's just my guess.
There are other examples of ...
16
Yes, it is quite common in conversational speech:
Он знает английский. = He knows English.
Она предпочитает русский. = She prefers Russian.
Note that language names or nationalities are not capitalised in Russian. Neither are months or days or the week.
15
I decided to turn my comment into an answer and add some references, etc.
It is a very common phenomenon in related (but, nonetheless, different !) languages. A common language splits into branches and a word starts evolving in different directions. Over the centuries the meanings of the word in those 'branches' (which gradually develop into fully-fledged ...
12
I highly doubt that Belorussian mutually understandable with Polish. On the other hand it is quite mutually understandable with Russian, a little more so than Ukrainian.
The relation is following: Belorussian, Russian, Ukrainian and Rusyn belong to East Slavic branch of Slavic languages, with Belorussian, Rusyn and Ukrainian belonging to Ruthenian subbranch....
12
Cyrillic alphabet was developed in what is modern Bulgaria based on Greek alphabet, so:
В was modeled after Greek Β (beta). This was originally pronounced [b] in ancient Greek but in modern (and medieval) Greek it is weakened to [v]
Н, which originally looked N, was modeled after Greek Ν (nu)
И, which originally looked Н, was modeled after Greek Η (eta). In ...
8
When you pose such questions to (mostly) native speakers of any language, you'll usually end up with a lot of supposedly unique things that really aren't so much. They'll mostly reflect the amazement or amusement that comes from a deeper look at the language those speakers casually use every day, with a comparison to maybe one or two commonly spoken second ...
7
Trying to answer the last part of your question, the Bulgarian alphabet is very similar to the Russian one:
а б в г д е ё ж з и й к л м н о п р с т у ф х ц ч ш щ ъ ы ь э ю я (Russian)
а б в г д е ж з и й к л м н о п р с т у ф х ц ч ш щ ъ ь ю я (Bulgarian)
(I've omitted the capital letters here)
Bulgarian has fewer letters (ё, ы, э are missing) and ...
7
Surprisingly, no one bothered to point out that Turgenev did not even think of comparing Russian to other languages when he wrote this miniature.
Moreover, the reasons why this piece came into existence and the "message" it contains are probably misunderstood by many.
Филолог Ирина Беляева пишет:
"..Вот хотя бы «великий» и «могучий» «Русский язык». Это ...
6
На «Ильмене» (prepositional case IIRC) is exactly the same form for nominative "Ильмен" and "Ильмена", so I bet this is the source of confusion. It is not possible to figure out the nominative from the prepositional in this case purely grammatically.
You could surmise that a ship's name would be female, "Ильмена", although sometimes, at least in Russian, ...
6
The correct name of the ship is Il'menа (Ильмена).
Ilmena was a legendary Slavic woman, after whom, as the legend holds, the lake Ilmen was named.
In English, the nominative forms should be used when borrowing Russian words, however, for other languages, your mileage may vary.
For instance, Russian, when borrowing Latin words of 3rd declension, uses ...
6
The constructs are not linked etymologically.
The French pas comes from the Latin word for "step" and the constructs like "ne … pas" originally literally meant "don't (move, walk etc.) a single step", and were only used with the actual verbs of motion. Pas has later grammaticalized (become a function word rather than a content word) and is now used with all ...
6
Не вполне пока понимая, как отвечать на вопрос «как так получилось», отвечу на вторую часть: есть ли аналогичные ситуации в других языках, когда автоэтноним (самоназвание) выпадает из общей схемы образования имен национальностей.
Первое, что приходит в голову — это немецкий язык, где Deutsche (что склоняется ein Deutscher / eine Deutsche, eines Deutschen / ...
6
The original meaning of the proto-Slavic etymon seems to have been "robust, sturdy".
It had later shifted its meaning to "hard" in Russian and to "good, wholesome" in Czech.
5
Mongolian is phonetically very different from Russian, so, while you will still have a general idea about which sound corresponds to which letter, mechanical transliteration of Mongolian word into Russian and vise versa will work no better than doing it with say French and English: "au revoir" is not aw-ree-voy-er, not even close, though the alphabet is the ...
5
Russian and Khalkha Mongolian have extremely different phonetics and phonotactics, so different that half of the Cyrillic letters are pronounced differently in the two languages:
Letter Mongolian IPA Russian IPA
Бб p, pʲ b, bʲ (p, pʲ)*
Вв w̜, w̜ʲ v, vʲ (f, fʲ)*
Дд t, tʲ d, dʲ (t,...
5
В русской википедии есть подробная статья - Этнонимы русских, там описан процесс субстантивации
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%AD%D1%82%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BC%D1%8B_%D1%80%D1%83%D1%81%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D1%85
4
The Church Slavonic is an artifical language created by orthodox missioners. It was based on southern-bulgarian dialect of slavonic language native to Saints Cyril and Methodius who created it. Its grammar is influenced by Greek language in both sentence structure and word structure.
It looks like it is similar to Russian but it isn't so similar. And native ...
4
Well, I could say that we don't have a long-living equivalent for it in Russian.
Partially it will be серая мышь, partially синий чулок, sometimes we can come across тётка, but it's not the only meaning of this word, here the context matters.
Замухрыжка is also a suitable word.
4
I don't think there's any connection between these two phrases. What attracts attention is a mere coincidence in written forms,the visual image, so to say. Though going deeper into the matter, we can admit that the meanings are different. If the French phrase is translated "not", the Russian one is " not once,more than once".
But in the whole, we can say ...
3
Russian is often said to have a rich morphology, i.e. many ways to build words and tweak existing words to convey different nuances of meaning. Although not quite a unique thing by itlsef, it often comes as a surprise to learners of Russian how names of people and objects can be inflected to show the speaker’s relationship to them. E.g. calling a person ...
3
Belarusian is, in a sense, in between other slavic languages.
Its grammar is close to that of Russian.
Its vocabulary has lots of common words with all of Russian, Ukrainian, and Polish, so it's sort of mutually intelligible with all of them.
Its spelling, however, is quite different from any of them. Also, it's probably the most phonetic of all, you can ...
3
I think that it is because there are no means in Russian to produce an ethnic noun from the word Русь. In related East Slavic languages the situation is as follows: in Ukrainian they use the word Росіянин, from the modern country's name Росія (Russia). Thus they cannot distinguish between ethnic Russians and Russian citizens. In Belarusian the situation the ...
3
i'm using English as a bridge
Using bridges brings too many problems. You could improve your English, but break up your Russian. Better not.
I've used this one month period just to break that initial barrier
I believe it's too early. You should be able at least to read and interpret "textbook-level" excerpts about one page long. Anyway, no one believes ...
3
Иногда одно и то же слово, встречаясь в двух языках, имеет в них значение не то что «несходное», а скорее прямо противоположное. Вот пример: мы говорим «черствый» о хлебе, который уже остыл и засох; «теплый», мягкий хлеб у нас противопоставляется холодному, «черствому». А у чехов слово «черстви» означает как раз наоборот: «свежий», «прохладный». Каким же ...
2
OK, here is my answer with almost a two-years' delay. In general, no letter (even in a reputedly 'phonetic' writing system) gives absolutely exact sound representation.
Even in two languages/dialects sharing a same alphabet (cf. e.g. English, French and Finnish Vs, or Brittish vs American intervocal Ts).
Even vocal systems of Bulgarian vs Russian do ...
2
It is "Раз, два, три, четыре!" which means "One, two, three, four!"
2
In the style of "Love is ..."
Russian is so mighty that it can express any idea by мат alone. There's a joke about a foreman shouting to workers loading a truck, "Нахуя дохуя нахуярили?! Расхуяривайте нахуяренное нахуй!"
Russian is so mighty that it can have six (6) consonants in a row in the word onset (Anlaut): взбзднуть.
Russian is so mighty that it has ...
2
I don't really understand the question, but I think the key to learning (any) language is realising that you have to learn to understand and think, and then speak (or read-write, of course) in the language you are learning. Translation is a much harder job to do, and is not the key to understanding at all.
What do you mean by "bridge"? If for example there ...
2
The term sounds pretty sexist to me (in the very beginning, it’s said it’s about women only).
Items 4-6 (makeup, clothing, body care) are obviously about a woman not behaving like society expects (caring about her looks to attract a man).
Item 7 (bars) seems to be about the same breaking of expectations. Though I don’t know whether a woman is supposed to ...
1
OK, you're trying to be pedantic, let me be pedantic as well.
Her text replies are very slow and short - well, ancient Slavic people originally called someone whose text replies are short...oh, come on, I'm kidding, there's no single word or phrase in Russian describing someone who does that.
If it is something simple, she will eat it standing in her ...
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