Words and its origin. The origin of words in Russian: this is interesting. Formation of new words in Russian

A selection of Russian words with an interesting origin story.

Pharmacy

According to one version, the word "pharmacy" comes from the Greek word "barn", "shelter", "warehouse", "storage" or "shop", according to another version - from the word "coffin", "grave" or "crypt" . Later, the word passed into the Latin language and acquired the meaning of "wine warehouse". The modern meaning of the word "pharmacy" was formed only in medieval Latin.

Orange

Until the 16th century, Russians and Europeans did not know about the existence of this citrus. Portuguese sailors brought these fruits from China and began to trade them with their neighbors. Oranges came to Russia from Holland. In Dutch, "apple" is appel, and "Chinese" is sien. Borrowed from the Dutch language, the word "appelsien" is a literal translation of the French phrase "Pomme de Chine" - "an apple from China."

Bohemia

The word is of French origin. At the end of the 20th century in Paris, representatives of creative professions lived in the Latin Quarter. The bourgeois called the local inhabitants "gypsies". On the top floor of a house in the Latin Quarter lived the journalist Henri Murger. Once, in one of the tabloid magazines, he was offered to write a series of stories about the inhabitants of the Latin Quarter. These essays were published in 1945 under the title Scenes from the Life of a Gypsy. "Gypsy" in French - "bohemia". Mürger has since been forgotten, and the word "bohemian" still exists today.

Doctor

The word "doctor" is originally Slavic, it is formed from the word "vrati", which means "to speak", "to speak". From the same word comes “lie”, which for our ancestors also meant “to speak”. In the Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian languages, the original meaning of the word "doctor" - "caster", "sorcerer" - has survived to this day.

Hooligan

This word is of English origin. It is known that the surname Houlihan was once a well-known London brawler, who brought a lot of trouble to the inhabitants of the city and the police. The surname has become a household word, in all countries characterizing a person who violates public order.

penal servitude

The Greek word katergon meant a large rowing vessel with a triple row of oars. Later, such a vessel was called a galley. In the Old Russian language, there were many names for ships: “plows”, “rooks”, “uchans”, “boats”. The Novgorod charter mentions boats, poroms and katargs. In the "Russian Chronicle" of Nikon's list we read: "The boyars took the queen, and the noble maidens, and the young wives, let many go in ships and katargas to the islands" ("The boyars took the queen, and noble maidens, and young wives, sent many on ships and ships to the islands"). The work of the rowers on these ships was very difficult, so they began to put criminals on "hard labor". In 1696, creating the Russian fleet, Peter I began to build large hard labor ships in Russia. These ships were also called galleys. On them, rowers put criminals and fugitives, chained to the oars with chains. Pushkin's "History of Peter" contains the decrees of the tsar, where the phrases are often found: "For the first time through the ranks, the second - a whip and galleys", "exile to the galleys." Nordsteth's pre-revolutionary German-French dictionary directly states: "Galley - hard labor." Since then, the word "hard labor" in the modern sense has been preserved, although they no longer referred to galleys, but to Siberia, to hard labor.

Silhouette

In France, during the reign of Louis XV, the royal court lived in unprecedented luxury. Because of this, the treasury quickly emptied, and then the king appointed a new finance minister, Étienne Silhouette, a conscientious and incorruptible official who reduced pensions and destroyed tax privileges. At first, everyone liked this very much, but over time, the young reformer became the subject of general ridicule. The genre of art that arose at that time - a one-color profile picture on a light background - was named by the Parisian wits after the Silhouette and interpreted it as art for the greedy and the poor.

Surgeon

The word came from the lexicon of ancient Greek doctors. It denoted among the Greeks simply "needlework", "craft", from hir - "hand" - and ergon - "to do". The word "surgeon" from the Greek language is translated not only as "doctor", but also as "hairdresser". In Russia in the 19th century, hairdressers-barbers not only shaved and cut their clients, but also pulled teeth, bled, put leeches and even performed minor surgical operations, that is, they performed the duties of surgeons.

Hack

Initially, this word was common people, and it meant "easy money in excess of the usual." You can read about the origin of the word in the dictionary of Professor D. N. Ushakov: “Hackwork, from the Greek “halkos” - a copper coin.” Later, the word has an additional meaning. In the dictionary of V. I. Dahl, a more precise definition of the Russian interpretation is given: “hack, grabber, bribe taker, haltyga, windy, fickle person. Trash, grabber (grab), profit, gratuitous food, accumulated money. In our time, derivatives have appeared: “hackwork”, “hackwork”.

In her “Memoirs” about the acting life of the 90s of the century before last, N. Smirnova writes that in Moscow, among the actors, Strastnaya Square was called “hack work”, since actors were “caught” on it:

“It happened that he was immediately given a role in his hands and he read it for the first time on the way to the theater. The word "hack" has since gone into use and is still kept in the actor's lexicon.

Tobacco

Initially, the word "tobacco" penetrated into European languages from Haiti. In the Arawakan language, tabak is a plant of the nightshade family, from which a smoking mixture was made. It would seem that it is in this meaning that the word is used now. However, for a while, "tobacco" had a completely different meaning. The word acquired additional meaning in French thanks to the expression “to pass through tobacco” - “passer a tabac” - and remained from the time of the persecution of smokers in France. Until now, the French have the verb "tabasser", which means "to beat." And among the military, "tabac" means "battle" or "business" in the same sense as our "business was near Poltava."

Alexey Nikolaevich Tolstoy wrote the story "The Manuscript Found Under the Bed". The hero of this story, Sashka Yepanchin, recalling the year 1918 in France: “In their precincts, policemen - azhans - first of all beat you in the ribs and in the head with boots, they call it “pass through tobacco”.”

Rogue

In his transformational activities, Peter I had to face the privileged nobility, who did not want to part with their usual way of life, and perceived the tsar's reforms sharply negatively.

In 1715, Peter I introduced a law according to which the nobles for crimes were deprived of their nobility, their “privileges”, one of which was that the nobles could not be subjected to corporal punishment, simply speaking, flogging. According to this law, the nobles were "defamed", that is, deprived of their noble dignity, "dishonored" them.

In the language of the Normans, "skelmen" (skelmen) meant "worthy of death", "suicide bomber". Among the Germans, this word turned into “rogue”, which means “rogue”, “swindler”, and in this sense it entered the Russian language.

How native Russian words arose

Have you ever wondered how many words from any phrase we utter belong to the language of which we are all speakers? And does the foreign always sound so obvious that it cuts the ear with its dissent? Let's talk about the origin of words in Russian as if we were getting to know them for the first time - and in fact, in fact, this is how it is.

Among archaeologists, it has long been accepted as an axiom that our Slavic ancestors, in the number of countless genera, covered the territory from the Pacific coast to the very north of Italy with the area of \u200b\u200btheir settlement. Of course, there were no number of dialects of that time, but the foundation, no doubt, was laid not in the modern Cyrillic alphabet, but in the original Slavic - ancient Aryan writing.

The Old Church Slavonic language was never primitive, but it always reflected the essence, not indulging in eloquence. The use of words was reduced to twelve components of the full and free transmission of any information, feelings, sensations:

The name of the elements of the human (animal) body, internal organs, structural features: hump, liver, leg;
Temporal indicators, with units of time intervals: morning, week, year, spring;
Elemental and natural phenomena, various natural objects: snow, wind, waterfall;
Name of plants: tavern, sunflower, birch;
Fauna: bear, minnow, wolf;
Ancillary household items: an ax, a yoke, a bench;
Concepts invested in figurative thinking: life, decency, glory;
Verb concepts: know, save, lie;
Characterizing concepts: old, greedy, sick;
Words indicating the place and time: here, at a distance, side;
Prepositions: from, on, about;
Conjunctions: and, but, but.

In any language, be it Old Germanic or Vedic Slavic, the Word originally had an essence extracted from the image it created. That is, the original meaning of any word was created on the basis of known concepts:

astra \u003d Ast (star) + Ra (sun god) \u003d Star of the sun god Ra;
kara = Ka (spirit of death) + Ra = deceased divine principle (in man).

However, with the acquisition of new concepts, new images also came. As a rule, these images brought ready-made names with them.

For example, the word "cream" - "cr? me”- in this form, it came to us from France, and meant a lot of whipped cream with some kind of fruit syrup ... or shoe polish of a thick, homogeneous consistency.

Another borrowing condition implies a convenient substitution of a verbose concept for a one-word one.

Imagine the familiar and simple word "case", which came to us from the German language (Futteral) and is translated as "case with lining." In Slavic literal it would sound like "storage box". Of course, in this situation, the “case” is much more convenient and capacious to pronounce. The same goes for “glass” - “bocal” from French - a tall vessel for wine in the shape of a glass.

It is impossible to deny the influence of fashion trends on the preferred use of more euphonious words. After all, the “bartender” somehow sounds more solid than just the “bartender”, and the “piercing” procedure itself seems to be something different and more modern than the banal “piercing”.

But, much stronger than even the trend of foreignness, had on the original Russian its closest ancestor, the Church Slavonic language, which entered into everyday life in the 9th century, as an example of writing in Russia. Echoes of it reach the ears of modern man, characterizing their affiliation with the following features:

letter combinations: “le”, “la”, “re”, “ra” in a prefix or root, where in the current sound we pronounce: “here”, “olo”, “oro”. For example: head - head, before - before;
the letter combination "zhd", later replaced by "zh". For example: alien - alien;
the primary sound "u", then identified with "h": power - to be able;
The first letter "e" is where we can use "o": once - once.

It is worth mentioning that the related Slavic languages closest to us left a noticeable imprint in word mixing, often replacing the Old Russian originals: a pumpkin for a tavern, a shirt for a shirt.

In addition to the facts already mentioned, the 8th century, with its active trade and military movement, had a huge impact on the original Russian language. The first language reformers, therefore, turned out to be for the entire ancient Slavic people:

Scandinavians (Swedes, Norwegians);
Finns, Ugrians;
Germans (Danes, Dutch);
Turkic tribes (Khazars, Pechenegs, Cumans);
Greeks;
Germans;
Romans (as native speakers of Latin).

Interesting fact. The word "money", derived from "tenge", came to us from the Turkic language. More precisely, this is another alteration from one of the large Turkic tribes, the Khazars, where “tamga” meant a brand. Surprisingly, among the Arabs (“danek”), and among the Persians (“dangh”), and the Indians (“tanga”), and even the Greeks (“danaka”), this word clearly echoes in consonance. In Russia, since the founding of Moscow coinage, money has received the unenviable status of "polushki", that is? penny, which was equal to two hundredth of the ruble.

And here is an interesting fact about the origin of the word "sandwich". Many people know that the root of this double name (“Butter” - butter, and “Brot” - bread) originates in German, and, in writing, it was used only with the final “t”. However, few people know that the discoverer of the bread and butter known to us is the great astronomer N. Copernicus. He was the first to come up with a means to stop the terrible human death due to numerous diseases generated by the war between the Teutonic Order and his native Poland. The fact is that negligent peasants who supplied bread to the defenders of the Olsztyn fortress, because of their neglect of elementary cleanliness, brought such dirty bread that it was literally covered with a layer of litter. Copernicus, who took the plight of the warrior very closely, suggested making the dirt more visible by covering it with a light film of cow butter. This made it possible to better clean off the dirt (unfortunately, along with the oil).

Already after the death of a famous scientist, one German pharmacist Buttenadt, with all his might, seized on a valuable idea and made it so that in a short time all European residents learned about the classic sandwich.

By the way, it is not difficult to recognize the words that came to us from distant countries by some model elements:

from Greece - these are prefixes: “a”, “anti”, “arch”, “pan”;
from Latin-speaking Rome - prefixes: "de", "counter", "trans", "ultra", "inter" and suffixes: "ism", "east", "or", "tor";
also, the Greek and Latin languages together gave the Slavs the initial sound "e". So, "selfish" is not our word;
the sound “f” did not exist in the original Russian, and the letter itself, as a designation of sound, appeared much later than the words themselves came into use;
the folk shapers of the rules of Russian phonetics would not have even thought of starting a word with the sound “a”, so that every single “attack” and “angel” are of foreign origin;
two- and three-vowel melodiousness disgusted Russian word formation. Consecutive vowels, no matter how many there are, immediately speak of the belonging of the word to foreign;
the words of the Turkic dialect are easily recognizable: beard, quinoa, succession. They have a symbolic consonant alternation of vowels.

Foreign words are especially distinguished by their immutability in numbers and cases, as well as their “genderlessness”, as in the word “coffee”.

The most interesting stories of the origin of various words

In France, and indeed in all of Europe, there was no more luxurious atmosphere and freer life than at the court of Louis XV. The nobles and those especially close to the king seemed to be competing in who could most impress the spoiled ruler. Tables were served with pure gold or silver, masterpieces looked from the walls, from picture frames. No wonder that with such a radiant shell, its core - that is, the financial basis of the state, the treasury - was soon completely ruined.

Once, apparently thinking better of it, Louis acted really wisely. Of all those applying for the position of financial controller, he chose the most inconspicuous and young specialist, who did not acquire any fame for himself, except for a rare incorruptibility.

The new controller fully justified the trust shown to him by the king, but at the same time earned himself such a bad reputation among the courtiers that the name of Etienne Silhouette soon became a household name for poor economy and rare stinginess. Most likely, it would not have reached our days if it were not for the newest direction of modernist art that appeared just at that time - a contrasting drawing in a two-color solution, where only the painted outlines of the object appeared against a minor background. The Parisian nobility, accustomed to bright, exaggerated colors, greeted the new artistic genre with contemptuous ridicule, and the unfortunate Silhouette itself, with its economy, became the personification of this trend.

Everyone, at least once in their life, has crashed in a devastating fiasco - whether on an exam, on a first date, or in a work environment. Synonyms for this word are only the sad concepts of failure, defeat, failure. And all this despite the fact that the “fiasco” is nothing more than a simple bottle, however, a large bottle, but this cannot be blamed on her.

This story happened in Italy, in the 19th century, with one very famous theatrical comic actor Bianconelli. The fact is that he greatly valued his role of the “unique” and always tried to impress the viewer, playing entire performances on stage, with the help of just one object. Each time these were different objects, and success invariably accompanied unprecedented improvisations, until, to his misfortune, Bianconelli did not choose an ordinary wine bottle as his assistant.

The scene began as usual, but as the game progressed, the actor realized with horror that the audience did not react to any of his jokes; even the gallery was silent. He tried to improvise, but again faced the icy hostility of the audience. Desperate to evoke even the least bit of emotion, the actor angrily threw the bottle on the stage and shouted: “Go to hell, fiasco!”

It is not surprising that after such a resounding defeat of Bianconelli's reputation, the whole world learned about the "fiasco".

Bohemia

Representatives of modern bohemia are always ambiguous and very popular personalities, since only a few get to the top of this pedestal. However, a little more than a century and a half ago, belonging to the elite was formed by other values, and all these writers, artists, poets lived in extreme wretchedness and in conditions of real poverty. Paris, having the misfortune of partially drowning in the slums, acquired the bulk of the free creative pariah in the Latin Quarter. There, in one of the oldest houses, under the very roof, in the attic, lived the friends of E. Pothier and A. Murger. Later, Pottier would become famous as the author of the famous "Internationale", but so far he was a poor and virtually unemployed friend of a struggling journalist. Murger tried on the essay commissioned to him, one might say, about himself - about the inhabitants of the Latin Quarter in Paris. All city aristocrats very insultingly called the inhabitants of the quarter “gypsies”. This gave the name to the essay, published in March 1845: "Scenes from the life of a gypsy." Translated from refined French, "gypsy" is bohemia. So figure it out after that, whether to offend contemporary representatives of art, or is it better to say in Russian: creators, sculptors, actors, artists, architects?

The word that came to us from Greece (katergon) was not the name of a closed government building, but a rowing vessel with three rows of oars. Such vessels are known to modern man as galleys - this is a later name for hard labor. Three rows of oars required, respectively, three rows of rowers, and work on ships of this type was considered a punishment, it was so hard. Forming his famous fleet, in 1696, Tsar Peter I ordered to build as many penal servitudes as possible, based on their power and rude simplicity. At the same time, it was also decided to put criminals at the oars so as not to litter the prison with rabble and benefit from them. Of course, the criminal people were chained to their new instrument of punishment - the oar - with heavy shackle chains.

And this procedure was called the sentence to the eternal service of the rower - "exile to hard labor."

Students of Russian seminaries, who saw Latin among their first tormentors as an obligatory subject, considered it a completely unworthy subject. To study it, they undertook with a gnashing of teeth, often not understanding either the meaning of what they read, or a reasonable explanation for the expenditure of so much effort. The so-called gerund was especially difficult for the students - a certain basis of Latin writing, completely alien to Russian perception. The abundance of types and nuances of the use of this monstrous speech form brought the poor seminarians to the infirmary bed.

In retaliation, the somewhat distorted pronunciation of the word has become a household name for all sorts of meaningless nonsense - "nonsense"

To begin with, a bikini is not a swimsuit, Bikini is an island that is part of the Marshall Islands archipelago in the Pacific Ocean. And it is not known, in connection with what whim, the Frenchman Leu Réar wanted his piquant invention to bear just such a name - maybe because the island was small, and it was difficult to call the textile creation produced large. However, the fact remains - an unknown engineer, engaged in moments of relaxation in cutting and sewing, suddenly struck the world with an unprecedented and scandalous masterpiece. Divided into “top” and “bottom”, the swimsuit so stunned the public that a severe ban was immediately established on it. For wearing a bikini in a public place, punishment was due, as for immoral behavior and violation of the order.

However, the original product has found its connoisseur - among the stars of cinema. After only a few photographic and big screen appearances by the most famous women of the time, the public commuted the sentence and the bikini rapidly gained popularity.

Portuguese navigators, apparently, could not even imagine that, unloading boxes with fragrant citrus fruit in European ports, they endow this part of the land with a whole era of admiration for foreign delicacy. In the meantime, until the 16th century, Europeans, like the Russian people, did not even hear about a strange fruit. Wonderful Chinese apples - by analogy with the famous fruit, they began to be called that - quickly appreciated in taste and became a more noble and aristocratic substitute for ordinary apples.

And the Russians accepted the orange boom from Holland. And they also called them Chinese apples. And so it went, from the Dutch language - "appel" (apple), "sien" (Chinese). Appelsien.

There is an interesting but unconfirmed version that this word, with an undeservedly distorted meaning, comes from the name of the famous German doctor Christian Loder. Moreover, he was not distinguished by either laziness of character or some other offensive vice, but, on the contrary, he contributed to the opening of the first clinic of synthesized mineral waters in Russia. With a special recommendation to the patients of the hospital, the doctor pointed out the need for a quick walk for three hours. Of course, such an innovation could not but arouse ridicule among the uninitiated, who contemptuously say that again, around the hospital, the people are “chasing the loafer”.

However, there is another version of the origin of this word, and it is more supported by scientists. The fact is that "lodder" in German means "scoundrel, worthless person." So deal with them.

School has not always been a place of study. Moreover, the very word "scole", translated from Greek, meant "time spent in idleness." In the 1st century BC e. in Greece they built similarities of small arenas, made up entirely of benches, built in a semicircle. These were places of public cultural recreation, where the Greeks, in the shade of trees, indulged in dreams and made appointments. However, these same tempting islands of peace, very much attracted the local luminaries of eloquence, exercising their oratorical skills in the circle of spectators. There were more and more listeners, but there was no peace at all. This prompted the Greeks to take decisive action to isolate pundits from the rest of the people. Thus, educational institutions were created, where speakers, as much as they liked, could strain their skills in front of each other and at the same time not violate public order. And scientists at home remained "chipped".

Tragedy

Few will be able to relate to the word "tragedy" in the usual sense, having learned that the true meaning of this word is ... "goat song." A song dedicated to the animal was sung, only in a parade procession, accompanied by dances and all sorts of wit. The supposed recipients of the hymns, who had to take all this mess at their own expense, were none other than the god Dionysius with his minions, the goat-legged Pans (Satyrs). Namely, in order to sing of their sharpness, prowess and cheerful disposition, a long, with many couplets, tragodia was invented. It is impossible not to pay tribute, the word has undergone many semantic changes before it came to us in the sense in which we understand it today.

Is it possible to imagine an eskimo in the form of a pie? But the American Christian Nelson called his invention exactly that, when, in 1920, the first popsicle saw the light. The history of the invention of the most delicious ice cream in the world began with the suffering written on the face of a little boy who, standing in front of a shop window, could not decide what he wanted more - ice cream or chocolate. Nelson wondered if both types of product could be successfully combined and, as a result of his experiments, the world learned about cold milk ice cream covered with a crispy chocolate crust. And this masterpiece was called: "Eskimo pie."

The name of the elements of the human (animal) body, internal organs, structural features: hump, liver, leg;
Temporal indicators, with units of time intervals: morning, week, year, spring;
Elemental and natural phenomena, various natural objects: snow, wind, waterfall;
Name of plants: tavern, sunflower, birch;
Fauna: bear, minnow, wolf;
Ancillary household items: an ax, a yoke, a bench;
Concepts invested in figurative thinking: life, decency, glory;
Verb concepts: know, save, lie;
Characterizing concepts: old, greedy, sick;
Words indicating the place and time: here, at a distance, side;
Prepositions: from, on, about;
Conjunctions: and, but, but.

astra \u003d Ast (star) + Ra (sun god) \u003d Star of the sun god Ra;
kara = Ka (spirit of death) + Ra = deceased divine principle (in man).

However, with the acquisition of new concepts, new images also came. As a rule, these images brought ready-made names with them.

Another borrowing condition implies a convenient substitution of a verbose concept for a one-word one.

letter combinations: “le”, “la”, “re”, “ra” in a prefix or root, where in the current sound we pronounce: “here”, “olo”, “oro”. For example: head - head, before - before;
the letter combination "zhd", later replaced by "zh". For example: alien - alien;
the primary sound "u", then identified with "h": power - to be able;
The first letter "e" is where we can use "o": once - once.

Scandinavians (Swedes, Norwegians);
Finns, Ugrians;
Germans (Danes, Dutch);
Turkic tribes (Khazars, Pechenegs, Cumans);
Greeks;
Germans;
Romans (as native speakers of Latin).

😉 Greetings to new and regular readers! Friends, the origin of words is a very interesting topic. We rarely think about the origin of the familiar words we use in conversation and writing. But they, like people, have their own history, their own destiny.

The Word can tell us about its parents, about its nationality and about its origin. Etymology is the science of language.

The word (or root) whose etymology needs to be established correlates with related words (or roots). A common generating root is revealed. As a result of the removal of layers of later historical changes, the original form and its meaning are established. I present to you several stories of the origin of words in Russian.

The origin of some words in Russian

Aviation

From Latin avis (bird). Borrowed from French - aviation (aviation) and aviateur (aviator). These words were coined in 1863 by famous Frenchmen: the great photographer Nedar and the novelist Lalandel, who flew in balloons.

Avral

A term common among sailors and port workers. From Dutch overal (get up! everyone up!). Now emergency work is called urgent hasty work on a ship (ship), performed by its entire team.

Scuba

It was borrowed from English. The first part is the Latin aqua - "water", and the second is the English lung - "light". The modern meaning of the word scuba is “an apparatus for breathing a person under water. It consists of cylinders with compressed air and a breathing apparatus.

Scuba gear was invented in 1943 by the famous French navigator and explorer J.I. Cousteau and E. Gagnan.

alley

In Russian, the word "alley" has been used since the beginning of the 18th century. From the French verb aller - "to go, walk." The word "alley" is used in the sense of "a road planted on both sides with trees and shrubs."

Pharmacy

The word is known in Russian already at the end of the 15th century. The Latin apotheka goes back to the original Greek - apotheka, formed from apotithemi - "I put aside, I hide." Greek - apotheka (warehouse, storage).

Asphalt

Greek - asphaltos (mountain resin, asphalt). In Russian, the word "asphalt" has been known since ancient times as the name of a mineral. And from the beginning of the XVI century. the word "asphalt" is found already with the meaning "building material".

Bank

Italian - banco (bench, moneychanger's counter), later "office", randomly from the Germanic languages from bank ("bench").

Bankrupt

The primary source is the Old Italian combination bankca rotta, literally - “broken, broken bench” (counter, office). This is due to the fact that initially the offices of ruined bankers, declared bankrupt, were subjected to destruction.

Banquet

Italian - banketto (bench around the table). In Russian - from the 17th century. Now "banquet" means "a solemn dinner party or dinner."

Wardrobe

It is a borrowing from French, where garderob - from - "store" and robe - "dress". The word came to be used in two senses:

dress storage cabinet
Storage room for outerwear in public buildings

nonsense

At the end of the last century, the French physician Gali Mathieu treated his patients with jokes. He gained such popularity that he did not have time for all the visits. He sent his healing puns by mail. This is how the word “nonsense” arose, which at that time meant a healing joke, a pun.

Blinds

French - jalousie (envy, jealousy).

Conclusion

Origin of words: where did they come from, from what languages of the world do words come into the Russian language? There are many such languages, but first of all, Greek and Latin should be mentioned.

From them borrowed a large number of terms, scientific and philosophical vocabulary. All this is not accidental. Greek and Latin are very ancient languages of highly cultured peoples that have greatly influenced the culture of the whole world.

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The vocabulary of the Russian language is one of the largest in the world. It has been formed over the centuries under the influence of the development of social, economic and cultural life. The list of native Russian words makes up 90% of modern explanatory dictionaries. The rest consists of foreign borrowings that appeared both in the early stages of its development and in modern times.

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Stages of development of the Russian vocabulary

Russian language, along with Ukrainian and Belarusian, is part of the East Slavic group of the Indo-European language family. It began to form at the end of the Neolithic era and continues its development to this day.

There are several major stages in the development of native vocabulary:

Words that appeared in our language at any of these stages are considered native Russian.

Also, words of Russian origin include lexical units formed from borrowed ones according to the rules of Russian word formation.

Scientists believe that at the end of the Neolithic era there was a single Indo-European linguistic community. Native speakers of the Indo-European language lived on a rather vast territory. Some researchers call this place the land from the Yenisei to the Volga. Their opponents talk about the settlement of the Indo-Europeans along the banks of the Danube and on the Balkan Peninsula. But they all agree that the Indo-European language gave rise to almost all European languages and some Asian ones.

Common Indo-European words reflect specific phenomena and objects of the surrounding reality, degrees of kinship, numerals. Their spelling and pronunciation in many languages of the Indo-European family is almost identical. For instance:

In East Slavic languages there are a lot of words common to Indo-European languages. These include nouns denoting:

degree of relationship: mother, brother, sister, daughter, son;
natural phenomena: sun, moon, ice, rain, water;
animals: wolf, goose, cow, bear;
plants: oak, birch;
metals: copper, bronze.

Words denoting numerals (two, three, four, five), properties of objects (new, white, fast), actions (sew, go) have Indo-European origin.

Common Slavic

Around the 6th century BC e. the Proto-Slavic language appeared. Its carriers were Slavic tribes settled in the territory between the rivers Dnieper, Vistula, Bug. Common Slavic vocabulary served as the basis for the development of the languages of the Western, Southern and Eastern Slavs. Common roots can be traced in them today.

The common Slavic primordially Russian vocabulary is diverse. Noun examples:

Among common Slavic words there are nouns that denote not specific objects and phenomena, but abstract concepts. These include: will, guilt, faith, sin, thought, glory, happiness, goodness.

Compared with the words of Indo-European origin, there are more lexical units from the common Slavic vocabulary in our language, denoting actions, signs and qualities of objects.

Actions: breathe, lie down, run, write, sow, reap, weave, spin.
Signs and qualities of objects: high, fast, black, red, many, few, soon.

Common Slavisms are distinguished by their simple structure. They consist of a base and an end. At the same time, the number of derivative words from their stems is very large. Several dozen words have been formed with the root of glory: dishonor, glorify, glorify, glorious, love of glory, glorify.

The meaning of some common Slavic words changed during the development of the language. The word "red" in the common Slavic vocabulary was used in the meaning of "beautiful, good." The modern meaning (color designation) has come into use since the 16th century.

There are about two thousand common Slavic words in the vocabulary of Russian-speaking people. This relatively small group of native words forms the core of the Russian written and spoken language.

Old Russian or East Slavic stage of lexical development

In the 7th century AD, on the basis of the common Slavic vocabulary, three separate groups of Slavic languages began to develop: West Slavic, South Slavic and East Slavic languages. The East Slavic community of peoples became the basis of the Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian nationalities. The tribes that were carriers of a single East Slavic language formed a single state in the 9th century - Kievan (Ancient) Rus. For this reason, the vocabulary that appeared between VII and XIV is called Old Russian vocabulary.

Old Russian lexical units were formed under the influence of the political, economic, social and cultural development of a single East Slavic state. The original words of our language of this period belong to different parts of speech and lexical-semantic groups.

Great Russian period of language formation

From the 14th century the actual Russian or Great Russian stage of development of our vocabulary begins. It continues to this day. The beginning of the formation of the Great Russian vocabulary coincided with the formation of the Russian statehood and the division for a long time of the development of the Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian nationalities. Therefore, in the lexical stock of these languages, the same objects are denoted by different words. For example: wallet - ukr. hamanets - Belarusian. cough; palace - Ukrainian Palace - Belarusian. palace; sparkle - Ukrainian vibliskuvati - Belarusian. zihatsets.

The words that appeared during this period are characterized by a derivative basis. They appeared on the basis of well-known lexical units of Indo-European, Common Slavic and East Slavic origin. New word forms were formed on the basis of borrowings from foreign languages by adding simple bases. Such word forms are considered primordial. Actually Russian words make up a significant part of the Russian vocabulary.

Formation of new words in Russian

The vocabulary of our language replenishes quite rapidly. The basis for this process is the lexical units of the previous stages of language development and borrowed vocabulary. This vocabulary changes and adapts to the needs of the language in accordance with the rules of word formation adopted in it.

Nouns

Addition to the borrowed basis of a specific Russian suffix -shchik, -chik, -ovshchik, -shchik, -lk, -ovk, -k, -tel, -ost. For example: from the word stone, which is of Indo-European origin, with the help of the suffix -shchik, the actual Russian noun mason was formed; from the word sheet, which appeared in the all-Slavic period of the development of the Russian language, with the help of the suffix -ovk, the concept of a leaflet arose.

Addition to the basis of primordially Russian prefixes at-, pa-, pr-, su-, in-, voz-, on-, ob-, pre-, re- and so on. For example: by adding the prefix city to the common Slavic stem, the word suburb is formed; adding the prefixes o- to the same stem, they get the noun garden.

The formation of new words from two or more bases: from the common Slavic bases -pravd- and -lyub- the complex Russian word truth-lover was formed; from the Indo-European basis of the mouse- and the common Slavic word to catch with the help of the suffix -k, the noun mysh was formed Ways of forming verbs.

Ways of forming verbs

One of the most common ways to form verbs is simultaneous addition of a prefix and a suffix to the stem. For example: from the common Slavic basis, running with the help of the prefix raz- and suffixes -at and -sya appeared the verb to scatter; from the common Slavic basis -bogat- with the help of the prefix o- and suffixes -it and -sya, the original Russian word enriched itself appeared.

In the actual Russian period of the development of vocabulary, verbs formed from nouns are quite common. From the borrowed in the XVIII German word assault with the help of the suffix -ova, the verb to assault was formed. With the help of the suffix -i, the verb to praise was formed from the common Slavic word glory.

The Russian vocabulary is one of the most extensive and actively developing in the world. Borrowing vocabulary from other languages and forming new words on its basis, the Russian language is replenished. Using online dictionaries of the origin of words, you can get acquainted with the etymology of Russian vocabulary in more detail. In the age of globalization, knowledge of the origins of the Russian language and the stages of its development will help preserve its originality and uniqueness.