Fenya

Fenya, феня, or Fenka is a Russian cant language used among criminals. Originally it was a cryptolanguage of "ofenyas" or "ofenes", old Russian peddlers, and had a number of names. There are no convincing explanations about the origins of the words "ofenya" and "fenya". "Fenya" is also a Russian female name (short form of Theokla or Fekla, considered to be archaic and very rarely used in modern Russian), with no relation to the language. In modern Russian language it is also referred to as blatnoy language (Russian:"blatnoy yazyk", блатной язык), where "blatnoy" is a slang expression for "criminal". It is also known as блатная музыка ("blatnaya muzyka") literally "thieves' music".

The grammar is Russian; the vocabulary has changed over time.

The original "fenya" consisted of broken Russian words, words borrowed from Greek and other foreign languages. Vladimir Dahl in his monumental "Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian language" gives the following examples of ofenya's parlance:
*"Ропа кимать, полумеркот, рыхло закурещат ворыханы."
*:Normative Russian: "Пора спать, полночь; скоро запоют петухи."
*:Translation: "Time to go to bed, midnight; roosters will sing soon."
*"Да позагорбил басве слемзить: астона басвинска ухалила дряботницей.
*:Normative Russian: "Да позабыл тебе сказать: жена твоя померла весною."
*:Translation: "Oh, yes, I forgot to tell you: your wife died this spring"

The vocabulary changed over time, with notable infusion of words of Yiddish origin. During the times of the Soviet Union "fenya" penetrated into common spoken Russian and can no longer be considered cryptic (Note: this is not intended to mean that Fenka is a popularly known or understood sub-language. It is still commonly associated with those who have connections to the Russian criminal culture or who have spent a significant amount of time incarcerated. Few "common" Russians possess a complete or even complex understanding of it and fewer still - for various reasons - will admit to it.) A number of explanations for this phenomenon are suggested. For one, a significant part of the population, not necessarily criminals, went through labor camps, and massive indiscriminate amnesties after the death of Stalin resulted in a penetration of the subculture of convicts into everyday life in the form of a shock wave, which made resocialization difficult. Also, the criminal life was romanticized in popular culture: for example, in the form of "blatnaya song", see Shanson.

"Fenya" influences the Russian culture in different ways. In particular, a whole subgenre of Russian humour exists, in which a known tale, such as "Romeo and Juliet" or a popular Russian fairy tale is cast into "fenya".

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the appearance of "New Russians" introduced a new changes into "fenya", notably assigning new meanings and accents to common words.

References

* [http://plutser.ru/ukazateli/bibliography_vorov Bibliography of criminal slang dictionaries]