“The great, mighty and beautiful Russian language”
The native language is a living connection of times. With the help of language, a person understands the role of his people in the past and present, and becomes familiar with the cultural heritage.
The Russian language is the national language of the great Russian people. The importance of the Russian language in our time is enormous. Modern literary Russian is the language of our newspapers and magazines, fiction and science, government agencies and educational institutions, radio, cinema and television.
Language is called one of the most amazing weapons in the hands of humanity. However, you need to use it skillfully, having studied all its features and secrets. Can any of you say with confidence that you have mastered your native language perfectly? It seems that there will not be such people among the readers of this book. And here’s why: the more we realize the richness and greatness of the Russian language, the more demanding we become of our speech, the more acutely we feel the need to improve our style, fight for the purity of the language, and resist its corruption. N. M. Karamzin, who did a lot for the development and enrichment of the Russian language, wrote: “Voltaire said that at the age of six you can learn all the main languages, but all your life you need to learn your natural language. We Russians have even more work than others.”
Speaking and writing correctly and speaking and writing well are not the same thing. Even if you are fluent in literary language, it is always useful to think about how to make your speech richer and more expressive. This is taught by stylistics - the science of skillful choice of linguistic means.
The more literate a person is, the more demanding he is of his speech, the more acutely he understands how important it is to learn good style from wonderful Russian writers. They worked tirelessly to improve and enrich artistic speech and bequeathed to us to treat our native language with care. The Russian language has always been the pride of our classic writers; it instilled in them faith in the powerful forces and great destiny of the Russian people. “In days of doubt, in days of painful thoughts about the fate of my homeland, you alone are my support and support, oh great, mighty, truthful and free Russian language!” wrote I. S. Turgenev.
With the help of the Russian language you can express the subtlest shades of thought and reveal the deepest feelings. There is no such concept that cannot be called a Russian word. Reading the works of great writers, we immerse ourselves in the world created by their imagination, follow the thoughts and behavior of their heroes and sometimes forget that literature is the art of words. But everything that we learn about from books is embodied in the word; it does not exist outside the word!
The magical colors of Russian nature, the description of the rich spiritual life of people, the entire vast world of human feelings - everything is recreated by the writer with the help of the very words that serve us in everyday life. It is no coincidence that language is called one of the most amazing weapons in the hands of humanity. You just need to know how to use it. This is why it is necessary to study stylistics.
No one is born with a ready sense of language. Linguistic taste, like the entire cultural appearance of a person, is the result of experience, life, and upbringing. Who develops a sense of language? Parents, if their speech is literary correct and at the same time preserves the brightness of expressive means and the purity of the folk language; teachers who teach lessons with love and attention to their native language (even if it’s lessons in mathematics, geography, physical education or labor); a book by a great writer, theater, radio, television - all this contributes to the development of good linguistic taste in children and adults, in all listeners and readers.
With the light hand of Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, the phraseological unit “great and mighty” was firmly attached to the Russian language. This assessment of the native language was given by Ivan Sergeevich in the famous prose poem “In the days of doubt, in the days of painful thoughts...”. From a distance from French, tired of the liveliness of French speech, he knew better the greatness and power of the Russian language. And yet why is he great and powerful?
If we consider the Russian language from the point of view of grammar, then it is very complex both in word formation and syntax. The vocabulary of the Russian language is so loaded with synonyms, antonyms, paronyms, homonyms and homophones that it is difficult not only for foreigners, but also for native speakers to study it. Mastering Russian grammar and stylistics at a high level is the destiny of the few. Most are content with an average level of proficiency without comprehending the subtleties of the language.
The lexical composition of the Russian language is enormous, of which the average Russian speaker uses approximately a sixth of the entire vocabulary of the language.
The complexity of the Russian language is suitable for expressing complex thoughts. Word order, punctuation marks, and intonation play a role here. Many scientific works have been written in Russian.
In addition, the Russian language is flexible and expressive. He is melodious, beautiful and poetic. It reflected the entire history of the Russian people. A distinctive feature of the Russian language is the bright emotional coloring of words and the multiplicity of shades of meaning. In the Russian language, for each style of presentation, the corresponding linguistic forms are used, that is, for example, vernaculars are completely unsuitable for the book style, their use in this case would be inappropriate.
Masterpieces of poetry and prose were created in Russian. All the power and splendor of our language are captured in the works of Derzhavin, Zhukovsky, Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Tyutchev, Nekrasov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Blok, Bunin, Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva and many more worthy representatives of Russian literature.
The Russian language is indeed great and powerful and was given to a great people. And it is the sacred duty of this people to keep their language pure, not to litter it with slang, foreign words, jargon, and to replenish the language with worthy material. After all, preserving and enriching the native language means preserving and enriching the national culture.
Russian language is one of the most difficult. And this is connected not only with vocabulary and syntax, but also with its history itself. Even for us, native speakers, much in the Russian language is still unclear and mysterious. Linguists have repeatedly noted the acrophonic principle of constructing the Old Russian alphabet and even saw in it a hidden “message to the Slavs.” Each of the letters of the Cyrillic alphabet has its own name, and if you read these names in alphabetical order, you get: “Az buki veda. The verb good is natural. Live well, earth, and, like people, think about our peace. Rtsy the word is firmly - uk "Fuck it. Tsy, worm, shta ra yus yati." One of the options for translating this text is as follows: “I know the letters: writing is a property. Work hard, earthlings, as befits intelligent people - comprehend the universe! Carry the word with conviction: knowledge is the gift of God! Dare, delve in order to comprehend the existing light!”
Which language is closer to the Slavic “ancestor”?
There has long been a debate among patriotic residents of Slavic countries: which language is closer to the original Slavic? Where did the differences between the dialects on the territory of Eastern Rus' (i.e., present-day central Russia), Southern (modern Ukraine) and Western (now Belarus) come from? The fact is that different elements participated in the genesis of the national languages of these countries. In addition to the Slavs, Finno-Ugric tribes and Balts lived in Rus'. Nomads from the southern steppes often visited here. The Tatar-Mongol conquerors not only plundered and ravaged Rus', but also left behind many linguistic borrowings.
The Swedes, Germans, Poles - European neighbors, also enriched the Russian language with new words. The fact that a significant part of present-day Belarus was historically under the rule of Poland, and Southern Rus' was constantly subject to raids by nomads, could not but be reflected in the local languages. As they say, whoever you play with.
But which language is closer to its Proto-Slavic “ancestor”? We are forced to admit that the Russian language has moved very far from the Slavic language. Modern Ukrainian is much closer to it. If you don’t believe me, try reading liturgical books written in Church Slavonic.
It will be much easier for Ukrainians to understand them; Ukrainian to this day uses vocabulary that has long been considered archaic in our country.
But don't get too upset. The fact that our language today is so far from its progenitor is not an accident or the result of a Masonic conspiracy. This is the result of the painstaking work of many talented people who created the Russian literary language in the form in which it exists now. If it were not for the reforms inspired by them, we would not have the poetry of Pushkin, the prose of Tolstoy, or the drama of Chekhov. Who created the language we speak today?
The first "dismissal of letters"
In the 18th century, Peter I came to power. He began transformations in all spheres of life, and did not ignore the Russian language. But his reforms concern only the external side, they do not penetrate into the very essence of the language, its syntax, vocabulary, and grammar. Peter I simplifies the spelling by getting rid of the Greek letters psi, xi and omega. These letters did not represent any sounds in the Russian language, and their loss did not impoverish the language at all. Peter tried to get rid of a number of letters of the Russian alphabet: “Earth”, “Izhitsa”, “Fert”, and also removed the superscripts, but under pressure from the clergy these letters had to be returned.
The alphabetic reform made life easier not only for schoolchildren of Peter the Great’s time (they had to learn fewer letters), but also for printing houses, which no longer had to print extra characters that were not pronounced when reading.
Lomonosov responded about this as follows: “Under Peter the Great, not only the boyars and boyars, but also the letters, threw off their wide fur coats and dressed up in summer clothes.”
Why was the reform needed?
But the real reform is taking place through the efforts of writers and poets of the 18th century: Trediakovsky, Lomonosov, Karamzin. They create the Russian literary language and “consolidate success” with their works. Before that, the Russian language, due to constant contacts with Western Europe, was in a chaotic state. In it, vernacular forms coexisted with book ones, borrowings from German, French, and Latin were used along with Russian analogues. Trediakovsky changes the very principle of Russian versification, adopting and adapting the European syllabic-tonic system - based on the regular alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables.
Lomonosov divides all words of the Russian language into three groups: the first included those rarely used, especially in colloquial speech, but understandable to literate people: “I open”, “I call”; to the second - words common to the Russian and Church Slavonic languages: “hand”, “now”, “I honor”; and to the third group he included words that have no analogues in church books, that is, Russian words, not originally Slavic: “I speak,” “stream,” “only.”
Thus, Lomonosov distinguishes three “calms”, each of which was used in certain literary genres: the high calm was suitable for odes and heroic poems, the middle calm was used to write dramatic works, prose - in general, all works where it is necessary to depict living speech. Low calm was used in comedies, satire, and epigrams.
Finally, Karamzin enriches the Russian language with neologisms, he abandons Church Slavonic vocabulary, and the syntax of the language in his works approaches the “lighter” French. It is to Karamzin that we owe, for example, the appearance of the words “falling in love” or “sidewalk.”
Difficult letter "Y"
Karamzin was one of the ardent “fans” of the letter “e”, but he was not its inventor at all. In 1783, one of the first meetings of the Academy of Russian Literature took place. Its founder was Ekaterina Dashkova. Together with the most famous writers of her time: Derzhavin and Fonvizin, the princess discussed the project of the Slavic-Russian dictionary. For convenience, Ekaterina Romanovna suggested replacing the sound designation “io” with one letter “e”. The innovation was approved by the general meeting of the academy, Dashkova’s innovative idea was supported by Derzhavin, who began to use “ё” in his works. It was he who was the first to use the new letter in correspondence, and was also the first to type a surname with an “е”: Potemkin. At the same time, Ivan Dmitriev published the book “And My Trinkets”, imprinting all the necessary points in it. And finally, it became widely used after it appeared in Karamzin’s poetry collection.
The new letter also had its opponents. Minister of Education Alexander Shishkov is said to have furiously leafed through the numerous volumes of his library and with his own hand crossed out two dots above the letter. There were also many conservatives among the writers. Marina Tsvetaeva, for example, fundamentally wrote the word “devil” with an “o”, and Andrei Bely, for the same reasons, “zsolty”.
Printing houses also don’t like the letter, because it causes them to waste extra paint. In pre-revolutionary primers, it was banished to the very end of the alphabet, in the same company as the dying “Izhitsa” and “fita”. And these days its place is in the very corner of the keyboard. But not everywhere the letter “е” is treated with such disdain - in Ulyanovsk there is even a monument to it.
The secret of "Izhitsa"
In Lunacharsky's famous 1918 decree on changes in the Russian language, there is no mention of the letter; (“Izhitsa”), which was the last letter in the pre-revolutionary alphabet. By the time of the reform, it was extremely rare, and could be found mainly only in church texts.
In the civilian language, “Izhitsa” was actually used only in the word “miro”. In the silent refusal of the Bolsheviks from “izhitsi”, many saw a sign: the Soviet government seemed to be abandoning one of the seven sacraments - confirmation, through which the Orthodox are given the gifts of the Holy Spirit, designed to strengthen him in spiritual life.
It is curious that the undocumented removal of “Izhitsa,” the last letter in the alphabet, and the official elimination of the penultimate one, “fits,” were made the final alphabetic letter, “ya.” The intelligentsia saw in this another malicious intent of the new authorities, who deliberately sacrificed two letters in order to put at the end the letter expressing the human personality, individuality.
The secret of Russian swearing
Almost the entire 20th century was dominated by the version that the words that we call obscene came into the Russian language from the Mongol-Tatars. However, this is a misconception. Swearing is already found in Novgorod birch bark documents dating back to the 11th century: that is, long before the birth of Genghis Khan. The very concept of “checkmate” is quite late. From time immemorial in Rus' it was called “barking obscene”. Initially, obscene language exclusively included the use of the word “mother” in a vulgar, sexual context. The words denoting the genital organs, which we today refer to swearing, did not refer to “swearing.”
There are a dozen versions of the checkmate function. Some scientists suggest that swearing appeared at the turn of society’s transition from matriarchy to patriarchy and initially meant the authoritative assertion of a man who, having undergone the ritual of copulation with the “mother” of the clan, publicly announced this to his fellow tribesmen. There is also a hypothesis according to which “swearing” had a magical, protective function and was called “dog tongue.” In the Slavic (and Indo-European in general) tradition, dogs were considered animals of the “afterlife” and served the goddess of death Morena.
There is one more word that is unfairly classified today as swearing. For the purposes of self-censorship, let’s call it the “B” word. This lexeme quietly existed in the elements of the Russian language (it can even be found in church texts and official state documents), having the meanings “fornication”, “deception”, “delusion”, “heresy”, “error”. People often used this word to refer to dissolute women. Perhaps during the time of Anna Ioannovna this word began to be used with greater frequency and, probably, in the latter context, because it was this empress who banned it.
Language is a living organism, it is constantly evolving: new words appear, the meanings of old ones change. In the process of acquiring new meanings, some vocabulary units change their status, move into other language categories, including becoming curse words.
This fate befell, in particular, nouns denoting representatives of the left spectrum of political life in Russia. Words that until recently were neutral have now acquired an offensive and offensive meaning in the public consciousness.
For example, the word “democrat” is used in the meaning of “deceiver” and “thief” - based on the results of “democratic reforms” in the Russian Federation and in light of the behavior of inveterate “democrats” of Yeltsin’s call, who are entirely swindlers. These days you have to use this word carefully; you can get a slap in the face by calling someone you don’t want “democrat.”
The word “liberal” has acquired a generalized abusive meaning. This is a pederast, a pedophile, a bestialist, and much more, mainly associated with sexual perversion. But not only with them, “liberalism” in the mass consciousness is associated with any nasty thing, provided that it is extremely unnatural and disgusting.
The term “human rights activist” is used in conjunction with xenophobic words such as “anti-Semite” and “racist.” Anti-Semites hate Jews, racists hate blacks, and “human rights activists” hate Russians. “Human rights activists” feel such personal hostility towards Russian people and everything Russian in general that they cannot even eat. A synonym for the word “human rights activist” is “Russophobe”.
The names of some state and public institutions in today's sovereign-democratic Russia have also passed into the category of crude abuse.
For example, the expression “go to court” is understood as “go to hell!” The word "election" means "fraud." "President" means "self-appointed person." The term “deputy” is similar in meaning to the word “rogue”. And so on.
An analysis of changes in the semantic content of well-known terms reveals a depressing picture of the socio-political life of the Russian Federation. Classic obscene language is best suited to characterize her. But unprintable words are unprintable so as not to print them. Therefore, when describing Russian reality, terms that initially did not have such a meaning automatically acquire an abusive meaning. Life itself creates a kind of new swearing from the lexical material at hand.
Actually, this is a sin. Swearing is already a sin, but living in a swearing reality and enduring it, hypocritically calling obscene things with decent words, is a mortal sin. It can only be redeemed by active repentance and correction of reality. This is what we in the party are trying to do.
Alexander Nikitin
Secretary of TsPS MANPADS "RUS"