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Доклад по теме: “Russian loanwords in English language”

Выполнила: Туаршева Анна

г.Сергиев Посад

2017г.

The English language has been developing for 1500 years and during this time it has borrowed words from over 50 languages. There is no doubt that Russian language isn’t the one which influenced much on English, but, nevertheless, a number of Russian words got accustomed on English land. Moreover, Russian-men learnt about English language later then Englishmen had learnt about Russian. There are several points of view about a periodization of interaction of Russian and English languages. The most logical version was suggested by Valery Akulenko, an Ukraine linguist. He has allocated four periods:
the influence of Old Russian language of Kievan Rus’ times on Old and Middle English language;
the period from the second part of the 16th to the 19th centuries;
the period from the 60-e of the 19th to 1917;
the soviet period.
Today the Akunenko’s classification can be added with the fifth post-soviet period.

THE FIRST PERIOD
Kievan Rus’ had broad communications with different European countries, including England. But there were a few loanwords a there wasn’t a rapprochement of languages. Mostly English language got Russicism through Scandinavian languages.

It is considered that the first Russian loanword was the word ‘tapor-x’ or ‘taper-зex’, which consisted of two words: Russian ‘tapor’/‘taper’ («топор») and Norwegian ‘x’. This word was firstly mentioned in the chronicle of 1031. However, this word was replaced with ‘axe’ by Middle English period.

In Old English language the were the words which had same with the Russian roots. There are such words as ‘meodu’ from ‘мёд’ (now ‘mead’), ‘meolk’ from ‘молоко’ (now ‘milk’), ‘ploz’ from ‘плуг’ (now ‘plough’). There was also a word ‘syrce’ ,which means shirt, chain armour, which occurred from an Old Slavic word ‘sork’ which later turned into Russian word ‘сорочка’. The word ‘syrce’ was mentioned in the ‘Beowolf’, an old English epic poem.

The word, which was able to remain till our days, is ‘talk’ which was formed from Scandinavian ‘tolk’ which leads us to the Russian word ‘толк’ (the noun for verbs ‘to chat’, ‘to talk’).

THE SECOND PERIOD
During the 16-17th centuries the interest in Russian language was so huge that many authors, who had visited Russia, made serious linguistic and geographical notes. The most important are notes of Richard James (1618-1620) and ‘Grammatica Russica’ by Heinrich Wilhelm Ludolf. 
The trade and political relations between England and Russia became strong and regular which led to increasing of number of translators. But also Russian language became well-known due to English merchants. Sir Jerome Horsey, an English diplomat, noted the queen Elizabeth’s I interest in Russian language. She said that Russian language was ‘the famous and most copious language of the world’ and it didn’t seem hard to her. 

The loanwords of this period can be divided into several groups:

1) loanwords connected with state system, estates: ’czar’(‘tzar’), ‘tzarina’, voivode’, ‘knes’, ‘bojar’, ‘moujik’, ‘cossack’, ‘opritchina’, ‘obrok’, ‘strelez’, ‘starosta’, ‘ukase’, ‘kremlin’, ‘sotnia’, ‘raskolnik’, ‘partisan’, ‘hospodar’;
2) names of weight, length and distance, money: ‘verst’, ‘arshin’, ‘pood’, ‘sagene’, ‘rouble’, ‘copeck’, chervonets’, ‘zolotnik’, ‘otrezok’;
3) names of cloths and food: ‘shuba’, ‘sterlet’, ‘belouga’, ‘kvass’, ‘morse’, ‘koumiss’, ‘shchi’, ‘borshch’, ‘mead’, ‘calash’, ‘shashlik’, ‘kissel’, ‘vodka’, ‘starka’, nalivka’, ‘nastoika’, ‘bliny’, ‘oladyi’, ‘okroshka’;
4) household words: ‘troika’, ‘izba’, ‘telega’, ‘peach’, ‘balalaika’, ‘bayan’, ‘khorovod’, ‘samovar’, ‘kokoshnik’, ‘knout’, ‘tarantass’, ‘droshki’, ‘kibitka’, ‘makhorka’, ‘vedro’, ‘matrioska’;
5) geographical names: ‘steppe’, ‘tundra’, ‘taiga’, ‘polinia’, ‘suslik’, ‘borzoi’, ‘mammoth’;
6) words connected with religion: ‘molitva’, ‘obednja’;
7) special terms: ‘sibirite’, ‘uralite’; in some literature you can find such term as ‘nephtyanye astatki’ which is defined as ‘refuse petroleum’ in some English

dictionaries.

Russian loanwords were used not only in official documents but they also got into everyday speech and literature. But they didn’t became part of English language. They attracted Englishmen because of their meaning and thanks to them English people could imagine Russian way of life.

THE THIRD PERIOD
In difference from other two periods, where loanwords meant words, in the XIX century they meant ideas and phenomenons. The Russian lexicon was enriched with neologisms which meant social and public concepts. These words were borrowed very fast because the world community was interested in process in Russia. The English magazines often published articles with Russian words which were related to the politics. These words were ‘nihilist’, ‘nihilism’, ‘intelligentsia’, ‘narodnik’, ‘narodism’, ‘decembrists’, ‘zemstvo, ‘cadet’ etc. Most of this words became known due to translations of different writers’ works (for example Turgenev’s ‘Fathers and Sons’).

You may not agree that such words as ‘nihilist’, ‘decemberist’ and ‘intelligentsia’ are loanwords but that’s not true. There is no doubt that ‘nihil’ and ‘intelligens’ are Latin roots and were used in many European countries, but they had other definitions. Only in Russia the word ‘nihilist’ meant ‘denial of all conventional (any norms, principles), full skepticism’ and the word ‘intelligentsia’ was the general word for the social phenomenon. 

Another Russian words which got into English were ‘ispravnik’, ‘miroed’, ‘barschina’, but now these words are historicisms in both languages. There were another loanwords such as ‘duma’, ‘pogrom’ and scientific terms: ‘chernozem’, ‘volhynite’; and words which meant social movements in Russia: ‘Slavaphils’, ‘Westeners’ etc.

THE FOURTH PERIOD
Socialist State was founded and Russian political terms became well-known all over the world. These words are ‘Soviet’, ‘bolshevik’, ‘bolshevism’, ‘menshevik’, ‘Leninism’, ‘commissar’, ‘Komsomol’, ‘kolkhoz’, ‘stakhanovite’, ‘piatiletka’ or ‘five-year-plan’. As you can see, mostly these loanwords carried bright socialist coloring. 

It is well-known that those times were the times of Space Race and the fact that many achievements in this field were made by Russians, there is no wonder that English vocabulary was filled up with such words as: ‘sputnik’, lunokhod’, ‘cosmonaut’. There is an interesting fact: to mention that it was Russian they used ‘sputnik’ and ‘cosmonaut’ and for American they used ‘satellite’ and ‘astronaut’. 

Englishmen also started using the suffix ‘-ink’ which in Russian means ‘a man involved into some activity’. Words which were created with this suffix are ‘flopnik’, ‘peacenik’, ‘returnik’, ‘beatnik’, ‘folknik’ and ‘pupnik’.

THE FIFTH PERIOD
The loanwords of this time reflected changes happened in USSR. 
The first loanword of this time was ‘glasnost’. In dictionaries it was defined as ‘the willingness of the Soviet government to be more open about its affairs’. Another words are ‘perestroika’, ‘novoye muishleniye’, ‘democratizatsia’, ‘hozraschot’. They were used in different newspapers and magazines to illustrate the situation in Russia.

To sum up, I would like to say that Russian loanwords were mostly spontaneous phenomena and described situation in the country. That’s why they were not able to become a part of English language and now they are used in different historical works.