We are used to the fact that the Russian language has a lot of borrowed words. From the time of Peter the Great in Russia there was a fashion for German language, everything was called in the manner of Germans, take for example St. Petersburg. At the end of the 18th century, French (and French everything) became fashionable in the Russian Empire, and a lot of French words entered Russian.
Today English is in fashion. Russian is literally swamped with English-language words, especially if you take office language or some narrow sphere of activity.
But foreigners have also borrowed words from Russian. Among them, there are a lot of words that came into English during the Soviet era. Perestroika, Sputnik, Cosmonaut, Bolshevik, Kolkhoz and so on. But not only.
Balalaika, Tsar and Matreshka are not mentioned. Here are 10 more unusual examples of Russian words in English.
Babushka
The English have the accent on the second syllable and say Babushka. This word also means grandmother, an old woman. But in this sense it is used very rarely, and mostly in relation to Russian grandmothers.
A much more common meaning is babushka - a triangular kerchief, a headscarf, worn on the head in the manner of Russian grandmothers.
A still from the film "Love and Doves", 1984. Director: Vladimir Menshov.
Borscht
Everything is clear here. Borscht is borscht. But since outside Russia, Ukraine and other Slavic countries borsch is little common, then the word is used very rarely. It is surprising that in English the word came only in XIX century. Much earlier the English understood what Okroshka and Shchi were.
Chai
There is an English word for "tea". If you want exactly classic tea, you have to say tea, and chai is black tea with honey, spices, and milk. The English think, for some reason, that Russians always drink this kind of tea.
Dacha
The English have no such thing as dacha. It came to English language from Russia in XVIII-XIX centuries and means a country house exclusively for summer use. In the language it is used very rarely because the English simply have nothing to describe it.
Intelligentsia
A lot of words came from Russian into other languages and even into English during the Russian Revolution at the beginning of the 20th century. But if words like kolkhoz, gulag komsomol and so on are only used when talking about the USSR and that time, the word intelligentsia, which means the cultural and political elite, was registered in English in 1905 for a long time, and is still used by politicians and journalists today.
Kasha
The word kasha came to Britain and the United States in the late 19th century with the first wave of emigrants. The English have a word porridge, which translates to Russian as porridge. It can be anything: oatmeal, semolina, rice, millet, and so on. But the word kasha is exclusively buckwheat porridge. And although they have a word for buckwheat, even on packages and price tags in stores it's often written as kasha, not buckwheat.
Kvass
Kvas is an old Russian drink. It was drunk by both the tsars and the common people. The English have been familiar with it since the times of Ivan the Terrible in the 16th century. It is interesting that the English dictionaries define kvass as an alcoholic drink, and in American English kvass is a sort of beer. However, both there and there the word is used very rarely, mainly when it comes to Russian cuisine, because the drink itself did not come to other countries.
Mammoth .
In Russian it's mammoth. The word came from Russian to Dutch in the XVII century, and then migrated to English. But it denotes not only an extinct animal, but also the adjectives "gigantic", "huge", "huge", "complex", "titanic.
Sable
Sable. Since ancient times, the basis of imports of Russia, Russia and the Russian Empire was fur. In particular sable furs. The first trade relations between Russia and England appeared in the XIV century, that's when the word came into English.
Reproduction of the painting "Ivan the Terrible showing his treasures to the English ambassador to Horsay" by A. Litovchenko.
Because of the sables, by the way, appeared the word "forty" instead of fourteen, but that's another story (a link to it will be at the end). A little later in English there appeared other meanings of the word sable as an adjective - dark, black, mournful.
Vodka
Every Englishman knows this word. It even entered the list of the 30 000 most common English words. And this drink, unlike kvass, is loved by many foreigners. The only strange thing is that vodka became known to the Englishmen only in the XIX century (well, at least they began to call it so only a century and a half or two centuries ago).
In addition to these words, many Russian words came to English from cookery (kefir, ryazhenka, medovukha, pelmeni, varenyky), culture (samovar, sarafan, ushanka, balalaika, troika), politics (tsar, duma, bolshevik, soviet), technology, society and other areas. For example, shernozem - chernozem; marshrutka - shuttle bus, something between a bus and a cab; baidarka - kayak.
If you liked the article, you should also like the articles below. Like it, subscribe https://gfxcity.blogspot.com/.
No comments:
Post a Comment