Russianism

Russianism, Russism, or Russicism is an influence of Russian language on other languages. In particular, Russianisms are Russian or russified words, expressions, or grammar constructs used in Slavic languages, languages of CIS states and languages of the Russian Federation.

However, the scope of the Russian language influence is wider. For example, in Italian language Russisms rank fifth and sixth after Anglicisms, Gallicisms, Germanisms, Hispanisms, and Arabisms. [Nicolai, p. 11.] The difference between russianisms (russisms) in, say, the Italian language and the Ukrainian language is that in Italian Russisms stay for original Russian notions which did not exist in Italian and thus, Italian had to loan such words to describe Russian reality, whilst Ukrainian uses Russianisms to replace existing Ukrainian words, which describe Ukrainian reality.Fact|date=February 2007

In his own researches Jovan Ajduković re­in­ter­pret and in­no­va­te the "the­ory of tran­sfer" of lexical borrowing (е.g., Rudolf Filipović 1986, 1990) and in­tro­du­ce the "the­ory of ap­pro­xi­ma­te copying and ac­ti­va­tion" of "contact-lexemes".

In the "the­ory of tran­sfer", the con­cept of Rus­sianism (Russism) in lexi­co­grap­hi­cal so­ur­ces in the bro­a­der sen­se me­ans (1) an un­mo­ti­va­ted or mo­ti­va­ted word of Rus­sian ori­gin which has kept a strong for­mal-semantic con­nec­tion with the cor­re­spon­ding word in Rus­sian (e.g. Serb. "baćuška, vot­ka, dača, sa­mi­zdat, sput­njik, urav­ni­lov­ka"), (2) an un­mo­ti­va­ted or mo­ti­vated word of Rus­sian ori­gin which has par­ti­ally or com­ple­tely lost its for­mal-se­man­tic con­nec­tion with the ori­gi­nal Russian word owing to adap­ta­tion (e.g. Serb. "bla­go­vre­men, iskre­nost, isti­na, prav­da, lju­bi­mac, lju­bi­mi­ca, predostrožan, predostrožnost"), (3) an un­mo­ti­va­ted or mo­ti­va­ted word of non-Rus­sian ori­gin bor­ro­wed thro­ugh Rus­sian (e.g. Serb. "agit­prop, agit­pro­pov­ski, al­maz, ban­du­ra, aul, kil­ka, taj­ga, čaj, kor­sak, jan­tar, ku­mis, kaf­tan, aršin") and (4) an un­mo­ti­va­ted or mo­ti­va­ted of Rus­sian or non-Rus­sian ori­gin bor­ro­wed in­to the re­ce­i­ving lan­gu­a­ge thro­ugh a tran­smit­ter lan­gu­a­ge (e.g. Maced. "bo­ljar, kol­hoz, sov­hoz, kolhozovština"). For exam­ple, the transmit­ter lan­gu­a­ge in Russian-Ma­ce­do­nian lan­gu­a­ge con­tacts is Bulgarian or Ser­bian (Ajdukovic 2004: 94; 340).

In the "the­ory of ap­pro­xi­ma­te copying and ac­ti­va­tion" (so-called "Ajdukovic's Theory of Contacteme"), the con­cept of Rus­sianism (Russism) me­ans a word ha­ving one or mo­re "in­de­pen­dent con­tac­te­mes", which ha­ve ari­sen un­der the do­mi­nant in­flu­en­ce of Rus­sian (e.g. Serb. "vostok, nervčik, knjiška, bed­stvo, kr­jak"). Jovan Ajduković intro­du­ce the term "con­tac­te­me" for the ba­sic unit of con­tact on each se­pa­ra­te le­vel of lan­gu­a­ge. He di­stin­gu­ish "con­tact-pho­ne­me", "con­tact-grap­he­me", "con­tac­te­me in di­stri­bu­tion of so­unds", "pro­so­dic contacteme", "de­ri­va­ti­o­nal con­tac­te­me", "morp­ho­lo­gi­cal contacteme", "seman­tic con­tac­te­me", "syntac­tic con­tac­te­me", "styli­stic con­tac­te­me", "contact-lexeme" and "contact-phraseme" (e.g. Serb. "čovek u futroli, Baba Jaga, pali borac, planska privreda, široke narodne mase, Sve srećne porodice liče jedna na drugu, svaka nesrećna porodica nesrećna je na svoj način") (Ajdukovic 2004: 99; 340) [http://www.ptt.rs/korisnici/j/o/joralbgd/ (see also Ajdukovic's Homepage)] .

Russianisms and Russification

In countries that have long been under the influence of Russian Empire, Soviet Union, and modern Russia, Russianism is a direct result of russification, when native words and expressions were replaced with Russian ones. Russianisms are especially frequent in Ukrainian and Belarusian, as the languages linguistically close to Russian.

Examples of russianisms in Ukrainian would be "часи" ("clock") instead of "годинник", "ковьор" ("carpet") instead of "килим", "празнувати" ("to celebrate") instead of "святкувати", and many other. Examples from Moldavian include "odecolon" and "subotnic".

Depending on speaker's region and social status, his/her use of russianisms may be as high as 50 per cent (the closer to Russia the higher). Use of russianisms results in creation of Russian-Ukrainian or Russian-Belarusian pidgins (called surzhyk and trasianka accordingly).

Even after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, russianisms are still penetrating into national languages due to Russia's cultural and linguistical influence in post-Soviet states (via media, trade, politics etc.).

ee also

*List of English words of Russian origin

Notes

References

*Mansvetova E.N. On the problem of semantic differentiation of Slavisms and Russism // Research on semantics. - Ufa, 1980. - pp. 20-30.
*Jovan Ajdukovic, Russisms in Serbo-Croatian Dictionaries. Principles of Adaptation. Dictionary, Foto Futura, Beograd, 1997, 331 [http://www.ptt.rs/korisnici/j/o/joralbgd/abstract.htm (Abstract)]
*Jovan Ajdukovic, "An Introduction to Lexical Contact: The Theory of the Adaptation of Russisms In South and West Slavic Languages", Foto Futura, Beograd, 2004, 364 pp.
*Giorgio Maria Nicolai. [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3763/is_200503/ai_n14901094 Dizionario delle parole russe che si incontrano in italiano] . Biblioteca di cultura. Roma: Bulzoni Editore, 2003. 529 pp.