Without 'Foreign' Words, Here's What Russians Can't Talk About Anymore

[fireflysky46]

You could call it cultural imperialism. You could call it nationalism. You could even call it absurd.

Except, under a new plan supported by the State Duma's Culture Committee, you really couldn't. Because the plan proposes to ban foreign words from public speech in Russia — including terms like the ones used above.

Aimed at protecting the Russian language, the new bill would see citizens face a fine for using words that have roots in another language. It would also deprive the language of some of its most interesting, complex and evocative terms — as well as making some subject matters virtually impossible to talk about.

Small talk has just gotten that much harder now that these five topics could become taboo.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/502277.html

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/502202.html

MORE on this :

Russia 'using words to destroy meaning', say writers :

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025120222

[sarge43]

1. That will be a problem

It's generally accepted that Russia/Russian derives from Old Norse -- the name of a group of Vikings, Rus, who settled in the Balkans 7/8 century. It doesn't have a Slavic root.

Purists, whatever they're on about, chase chimeras

[DFW]

2. That should put a dent in their diet

Russians eat a LOT of potatoes, but the word they use is the German word, "Kartoffel." I suppose they could use the Russian equivalent of "white root food that is found with brown or red skin," but it seems a little cumbersome. And who knows WHAT the new official expression will be for the main fare served at the Sbarro's that is now just off Red Square. "Thin circular dough baked with tomato sauce and melted cheese with topping(s) of your of choice?"

Then there's the good old boob tube. Since "television" is already from the Greek tele (far) and the Latin videre (see), which the Germans actually DID translate literally ("Fernsehen&quot , will the Russian телевидение ("televidyeniye&quot have to be changed? For that matter, their word "to see (видеть -- vidyet')" is already from the Latin "videre," so what to do? "Use of eyes' power of sensory perception?"

The Icelanders make up words all the time to keep their language "pure," but Russian is a world language, used as a lingua franca throughout all of the old Soviet Empire. I even had an African taxi driver back in Dallas who preferred to speak Russian because he had gone to University there. To "purify" Russian to satisfy some cultural fetish is ludicrous unless you are willing to ban all forms of electronic communication and forbid travel abroad. The French tried it for a while, and looked very foolish when they did. Try going to France sometime (I'm there once a week for work). See if their language has died out any (hint if you've never been there: it hasn't).

[sarge43]

4. I imagine like English Russian is filled with

loan words from Greek and Latin for medical and scientific terms.

[DFW]

6. Not only that

When Peter the Great opened Russia to the west in the early 18th century, he tried to import as much western modernism (such as it was in 1702) as he could. The linguistic "impurities" in the Russian language didn't start with the first bootleg Beatles records.

It's ironic--when I first set foot on Russian soil, they understood everything I said, but I had a terrible time understanding them. I had had no training in modern Soviet era slang. All my knowledge of Russian came from literature. They looked at me and asked where I'd been sleeping since 1890, as my Russian sounded to their ears much as someone speaking Dickensian English would sound to us. But for all the oddball (to me) expressions I didn't know, the Russian language is alive and well, and certainly doesn't need Mother Putin's (or anyone else's) help to preserve it. One guy explained to me that Americans had learned to make decent vodka, but that Russian vodka was still "that little raisin" better. I don't drink vodka, so how should I know? I had never read Pushkin making comparisons based on "little raisins," so I had no clue what he meant (was Russian vodka better because they now used tiny raisins to make it?), but it was pure Russian all the same--just a bit of slang I had never read.

[hobbit709]

3. Nyet Kulturny

[jmowreader]

5. Nekulturnij, actually

The French tried this about a decade ago, but it fell through when the citizenry refused to play along. Turns out no one wanted to say "ground beef pressed into a patty, fried and served between two halves of a bun" instead of "le hamburger."

[DFW]

7. It's funny, in Spain, they got it right

They don't say "hamburger," which would be correct in German, but "hamburgesa" which is a correct translation of "hamburger," which, after all is nothing more than the German for a person/object/dish originating in Hamburg, depending on whether you use the "ein" or not.

It's the old JFK incident. "Ich bin Hamburger" means "I am someone from Hamburg." "Ich bin ein Hamburger" means "I am a ground beef patty."