Facts about the origin of the Russian language. Unusual facts about the Russian language

Do you know that in Russian the words "bull" and "bee" have the same root?

Contrary to popular belief, in Russian there is not one word with three "e" in a row, but two. And there are as many as 74 words beginning with the letter “y” in our language. And in the Guinness Book of Records, a word is 35 letters long.

Most words with the letter "F" in Russian are borrowed. Pushkin was proud that in "The Tale of Tsar Saltan" there was only one word with the letter "f" - the fleet.

There are only 74 words in Russian that begin with the letter Y. But most of us remember only “iodine, yogi” and the city of “Yoshkar-Ola”.

In Russian, there are words for "Y". These are the names of Russian cities and rivers: Ygyatta, Ylymakh, Ynakhsyt, Ynykchansky, Ytyk-kyul.

The only words in Russian with three letters "e" in a row are long-necked (and others on the -neck, for example, crooked, short-) and "zmeeeed".

In Russian there is a word with a unique prefix for the language ko- - zakuulok.

The only word in the Russian language that does not have a root is take out. It is believed that in this word the so-called zero root, which is in alternation with the root -im- (take out-im-at). Previously, until about the 17th century, this verb looked like to take out, and it had a material root, the same as in remove, hug, understand (cf. shoot, hug, understand), but subsequently the root -nya- was rethought as a suffix - well- (as in poke, puff).

The only one-syllable adjective in Russian is "evil".

In Russian there are words with prefixes unique for the language i-, - total and total and a- - maybe (outdated and eight “and eight will not be lucky”), formed from the unions “and” and “a”.

The words "bull" and "bee" are the same root. In the works of ancient Russian literature, the word "bee" was written as "b'chela". The alternation of vowels ъ / ы is explained by the origin of both sounds from the same Indo-European sound U. If we recall the dialect verb roar, buzz, buzz and is etymologically related to the words bee, insect and bull, it becomes clear what was the common meaning of these words.

Dahl suggested replacing the foreign word "atmosphere" with the Russian "kolozemitsa" or "mirokolitsa".

Until the 14th century in Russia, all indecent words were called "absurd verbs."

In the 1993 Guinness Book of Records, the longest word in the Russian language is called “roentgenoelectrocardiographic”, in the 2003 edition “highly contemplating”.

In the Grammar Dictionary of the Russian Language A.A. Zaliznyak of the 2003 edition, the longest (in letters) common noun in the dictionary form is the adjective "private entrepreneurial". Consists of 25 letters.

The longest verbs are “to re-examine”, “substantialize” and “internationalize” (all - 24 letters; word forms - with and - having 25 letters each).

The longest nouns are “misanthropy” and “high excellency” (24 letters each; word forms -ami - 26 letters each, however, “misanthropy” is practically not used in plural).

The longest animate nouns are “eleventh-grader” and “clerk” (21 letters each, word forms -ami - 23 letters each).

The longest adverb recorded in the dictionary is "unsatisfactory" (19 letters). However, it should be taken into account that the overwhelming majority of quality adjectives ending in -о / -й form adverbs ending in -о / -е, which are by no means always recorded in the dictionary.

The longest interjection included in the Grammar Dictionary is "physical education hello" (15 or 14 letters depending on the status of the hyphen).

"respectively" is the longest preposition and the longest conjunction at the same time. It consists of 14 letters. The longest particle "exclusively" is one letter shorter.

There are so-called insufficient verbs in Russian. Sometimes the verb does not have any form, and this is due to the laws of euphony. For example: "win". He wins, you win, I... win? will I run? win? Philologists suggest using replacement constructions “I will win” or “I will become a winner”. Since there is no first person singular form, the verb is deficient.

The English use the mnemonic "Yellow-blue bus" to successfully master the difficult phrase "I love you"

As the classics said, "The great and mighty Russian language." And why is he so “powerful” and why is he “great”? You can give a bunch of arguments for the most extensive possibilities and the largest database of synonyms. How many analogues can you think of for the word "beautiful"? Without delving into the wilds and dictionaries, about 20, while in other dialects 5-7 will be typed from strength. You can give examples of subtlety and Slavic humor. Even such a thing as "sarcasm" in other languages \u200b\u200bis not known. It is also possible to condemn and reject the Russian mat, but it is very difficult to change its role in our life. The same word, pronounced with different intonation, can mean completely dissimilar concepts, placing stress in a sentence can radically change the meaning of the phrase. And many terms over the past couple of centuries have radically changed their meaning, thanks to the mixing of adverbs, jargons and the popularization of foreign terms.

In the Russian Federation and about a dozen other states, Russian is the official state language, and over 250 million people around the world speak it to varying degrees. This is from official data, but in fact, almost every second person on earth knows at least a couple of expressions in Russian, and every tenth person can even link words into simple sentences.

The origin of the Old Russian language and its history

When it comes to the origin of the Russian language, scientists disagree, someone says that Sanskrit was at the origin, someone calls the Proto-Slavic dialect of the Indo-European group. There are practically no reliable sources left, only guesses and assumptions. By structure and common lexical features, it belongs to the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic group from the common branch of the Indo-European languages.

The first mention of Slavic letters dates back to the year of the appearance of writing, which was introduced into our lives by the famous Cyril and Methodius, namely 863. Thus, the Old Church Slavonic language appeared specifically in order to translate church books and scriptures. It was originally bookish and had little in common with the modern one, but its appearance gave rise to the development of literature and culture of our country. Church books gradually spread among the population and literary works began to appear on their basis. The first books were: "The Tale of Boris and Gleb" of the early 11th century, "The Tale of Bygone Years", dated 1113, "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" 1185-1188 and many others.

And by the 16th century, the first rules for spelling and pronunciation appeared in Moscow, the so-called grammatical normalization of the language, and it was recognized as a national language in the territory of the Moscow kingdom. Over the next few centuries, it was modified, supplemented, absorbing words and concepts from other countries and dialects, taking on new forms and changing like a living organism in order to reach us in its “majesty” and “power”

Scientific facts about the Russian language

In addition to the proud statements of the Russian-speaking part of the globe about its power, there are indisputable facts confirmed by the Guinness Book of Records and other sources. Let's consider the main ones:

5th place in terms of prevalence among the world's population speaks of the wide geography of Russian communities in other countries and the popularity of the language among foreigners.

Our language has generic forms of verbs that others do not. For example, "he went", "she went".
At school, they study 6 basic cases of nouns, but in fact there are 10 of them.
Almost any word in a speech can be replaced by a synonym without a strong loss of meaning.
All the words beginning with the letter "F", used everywhere today, came to us from other countries.
Foreigners cannot catch the difference between the pronunciation of words with "ъ" and without it. For them, the words "entrance" and "entrance" sound exactly the same. This is due to the peculiarities of the development of the auditory and speech apparatus during the period of socialization.
“Swearing Russian” is not a turn of speech, but a special dialect in which you can explain a problem to a person and talk. No matter how paradoxical it sounds, but in no other language of the world there are so many abusive and meaningful words.

Although the Japanese language is difficult to write, but in colloquial speech it comes in second place after Russian, it depends too much on intonation and wording in a sentence.
Slavic and Russian literature is recognized as the most beautiful, verses sound melodious and harmonious. It is believed that the poets of our country would not be able to become famous in the world if their original works were in other languages.
Due to the unpronounceability of some sounds, learning is a lot of difficulty for the Japanese, Chinese, Turks, and most blacks. In Japanese, for example, there is no “r” sound, so they are not physically able to pronounce it. Because of this, they do not hear the difference between the letters "r" and "l".

If you carefully study the history of the Russian language and its features, then such facts can be cited much more. Linguists and scientists are constantly finding interesting relationships between different words and concepts. Fun facts about the peculiarities of colloquial speech and mentality add up to stories and anecdotes told around the world.

Having undergone significant changes and infusions, the Russian language has come down to us in the modern world, and we can observe its metamorphoses every 5-10 years. This is due to the development of electronics and the computerization of the whole world, a change in worldview and beliefs, new trends in political or social reforms. Even 10 years ago, a copywriter was a writer, and bloggers and YouTubers were just taking their first steps in this area. At that time, gender reforms had not yet been carried out in many European countries and disagreements and new formations in speech and concepts did not appear. And social networks like Instagram did not exist. The speech of the modern generation directly depends on the change in the image, pace and rhythm of life in cities, the increase in the amount and volume of information received.

Phonetics and spelling

According to phonetic features, the Russian language belongs to the consonant type, which means the predominance of consonant phonemes over vowels by about 37 to 5. Depending on the combinations, consonant letters are pronounced differently. The graphic system is quite rational, there are 33 letters in the alphabet, and the unit of writing or reading is a syllable or a combination of letters. Spelling has signs of a phonemic type, that is, regardless of pronunciation, the spelling will be dictionary. As for grammar, the Russian language is classified as an inflectional, or synthetic, type. This means that the grammatical load goes mainly to the endings. All nouns are declined according to the main cases and differ greatly on the basis of "animate / inanimate".

The vocabulary of our everyday speech is full of synonyms, homonyms, antonyms, paronyms and other variants of the relationship of words in a sentence with each other. In addition, all concepts are conditionally divided into native and borrowed, which significantly increases the number of errors in their writing and use.

Many phrases eventually disappear from everyday speech (historicisms) or are replaced by concepts from another language or dialectical variants (archaisms). Thus, the overall picture and sound take on a completely different shape.

The sound of the Russian language allows us to call it very melodic. Features of songs and vocal art suggest a certain staging of words and sounds to create harmony. Russian, English and French are recognized as the most "convenient" for songwriting.

Funny Idioms and Spoonerisms

Any language is full of various jokes and idioms that are fully understood only by native speakers. Russian is no exception, where jokes and jokes are an integral part of folklore and everyday communication. No other country in the world has such a number of humorous programs and movements: KVN, Stand-Up, performances by comedians, humorous shows, comedies and much more. Many jokes and anecdotes are connected with the peculiarities of the mentality of Russian people and attempts to explain them to foreigners. A change in intonation, the addition of one letter, the rearrangement of words in places - and the text changes its original meaning dramatically. And adding obscene overtones is the basis for 90% of jokes in Russian.

Just as the composition of everyday words and phrases changes over the years and lifestyle, so humor is filled with new colors, absorbing the features of life, political and historical events, art and music.

Idioms, or untranslatable expressions, are inherent in any language of the world. Among the popular set expressions that cannot be explained to a foreigner, fully conveying its meaning:

"Hands do not reach to see."
"It is written with a pitchfork on the water."
"Wedge with a wedge to knock out."
"Pour from empty to empty."
"Like hell from incense" and many others.

The same applies to Russian verbs, which have completely different meanings depending on the context. For example, the verb "sit", familiar to the Russian ear. And how to translate the phrases “a bird is sitting”, “a prisoner is sitting”, “a thought is sitting in the head” - the verb is the same, but the meaning is completely different in each phrase. You can also cite the example of the verb “goes”: when a person goes to work, everything is clear. When is it raining or is there a movie on? Or is it a second year? There are many such examples. That is why many visitors fall in love with the country and the language, absorb the oddities of the mentality and try to understand the Russian language, because learning it is not enough.

Spoonerisms are another direction in the humorous folklore of all languages of the world, when words are partially changed by syllables and get a completely new meaning at the output:

"Visitors are not awakened" from the original phrase "winners are not judged";
"Armored scumbag";
the famous "carriage respected dear"
"The braid is tongued" and many others.

Most often they are born as a result of reservations, as it was at the dawn of the appearance of the term. The English teacher U.A. Spooner, who often got confused in words and gave out absolutely amazing phrases.

As a conclusion

Only a native speaker can fully understand the meaning of many expressions and explain them, even if a person has lived in the country for many years, he still cannot understand individual words. The words "anadys", "the other day", "hangover", "oblivion" and many others simply have no analogues among most languages. And attempts to explain them to a foreigner most likely will not lead to anything.

The richness of the Russian language lies not only in idioms and untranslatable turns of speech, but also in a variety of emotionally colored adjectives, interjections, and adverbs. In the difference in intonation when pronouncing the phrase (the famous “execution cannot be pardoned”), in the breadth of the Russian soul and the desire to characterize everything around in an ornate way. Synonyms for the word "man": "man", "man", "man" and others often have nothing to do with the original version and are highly dependent on context and intonation.

The Russian language is truly rich both literary and emotionally. It provides an opportunity for self-expression through literature and art, writing books and poetry. And its development and filling with borrowed words allows you to expand your horizons and opportunities for creativity. And no matter how Russians talk about their country, politics and situation, everyone proudly speaks their own language and with pleasure emphasizes their belonging to the Russian speakers both at home and abroad.

Russian is one of the languages of international communication, especially in the post-Soviet space.

He is poeticized by many writers and has many fans among foreigners who, only at the behest of their hearts, and not because it is necessary, want to study it.

Literate people, of course, know the basic rules of grammar, spelling, punctuation, but few are familiar with them.

But in vain, because it really is much more exciting and interesting than cramming the rules from a textbook.

“The Russian language is an interesting fact in itself”

This is exactly what my teacher of Russian language and literature claimed.

I have never met a teacher more in love with his subject in my entire academic life.

She not only taught us how to write and speak Russian, she literally reveled in its sound.

And her lessons were incredibly exciting and interesting, because she taught them in a non-trivial way, actively used visual aids and constantly told something so interesting that you can’t read in a textbook.

Russian is one of the East Slavic languages.

It is state in the Russian Federation, as well as official in some countries of the former USSR, for example, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, etc.

It is widely distributed in the world (ranks eighth in terms of the number of people who consider it their own).

It is spoken by over 250 million people worldwide.

There are powerful Russian-speaking communities not only in most of the republics of the former USSR, but also in countries that are geographically distant from the Russian Federation: the USA, Turkey, Israel and others.

It is also considered one of the 6 working languages of the United Nations.

In general, there are plenty of reasons to be fluent in Russian (whether it is your native language or not is not so important).

But, alas, it is not easy for foreigners, especially those whose native language is not included in the Slavic group, to master Russian.

It has an interesting alphabet with unique letters, for example, "ъ", words that are spelled and sound completely different, changeable endings, distribution of words by gender, type and case, many rules and exceptions to these rules.

And what distinguishes the Russian language from others is that many interesting facts can be cited about it.

Interesting facts about the letters of the Russian language

Well, it would seem that there is nothing so interesting in the letters, especially in the letters of the Russian language, especially for the countries neighboring the Russian Federation, for whose inhabitants Russian, although not native, is familiar and understandable.

But as it turned out, there are many interesting facts about the letters of the Russian language:

The letter “f”, familiar and understandable to us today, turns out to have its own peculiarity: most of the words with it are borrowed from others.

A.S. knew this very well. Pushkin also tried in his "The Tale of Tsar Saltan" to use such words less.

In addition to the word “fleet”, you will not find another in the “Fairy Tale”.

How many words can you remember that begin with the letter "y"?

Well, let the strength of 5-6.

But it turns out that there are more than 70 such words in the Russian language.

Do you know words that start with the letter "y"?

Personally, I don't.

It turns out that there are such words, although all of them are hard-to-pronounce geographical names, for example, Ynykhsyt or Ytyk-kuel.

It seems incredible that there can be a word that contains three identical letters in a row.

But the Russian language distinguished itself here too, because it can boast of the word “long-necked”.

The letters "i" and "a" can serve as prefixes.

Do you want examples?

Please: “total”, “maybe”.

Interesting facts about the words of the Russian language

“If so many interesting facts are known about letters, then there must be an unmeasured amount of them about the words of this wonderful language,” I thought, and turned out to be absolutely right.

Here are some interesting things about the words of the Russian language:

Monosyllabic words are not uncommon in Russian, but for some reason most adjectives contain two or more syllables.

The only exception to this rule is "evil".

You would never have guessed (at least I certainly would not have guessed) that two such different words as “bull” and “bee” have the same root.

Do you know why?

Because earlier they said “bchela” to a honey insect, and the sounds that both bulls and bees made were called “bellowing”.

There are quite a lot of words in Russian that have 10 or more letters, and words that have more than 20 letters will not surprise us too much.

Ah, that dreaded word "win" that cannot be used in the first person.

How many people were forced to blush, mumbling indistinctly “I will win ...”, “I will run ...”, trying to find a way out of the bad situation into which they themselves have driven.

By the way, this is not the only “insufficient verb” (one that cannot be used in the first person) in Russian.

If someone wants to correct you, they say, the word "coffee" is masculine, you can safely say to him:

"Your information is outdated."

In 2009, the Ministry of Education itself recognized that coffee is of the middle kind.

Pundits apologized for the mistake that crept in: “coffee” is a derivative of “coffee”, which is actually a masculine gender.

Are you not enough given interesting facts about the Russian language?

So grab a few more:

The alphabet of the Russian language is the Cyrillic alphabet, which was subject to civil modification (I don’t know what this means, but Wikipedia says so☺).
God alone knows why, but until the 14th century, linguists, writers and other literate Russians called all words with a not too decent meaning "ridiculous verbs", even if they were not verbs at all.

We can be proud that in 2003 an interesting fact about the Russian language was included in the Guinness Book of Records.

The people fixing the records were amazed that we have a word consisting of 35 letters: “highly contemplating”.

In the Russian Federation, 99.4% of the inhabitants are fluent in Russian.

True, I think that no one has interviewed labor migrants, of whom there are so many now, but, oh well, this figure is still impressive.

The Russian language is gradually losing its position as the "official language" in many former Soviet republics due to the fact that it is being replaced by the state language of these countries.

In the video below you will find 12 more interesting facts about the Russian language:

What facts about the Russian language seem interesting to foreigners?

And here are some facts about the Russian language that seem most interesting to foreigners:

Why are there two letters in the alphabet at all, which do not represent sounds: “b” and “b”.

“Some kind of absurdity,” many foreigners think.

Well, how can it be that such a good word as "be" could not exist in the present tense?

But it feels great in the past and future.

Well, is it really so difficult to come up with a word for address?

"Comrade" and "citizen" went out of fashion, "master", "madam" did not take root.

And "man" and "woman" sound rude.

What remains? "Hey you"?

On the one hand, the order of words in sentences is arbitrary, but on the other hand, you cannot rearrange them as you please.

For example, rearrange the words in a short sentence "I'm going home" and each time you will have a new semantic load.

To turn an affirmative sentence into an interrogative one, just a question mark at the end and the appropriate intonation is enough.

No special words or constructions.

Of course, this is not all interesting facts about the Russian language.

There are so many of them that you won’t remember everything, and it’s quite difficult to tell about everything within one article.

What fact do you find most interesting?

Useful article? Don't miss out on new ones!
Enter your e-mail and receive new articles by mail