The Russian language is one of the most complex and rich languages in the world. It has a long history of development. However, like Russia itself.
Language is not a random collection of letters and words. It represents a system. We see the richness of the Russian language at all its levels, from sounds to complex sentences and entire texts. For example, in Russian, one of the few languages, there is a division of verbs into persons. This is not found in English and many other languages of the world.
The vocabulary of the Russian language contains enormous wealth. There are many words in it to denote not only feelings or actions, but even their shades.
A SELECTION OF THE MOST INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE
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 this letter - fleet.
There are only 74 words in the Russian language that begin with the letter Y. But most of us only remember iodine, yoga and Yoshkar-Ola.
There are words starting with Y in the Russian language. These are the names of Russian cities and rivers: Ygyatta, Yllymakh, Ynakhsyt, Ynykchansky, Ytyk-kyul.
The only words in the Russian language with three letters E in a row are long-necked (and others on the neck: for example, crooked-, short-).
In the Russian language there is a word with a unique prefix “ko” - nook.
The only word in the Russian language that does not have a root is take out. It is believed that this word contains the so-called zero root, which alternates with the root -im- (take out-im-at). Previously, until about the 17th century, this verb looked like take out, and it had a material root, the same as in remove, embrace, understand (cf. remove, embrace, understand), but later the root -nya- was reinterpreted as the suffix - well- (as in stick, blow).
The only one-syllable adjective in the Russian language is angry.
In the Russian language there are words with prefixes unique to the language and- (total, total) and a- (maybe; obsolete “and you won’t be lucky”), formed from the conjunctions “and” and “a”.
The words bull and bee have the same root. In the works of ancient Russian literature, the word bee was written as bchela. 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 buchat, which has the meaning of “roar”, “buzz”, “buzz” and is etymologically related to the words bee, bug and bull, then it becomes clear what the general meaning of these words was.
Dahl proposed replacing the foreign word atmosphere with the Russian words kolozemitsa or mirokolitsa.
Until the 14th century in Rus', all indecent words were called “absurd verbs.”
In the 1993 Guinness Book of Records, the longest word in the Russian language was named X-ray electrocardiographic; in the 2003 edition, it was named “excessively considerate.”
In the Grammar Dictionary of the Russian Language by A. A. Zaliznyak, 2003 edition, the longest (in letters) common noun lexeme in dictionary form is the adjective private entrepreneur. Consists of 25 letters.
The longest verbs are to re-examine, to substantiate and to internationalize (all - 24 letters; the word forms -uyuschimi and -hivsya - 25 letters each).
The longest nouns are misanthropy and eminence (24 letters each; word forms -ami - 26 letters each, however, misanthropy is practically not used in the plural).
The longest animate nouns are eleventh-grader and clerk (21 letters each, word forms -ami - 23 letters each).
The longest adverb recorded by the dictionary is unsatisfactory (19 letters). However, it must be taken into account that the overwhelming majority of qualitative adjectives in -й / -й are formed into adverbs in -о / -е, which are not always recorded in the dictionary.
The longest interjection included in the Grammar Dictionary is fizkult-hello (13 or 14 letters depending on the status of the hyphen).
The word is accordingly the longest preposition. It consists of 14 letters. The longest particle is exclusively one letter shorter.
In Russian there are so-called insufficient verbs. Sometimes a verb does not have any form, and this is due to the laws of euphony. For example: win. He will win, you will win, I... will win? Shall I run? will I win? Philologists suggest using replacement constructions “I will win” or “I will become a winner.” Since there is no 1st person singular form, the verb is "insufficient".
To successfully master the difficult phrase “I love you,” the British use the mnemonic “yellow-blue bus.”
And yet, yes - in the Russian language there is a word with six consonant letters in a row, and even with only one vowel - vzbzdnil.
As they say, the Russian language is great and powerful. Today, many people no longer understand what they are writing, or rather, that they are making a lot of mistakes. But in vain. Still, when you communicate with someone by correspondence or on forums, it is much more pleasant to communicate with a person who does not make mistakes than with someone who wrote, “Hello. How's Dila? I’ll be free today at 9.” Agree that this is not a very pleasant read. But in general, we are not studying the rules of the Russian language here, but I would just like to give some very interesting and entertaining facts about words in the Russian language.
1. There are only a few words with three identical vowels in a row, namely long-necked (short-necked, tortuous) and snake-eater.
2 . The only one-syllable adjective in the Russian language is Zloy.
3. There are two different words in the Russian language - Indian (indigenous) and Indian (resident of India). But in almost all other languages these words are written and pronounced exactly the same.
4. The word "take out" has no root.
5. There are only three native Russian words that begin with the letter “A” - Az, Azbuka, Avos.
6. Previously, in Rus', obscene and indecent words were called “Ridiculous verbs.”
7. Many English people remember the sentence in Russian “I love you” thanks to three English words that sound similar - “Yellow Blue Bus”.
8. The longest recorded noun in the Russian language is “high excellency” (24 letters), an adverb is the word “unsatisfactory” (19 letters), the longest preposition is “accordingly” (14 letters), a particle is “exclusively” (13 letters), and the longest verb is “to be re-examined.”
9. Many people still argue about how to correctly pronounce the verb “Win” in the first person. Will I win? Or will I win? There are no such words, but philologists suggest replacing this word with “I will become a winner.”
10. Almost all words containing the letter “F” are borrowed. A.S. Pushkin was very proud that in his “The Tale of Tsar Saltan” the letter “F” appears in just one word - Fleet.
11. It is believed that there are no words starting with the letter “Y”. But that's not true. Many geographical names (cities, rivers) begin with this letter (Ygyatta, Yllymakh, Ynakhsyt).
12. Now many people do not attach importance to the letter “Ё”, but because of this trifle another word can turn out - case and case, donkey and donkey, everything and everything, sky and palate, perfect and perfect, etc.
13. There are no such words as “NO” and “THEY”.
14. The word “Umbrella” came to us from Holland initially in a diminutive form, and only later they began to use the simple word “Umbrella”.
15. The words “Dress” and “Put on” are two different words. They dress another person, but put it on themselves. To make it easier to remember, we came up with this short memo: “They put on Nadezhda, but they put on clothes.”
16. In Cyrillic, the letter “X” was pronounced “Her”, which is where the word “poherit” came from, which meant “to cross out on paper”, and only later did this word acquire its modern meaning of “Lose”.
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The history of the Russian language goes back thousands of years. And it is not at all surprising that previously many words to which we have long been accustomed were translated differently or even taken from some other languages. But today people are only surprised at what interesting facts there are about the Russian language.
Words starting with the letter “Y” exist!
A small but interesting fact that definitely deserves the attention of a Russian person. The fact that there are no words starting with the letter “Y” is a stereotype. They exist, although in small quantities. These are geographical names, such as Ynykchan (village), Ygyatta (river), Yllymakh (village), Ynakhsyt (village) and Ytyk-kyyol (this is the name of the administrative center of the Tattinsky ulus of Yakutia). It is interesting that all these geographical objects are located in Yakutia.Considering unusual facts about the Russian language, I would like to note that the only word (from the multi-billion dollar list) that does not have a root is the verb “take out”. And only three nouns starting with the letter “a”. These are “az”, “maybe” and “alphabet”. But we are talking about original Russian words - the rest of the nouns are borrowed from foreign languages.
The richness of the Russian language is in synonyms
Synonyms are words that, as a rule, belong to the same part of speech, differ in pronunciation and spelling, but have a similar lexical meaning. What facts about the Russian language are known to every person? Perhaps one of these is the statement that we have the most synonym-rich language. And this is true. If you ask any Russian person to choose synonyms for a word, he will, without hesitation, immediately name at least five. Beautiful - attractive, stunning, luxurious, charming, enchanting... The lists of synonyms for words in the Russian language can be selected endlessly. What else interesting things should you know about the Russian language? Perhaps synonymous phrases. Take, for example, not the most pleasant word - “die”. It is one of the richest synonyms! What can they replace it with: “give your soul to God”, “leave our mortal world”, “go to the next world”, “play in the box”, “give oak”, “stretch your legs”, “repose”. The expressions are completely different in emotional coloring and sound, but they mean the same thing. And if in the case of ordinary synonyms in foreign languages it is possible to select a translation, then it is unlikely that the same Englishmen can say “he stretched out his legs” in relation to the deceased. By the way, the portal www.sinonim.org automatically selects synonyms for the word you enter.Common words and their origins
The well-known word “negligence” did not originate from “robe”. In fact, it comes from a word like “khalad”. That is cold. Thus, if a person talks about a negligent attitude, then he means that his opponent is very cool in any matter. And the word “doctor” comes from the verb “to lie.” However, this did not mean a lie in those days. This verb was translated as “to know, to speak” in the modern sense. But “friend” is a word that comes from the definition of “another, stranger.” Today, on the contrary, people call this only the people closest to them, who have literally become family. By the way, in almost all Slavic languages “friend” sounds almost the same. In Czech and Slovak it is druh, in Polish it is drug, even in Lithuanian it is dra?gas.Longest words
If we talk about the longest words that exist, then the German language will come to mind first. Indeed, a person who does not know its specifics, looking at some text, may be horrified by the length of some nouns or verbs. However, interesting facts about the Russian language say that we also have very large words. The names of chemical elements can be simply endless. One of the longest such words is “methylpropenylenedihydroxycinnamenylacrylic” (used in combination with the noun “acid”). Well, from a theoretical point of view, the length of a Russian word can be limitless. Take, for example, “great-grandmother”. After all, if you look at your family tree, then there can be a lot of prefixes “great-.” Considering this topic, I would like to note a word that was registered by the Guinness Book of Records. And that's the 35-letter definition of "overly deliberative."Paronyms and homonyms: hell for a foreigner
Most people whose native language is Russian get confused in the use of paronymous words, and the same can be said about foreigners, for whom they become a real hell. Addressee and addressee, for example. Almost identical in sound and spelling, but they are absolute antonyms. The addressee is the one who receives the parcel or message, but the addressee is the organization or person sending the notification or parcel. Similar cases include the words “ignorant” and “ignoramus”. The last term defines an ill-mannered person, but the first one defines an ignorant, uneducated person. What about homonyms? The most popular example is a lock: for keys or as an architectural creation. The word “glass” can mean a liquid that leaks or something that is inserted into a window frame. What if entire sentences are homonyms? This is where everyone gets confused, because sometimes they can be identified by their writing (if you couldn’t catch the meaning): “We’re on friendly terms!” - “We are married”; “Awkward things” - “I’m carrying different things,” etc. The listed examples are also called homophones. Simply put, phonetic ambiguity.Many world-famous figures of past years and centuries loved and respected the Russian language, treating it with all respect. Some have studied it specifically and continue to master it in order to write scientific papers, defend presentations and teach. For example, Geoffrey Hosking, a famous British historian who is a specialist in Russian literature. Or Morier Abhay (Russianist from India), Oliver Bullough (British journalist of our time) and many other figures. And one cannot help but quote the great words about the Russian language, the author of which is Turgenev: “O great, mighty, truthful and free Russian language.” And, I must say, one can only be surprised at this love of Ivan Sergeevich. He was sure that a person’s true love for his homeland is impossible without love for his own language. And the great writer was right.
An insult or an old term?
How the word “nonsense” came into use. It has a very interesting history, which dates back to the end of the last century. Such a famous doctor as Gali Mathieu worked in France. He treated his patients with jokes! The doctor became so popular that he even served people by mail, sending them healing puns. This is how the word “nonsense” appeared, on behalf of the great doctor. Then it was interpreted as a healing joke. But now this word is translated completely differently. Nonsense, nonsense, stupidity, nonsense - these are the synonyms people choose as soon as they hear “nonsense”.Obscene expression or church term?
Many will be surprised, but there is nothing wrong with a word like “dick”. This is exactly what one of the letters was called in the Slavic church alphabet, designated “x” in writing. Crossing out in the shape of a cross was also called by this word. And if they crossed out any place in the text, then this process was called the term “throw away”. The word has passed through the centuries, and today it means something completely different. By the way, another interesting point is that the expression “suffering from bullshit” in Russian is translated as “suffering from a hernia.” This is because “hernia” is “hernia” (from Latin). Doctors made this diagnosis for those young men who were the children of wealthy townspeople and did not want to join the army. So at the end of the century before last, every fifth Russian conscript “suffered from bullshit.” These are very interesting facts about the Russian language, after learning which you can change your attitude towards some words and teach others literacy.Could you tell us a little more about our language?
But we use what we have. So, we bring to your attention the most interesting facts about the Russian language.
An interesting fact is that the only word in the Russian language that does not have a root is the word “take out”. It is believed that in this word the so-called zero root, which alternates with the root -im- (take out-im-at).
Previously, until about the 18th century, this verb looked like take out, and it had a material root, the same as in take off, hug, understand(cf. shoot, hug, understand).
However, the root -nya- was subsequently reinterpreted as the suffix -nu- (as in put, blow).
Another unusual and interesting fact about the Russian language. The words “bull” and “bee” have the same root. Yes, yes, don't faint!
In the works of ancient Russian literature, the word bee was written as “bychela”. The alternation of vowels ъ/ы is explained by the origin of both sounds from the same Indo-European sound u.
If you remember the dialect verb rumble, having the meaning of “roar”, “buzz”, “buzz” and is etymologically related to the words bee, bug and bull, it becomes clear what the general meaning of these words was.
Another interesting fact about the Russian language that you probably didn’t know. The longest nouns are “misanthropy” and “excellency” (24 letters each; word forms - 26 letters each).
Did you know that the longest adverb recorded in the Russian language dictionary is “unsatisfactory” (19 letters). Although it should be taken into account that the vast majority of qualitative adjectives in -й/-й are formed into adverbs in -о/-е, which are not always recorded in the dictionary.
And this is a very necessary and interesting fact. Experts in the Russian language probably already know it. In Russian there are so-called insufficient verbs.
Sometimes a verb does not have any form, and this is due to the laws of euphony. For example, the word “win”:
- he will win
- you will win,
- I... – will I win? Shall I run? will I win?
Philologists suggest using the replacement constructions “I will win” or “I will become a winner.”
Since there is no 1st person singular form, the verb is "insufficient".
Now you know quite a few interesting facts about the great and mighty Russian language. If you have any questions, you can ask them in the comments.
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The statement that the great and mighty Russian language is one of the most expressive and richest has long become an axiom. A clear confirmation of this is a selection of amazing facts about the Russian language.
The Russian language has an interesting alphabet, which contains unique letters, the meaning of which is not fully understood. For example, a hard sign denoted in the letter “ъ”.
And if we consider the not so often used letters “s” or “th”. Do you know many words in which these letters occupy the first position? In fact, there are not so few of them:
- The Russian language has over 70 words starting with “y”: youg, yurugu, iota, yesha, Yeri, yyusaka.
- Several dozen words starting with “s”. These are mainly the names of Russian rivers and cities borrowed from the Turkic language: Yrban, Yb, Yra, Ynakhsyt, Ynat, Ylych.
Despite the fact that the letter “f” is present in all Cyrillic Slavic alphabets, words using it are borrowed. Master of words A.S. Pushkin at one time managed to write the permanent work “The Tale of Tsar Saltan”, using only one borrowed word with this letter - fleet.
Few people have thought that the word “savagery” is the longest of those formed from letters in alphabetical order.
The concept of “double consonants” is familiar to many. But not everyone knows the amazing fact about the Russian language that there are words with triple vowels. These words are long-necked, zoo-association and snake-eater. Another equally interesting example of a word in which three pairs of identical letters are located in a row is telegammaapparat.
Russian speech is also rich in difficult-to-pronounce words, in which 5 or even 6 consonants are located in a row. These are: filterpress, counterstrategy, screw up, adjunct.
Fun facts about morphemes
The fact that the main elements of word formation are morphemes, such as the prefix root and suffix, has been known to many since school. But, did you know that in Russian there is a word that is devoid of its main part - the root. The word “take out” has a zero root, formed as a result of alternation with another form of the word “take out”.
It is also difficult to imagine the fact that two completely different words “bee” and “bull” have the same root. The reason for this explanation lies in the fact that previously honey-bearing insects were called nothing more than “beaches”. The sounds made by bulls and these insects were called “booming.”
Continuing the topic is another amazing fact of the Russian language. There are no restrictions on the number of consoles. In addition, there are words with unique and unusual prefixes for Slavic speech:
- nook with the prefix “ko”;
- total with the prefix “and”;
- maybe with the prefix “a”.
The length of Russian words can be unlimited. Among the words formed as a result of the merger of several, there are polysyllabic variants, the writing of which involves the use of 25 or more letters. These are mainly medical, geological and chemical terms. The longest of them includes 55 letters: “tetrahydropyranylcyclopentyltetrahydropyridopyridine.”
Their complete opposite - monosyllabic words in Russian speech are also not a rare phenomenon. Among them there are also interesting options, which contain 5-6 letters: get in, to your heart's content, passion, casually, open.
Amazing variations with parts of speech
Many people were probably perplexed by the word “win.” This verb cannot be used in the first person. I will win or I will run, or maybe I will win - neither option is correct. The absence of a given form is explained by the laws of euphony. Philologists suggest replacing a simple verb in this form with constructions like “I will become a winner” or “I will win.”
The verb "to win" belongs to the category of "insufficient". He is not the only one of his kind. Verbs such as “vacuum”, “to dare”, “to find oneself”, “to convince”, “to outshine” are also deprived of the first person form.
Take, for example, another verb “to be.” How is it that he cannot exist in the present time, but feels excellent in the past and future?
Among the amazing facts of the Russian language is the abundance of palindromes. They are most often found among nouns. These words are read the same in both directions: rotator, sabbath, tevet, flood, lump, order.
And finally, a not so significant, but quite interesting point: the longest particle of Russian speech is the word “exclusively”.