Mysteries and secrets of philology
“How many languages are there on the globe? What are the languages? What are living languages and what are dead languages, and are there cases when a language is created by one person? - all these questions will be answered by linguistics - the science of human language in general and of all specific languages that have been and are in the world.
This amazing Esperanto
There has long been a myth about how people decided to build a tower in Babylon that would reach the sky. The builders began their work, but the angry God "confused their languages", they ceased to understand each other and could not continue the construction.
Attempts to create a language that would be understandable, common to all people, began to be made in ancient times. In IV-III centuries. BC e. ancient Greek thinker Alexarch based on Koine Greek (from Greek koine4 dialektos - "common language") developed the first artificial language in history.
Since then, hundreds and hundreds of projects of international artificial languages have appeared, but only a few of them have gained distribution and support. These languages include Volapuk (Volyapyuk), Interlingua, Ido, Occidental and, of course, Esperanto.
Volapyuk (Volyapyuk), created in 1879 by the German scientist I. M. Schleyer, became the first artificial language to be implemented in oral communication and literature. In Volapuk, the words of natural languages, in particular Latin, English, German, French and others, are modified in such a way that they lose their recognition. An example is the word itself. Volapuk formed from two English words: world("peace") > vol + speak("to speak") > pu#k. In this way, Volapuk(volapu#k) - "world, world language".
A little later, two more artificial languages \u200b\u200bwere created: interlingua (name speaks for itself) and oksidental (occidental) ("Western language"). Their grammatical structure is based on the Latin language, the vocabulary includes the roots of different European languages. These languages suffer, however, from one drawback - they are oriented towards the people of the Western world. The assimilation of such a language for the inhabitants of the East is very difficult.
But the most widespread international artificial language is, by far, Esperanto , created in 1887 by the Warsaw physician and polyglot Ludwik Zamenhof (1859–1917), whose pseudonym Dr. Esperanto(esperanto in Esperanto - "hoping") became the name of the new language.
Initially, Esperanto became widespread in Poland and Russia, but by the beginning of the 20th century it gained many supporters in other countries of the world (now millions (!) of people speak it).
This language is extremely easy, it can be learned "jokingly". A short Esperanto course will take you less than two hours, after which you will be able to read Esperanto texts with a dictionary, and if you have already tried to learn any of the Romance or Germanic languages, even without a dictionary. The fact is that Esperanto compares favorably with other artificial languages not only in the logic and simplicity of grammar, but primarily in vocabulary, which is basically international: the roots of words in it are 60 percent taken from Romance languages (mainly Latin), 30 percent from Germanic and 10 percent from Slavic. This means that any educated person will be able to recognize familiar words in Esperanto texts. Telegrafo, macino, citrono… It is unlikely that in this case you will need a translation.
A huge role in Esperanto is played by word-building affixes, which makes it possible to produce the entire vocabulary of the language from a limited number of roots.
But the most important thing is grammar. It includes only 16 basic rules that do not allow exceptions - the dream of any student! So, for example, all nouns have the ending -about
(homo - "man", patro - "father", patrino - "mother"), suffix -in
indicates feminine. All adjectives end in -but
(homa - "human", patra - "paternal", patrina - "maternal"). Adverbs end in -e
(bone - "good", malbone - "bad") etc.
The article for all names and their forms is la . Plural gets ending -j . There are only two cases - nominative and accusative. In the accusative, the ending is added to the stem -n , other case meanings are transmitted using prepositions.
Now let's learn the verbs. They also differ in endings: the indefinite form ends in -i (skribi - "to write"), currently on -as (mi skribas - "I write", li skribas - "he writes"), elapsed time on -is (mi skribis - "I wrote"), the future is on -os (mi skribos - "I will write"). Conditional and imperative moods are also formed using special endings, respectively. -us (mi skribus - "I would write") And -u (skribu - "write, write").
Knowing the basic rules of Esperanto, you can easily translate from it, for example, the following poetic lines:
Blankadas velo unusola
En la nebula mara blu'.
Of course, this is M. Yu. Lermontov: “The sail of a lonely one turns white / In the fog of the blue sea.”
But even if you were unable to translate it yourself, you were able to read the lines of Lermontov's "Sail"! This is not difficult to do, since each letter in the Esperanto alphabet (Latin is taken as the basis) is always read the same way, regardless of its place in the word and combinations with other letters. The stress always falls on the second syllable from the end.
Thanks to the ease of learning (relative, of course), neutrality (Esperanto does not belong to any people), richness and flexibility, this language has become a truly living, full-fledged means of communication.
Today, works of world literary classics from more than 50 languages have been translated into Esperanto: the Bible, Sophocles, Aesop, Dante, Shakespeare, Pushkin, Bulgakov, Tolkien, etc., original compositions are created on it. More than one hundred and fifty periodicals are published, and more than ten radio stations broadcast. It is the second most spoken language on the Internet (after English).
There are over 20 million Esperantists in the world. If you want to join their ranks, grab the textbook "La Esperanto" as soon as possible.
It turns out that there are much fewer differences between proper and common names than it seems at first glance. Proper names can turn into common nouns, and common nouns, in turn, into proper ones. The consequence of such a transition is the enrichment of the dictionary, the appearance of homonyms and many other interesting phenomena.
emperor and cake
About proper names and common nouns
The legendary ancient Russian singer-poet and musical instrument, the Roman patrician and patron of sciences and arts, the French emperor and puff pastry with custard… Is it possible to find a connection between these concepts? It turns out that it is possible: they correspond to homonyms. One of them ( Bayan, Maecenas, Napoleon) are proper names and serve as the names of single objects, isolated from a number of homogeneous ones; other ( button accordion, philanthropist, Napoleon) - household names , serving as generalized names of objects.
Proper names arise on the basis of common nouns. However, a common noun becomes a proper name only when the connection between its meaning and what it names is broken (compare: Faith Hope Love as abstract concepts and Faith Hope Love as female names; ball- a small ball and Ball- the name of the dog, etc.).
But the reverse process is also possible, when common nouns are created on the basis of their own. So, the big perfected harmonica accordion named after their own Bayan (Boyan). Let us recall the lines from the Tale of Igor's Campaign:
“But the prophetic Boyan, if he wanted to sing a song to someone, then spread his thoughts along the tree, like a gray wolf on the ground, a gray eagle under the clouds.<…>O Boyan, the nightingale of the old time!”
Roman patrician (aristocrat in Ancient Rome) Gaius Tsilny Maecenas, who lived in the 1st century BC. e., being a wealthy man, patronized poets (including Virgil and Horace). Over time, this name turned into a household name and began to denote a generally generous patron of the sciences and arts. And Napoleon cake and cake, according to legend, owe their name to Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, who loved this type of confectionery.
There are many examples when proper names become common nouns. Let's consider the most interesting ones.
One of the ancient legends tells about the handsome young man Narcissus, who was so in love with himself that he did not notice anyone or anything around, but all the time looked at his reflection in the water. The gods, angry, turned him into a plant. The white narcissus flower leans to one side and seems to be looking down at its reflection with a yellow eye. Such plant names are also associated with ancient mythology, such as cypress And hyacinth. Once, the son of King Keos and friend of Apollo, Cypress accidentally killed a deer while hunting - his favorite and the favorite of all the inhabitants. The inconsolable young man asked Apollo to give him eternal sadness, and God turned him into a slender cypress tree (since then, the Greeks began to hang a cypress branch at the door of the house where the deceased is). The beautiful (usually bright red) hyacinth flower is named after the son of the king of Sparta, Hyacinth, who died during a discus throwing competition. The flower of sorrow grew from the blood of Hyacinth.
Sometimes plants get their names from the place where they were taken from: coffee(from the name of the country Kaffa, located in Africa), peach(from Persia - modern Iran), Orange(Dutch word appelsien Literally translated as "Chinese apple"). And not only plants. For example, the common word trousers comes from the name of the Dutch city of Bruges.
Quite often, common names go back to the names of famous scientists, inventors ... Here are some: ampere(after the French physicist Ampère), watt(named after the English physicist Watt), volt(named after the Italian physicist Volta) ... The French cavalry general Galliffet invented trousers of a special cut - riding breeches, Scottish chemist Mackintosh - waterproof raincoat. Colt, Maxim, Mauser, Nagant - famous inventors of weapons. The Belgian master Sachs gave the name to the popular wind instrument - saxophone.
Along the way, let's say a few words about common nouns - derivatives of surnames.
The names of the outstanding Russian scientists D. I. Mendeleev (mendelevium), I. V. Kurchatov (kurchatovium) are immortalized in the names of new chemical elements. Many minerals are given the names of our compatriots: Yu. A. Gagarin (gagarinite), M. Yu. Lermontov (lermontovite), M. V. Lomonosov (lomonosovite) ...
Proper names, becoming common nouns, can reveal the character of a person with extraordinary accuracy. For example, we call a stupid half-educated youth mitrofanushka(after the character of the comedy D. I. Fonvizin "Undergrowth"), an obsequious, hypocritical person who is afraid to express his opinion, an unprincipled careerist - silent(A. S. Griboedov "Woe from Wit"), a liar and a braggart - Munchausen(R. E. Raspe "Stories of Baron Munchausen ..."). About famous people:
Maybe Plato's own
And quick-witted Newtons
Russian land to give birth ...
M. V. Lomonosov
N.V. Gogol, speaking about his heroes, emphasized the timeless universality of the images he created. For example: “Perhaps… they will say that now Nozdryov is gone. Alas! Nozdryov will not be out of the world for a long time. He is everywhere between us and, perhaps, only walks in a different caftan; but people are frivolously impenetrable, and a person in a different caftan seems to them a different person.
Some proper names that have become common nouns are known to us as philological terms.
For example, one of the Slavic alphabets is called Cyrillic(by the name of one of its creators - Cyril); many names of literary movements go back to proper names: Byron - Byronism, Karamzin - Karamzinism, Petrarch - petrarchism... Adventure-rich wanderings or woeful wanderings we call odyssey(Odysseus - the mythical king of Ithaca, the hero of the Trojan War), the adventures of a hero deprived of human society - robinsonade(Robinson is the hero of Defoe's novel "Robinson Crusoe")...
Years, decades, centuries pass... Proper names are often forgotten... But many of them have found a new life, becoming common nouns.
Anyone who has ever studied another language has had to deal with the anguish of translation. About what mistakes even experienced translators sometimes make, about verbal mistakes and curiosities, read below.
The misadventures of translation, or why beets turned into compote
Once, the newspaper Nedelya conducted a half-joking, half-serious experiment to find out what changes a text undergoes after it has been translated into other languages. Professional translators were involved in the experiment. Each of the invitees, having an excellent knowledge of two adjacent languages, had to accept a text from his colleague and, transposing it into another language, pass it on to the next one.
An excerpt from “The Tale of how Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Nikiforovich quarreled” was taken as the source: She (Agafiya Fedoseevna) gossiped, and ate boiled beetroot in the morning, and swore well, - and with all these various activities, her face was not on for a minute did not change its expression, which only women can usually show.
Translators, having received the text, set to work. At first, in the English and German versions, little has changed. But now, passing through Japanese, French and Indonesian (in the latter, the personal pronouns he and she are denoted by the same word), and then through Dutch and Turkish, the phrase was transformed as follows:
While the woman was swearing while eating the liquid beetroot brew, the man was talking. They did this without showing their feelings, as is customary for women.
But a resident of Sudan was especially creative in approaching the matter, changing a specific concoction of beets into a common concoction of the fruits of the earth and, conversely, the general was engaged in chatter for a specific boast of his imaginary exploits. In turn, when translated from the Yoruba language into English, the fruits of the earth turned into fruits, and the expression about boasting of exploits was conveyed by the English idiom beat in timpani.
There is very little left. “What is a liquid fruit brew? - thought the connoisseur of two languages at the same time - the African tribe of Bambara and French. Yes, this is nothing but compote! Well, where there are timpani, there are tom-toms (this is such an African drum).
And now came the final phase of the experiment - a comparison of the most recent translation with the original language. After passing through the hands of at least two dozen translators, Gogol's phrase was transformed into the following ridiculous lines:
After drinking the compote, she threw the junk out of the hut, and he joyfully scored into the tom-toms.
Of the 35 words of the original, only one came to the finish line: the personal pronoun she, and the meaning of the phrase was completely lost!
The well-known linguist and popularizer of the science of language E.A. Vartanyan, analyzing this experiment in his book Journey into the Word, asks the question: “What happened? Why did the “broken telephone” mechanism work during the translation?
It turns out that there are many dangers in the difficult task of literary (and not only literary) translation. Here are the main ones.
The so-called false friends of the translator Words in one language that are similar in sound to words in another, but different in meaning. There are many such words in every language. You may encounter them when learning a foreign language, such as English. It's pretty easy to confuse English compositor with Russian composer, while in English this word does not mean a person who composes music, but a typographical compositor. This happened to one translator who translated The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. In his version, the famous detective, seeing someone's hands stained with printing ink, immediately guesses that this person is ... a composer! ..
Here are some more examples of false friends of the translator in Russian and some Slavic languages: the Czech word trup does not mean at all corpse, but torso; Polish zyletka not vest, but blade; in Ukrainian heel not heel, but ring, ring; in Belarusian ratch not speech, but thing, just like seamelon has nothing to do with watermelon, which means pumpkin.
Aren't they funny examples? You will probably find many such tricky pairs when comparing your native language with Russian, although, most likely, in the case of non-closely related languages, there will still be fewer of them.
The second reason for numerous mistakes is ignorance idiom (stable expressions, phraseological units). Recall that it was precisely because of the incorrect translation of one idiom that in the end the ill-fated tom-tom appeared in our experimental phrase.
When an Englishman says: He is pulling your legs”, he does not mean at all that someone is pulling your leg. It's just that they laugh at you, make fun of you. When the Germans tell you Hals und Beinbruch! They don't want you to break your neck at all. On the contrary, they want neither fluff nor feathers. On this account, there is such a rule: you need to translate foreign proverbs and sayings not verbatim, but replace them with parallel Russian ones, otherwise oddities cannot be avoided.
Many errors are also caused by the fact that the translator does not know (or knows poorly) the culture of the country from whose language he is translating. Recall once again the experiment described above: many mistakes were caused precisely by the fact that translators brought into the text the linguistic and cultural features of their native language. But there is such a thing as non-equivalent (untranslatable) vocabulary. In every language there are words that do not have exact analogues in other languages. In the language of the Sami, who live in the north of Sweden, Finland and Russia, there are a lot of peculiar words regarding deer breeding, naming their different breeds, types of pastures, etc. The Arabic language is rich in words for varieties of sand or breeds of camels. And in the languages of Asia, a rich vocabulary has developed regarding rice and dishes from it. The translator, if he strives for the most accurate transmission of the original, cannot but take into account the fact that languages “see the world” differently.
So, a lot of traps lie in wait for the translator at every turn. And in order to get around all these traps, a translator needs three things: excellent knowledge of the language, linguistic flair and respect for foreign culture and traditions.
Linguistics is fraught with many secrets and mysteries. Paleography(from Greek. palaios- ancient and grapho- I am writing) tells about some of these secrets, about ancient writings, which scientists were not able to unravel right away.
Champollion "sick"
hieroglyphs
It's hard to believe, but humanity owes the greatest discovery in linguistics of our time to... Napoleon Bonaparte.
The famous commander was a smart man who respected science and scientists, so he decided to take on his Egyptian expedition not only 38 thousand soldiers, but also 200 artists and scientists. While the soldiers fought, scientists had to study the ancient monuments left over from the once great civilization of Ancient Egypt. And although the expedition failed and Napoleon did not conquer Egypt, the scientists did their job: North Africa ceased to be a mysterious country, with the exception of one riddle - the riddle of Egyptian hieroglyphs. The case helped.
In August 1799, during earthworks near the city of Rosetta, a soldier of the Napoleonic army came across a slab of black basalt covered with some kind of inscriptions. There were three texts on the stone. At the top, the text was written in hieroglyphs - "sacred" signs, in the middle - in some unknown language - with "native" letters, and at the bottom - in ancient Greek. Only these last - "Hellenic" - letters could be read by scientists, since the ancient Greek language at that time was well known to all educated people. All three inscriptions reported the same thing: they glorified the Egyptian king Ptolemy. Apparently, the priests wanted to tell the whole world about this and therefore addressed people of three different nationalities in three languages known to them. Fairly assuming that they have three versions of the same text (in other words - trilingua), the scientists realized that they had the key to decipher the hieroglyphic writing.
The news of the discovery quickly spread around Europe and fueled the excitement of researchers: everyone wanted to be the first to decipher the mysterious inscriptions. However, no matter how hard the scientists fought, they did not succeed.
But in 1802, an eleven-year-old boy accidentally saw a copy from the inscription of the Rosetta Stone. His name was Jean Francois Champollion. As if spellbound, he examines the hieroglyphs carved on a stone slab. "Can I read this?" - he asks the famous physicist and mathematician Fourier - a member of the Egyptian expedition. Fourier shakes his head. And then little Jean says with confidence: “I will read this when I grow up!” From that time on, the boy simply “fell ill” with hieroglyphs and could no longer think of anything else.
Having set a goal for himself, Champollion did not deviate a single step from the intended path. By the age of 13, he had learned not only Latin and Greek, but also a number of ancient Eastern languages, including Coptic, a descendant of ancient Egyptian, because some ancient Egyptian words could have been preserved in Coptic. However, glory was still very, very far away. It took a long twenty years before Champollion was able to read the first texts written in hieroglyphs.
How did the scientist manage to do what no one before him could do? Champollion was a special, unusual person. In addition to the extraordinary talent that manifested itself in him from early childhood, he possessed one especially valuable quality for a scientist - the absence of rigidity of thinking. Before Champollion, many thought that hieroglyphs were signs for conveying words and concepts. The number of different signs can reach several thousand, and therefore it is almost impossible to decipher the mysterious letters - this was the conclusion of the scientific world. Fortunately, completely wrong.
Among the hieroglyphs of the Rosetta Stone, Champollion found the names of the Egyptian king Ptolemy and Queen Cleopatra (they were enclosed in special ovals - cartouches).
It's all about these names. And not because they are royal, but because they are their own. And proper names sound in a foreign language about the same as in their native. So, the scientist concludes, such names should be transmitted not by hieroglyphs-concepts, but by hieroglyphs-letters! This was the first discovery of the young genius.
Comparing the records of various names made in hieroglyphs with their Greek translation, Champollion received the first 24 characters. Here, a detective lover can say that, knowing so many characters, you can quite easily decipher any text. This is true if we are talking about the alphabetical writing system familiar to us. Another thing is hieroglyphs. Champollion established that there are different types of hieroglyphs: ideogram signs (for example, the sign of the sun can mean the concepts of “bright”, “light”, “day”), letter signs that convey individual sounds (as is the case with proper names), and , finally, the signs-determinants, which themselves are not readable, but help to distinguish the meanings of homonymous words.
The scientist made this discovery in 1822. Champollion is called the linguistic genius of the 19th century and the father of Egyptology.
Etymology
What is the origin of the most common words, what changes occur in the "biography" of the word, how to explain these changes - questions that etymology answers.
Traveling in a time machine
You have certainly heard of time travel. Let's take this journey with you. And as a “machine” that will allow us to move freely in it, an etymological dictionary will act - our faithful friend and assistant in all cases when we want to know the history of the origin of a word.
So, go! Of course, you need to start with the main thing - from the very word time. It turns out that it is distantly related to the verb twirl; at one time, most likely, this word was pronounced as vertman. Then, as a result of various changes, it acquired a modern sound image. Naturally, the original meaning of the word was forgotten. time- "something that rotates". However, the very idea of time as a circle lives very firmly in the mythological ideas of different peoples and is reflected in the language. We have, for example, the expression all year round? Why round? Perhaps it is important here that the year consists of constantly repeating periods (winter, spring, summer, autumn, and then again winter and nothing else), is cyclical, as scientists say? By the way, the word cycle comes from the Greek word kyklos which means circle. BUT all day long? The meaning of this expression is the same: a day is also a cycle, a circle, only a small one - day and night. And the alternation of day and night is constant. It turns out that time is really in a certain sense spinning.
A person drawn into the cycle of time had to somehow orient himself in it. Therefore, he began to measure it, that is, to split it into “segments” of different lengths. These “segments” were prompted to him by nature itself. Let's start with the biggest one - the year. Word year originally associated with the verb fit; year- it's suitable suitable time, convenient time. It is no coincidence that in many Slavic languages this word also means celebration. Why good year? Probably for human life. It is impossible to live in any year, which means that every moment of time is convenient, suitable for living. Our ancestors were truly optimists!
To designate a period of time a year long, another word was used - summer. Why? Why, for example, do we say that some event happened five years, but not winters or spring ago, even though exactly as many winters and springs have passed as years? The answer to this question must again be sought in mythology. It turns out that our ancestors divided all time (and space too) into “clean” and “impure”, associated with light, good, good forces and with the forces of darkness, evil, death. Unclean time is dangerous: something undesirable for a person can suddenly happen. For example, dark periods were considered unclean: night, winter. The man did not like them and even tried to use their names less in speech. And summer is a sunny, good time, a time of life. Perhaps that is why the word summer and a second meaning appeared - “year, 12 months”. The same thing happened with the word day: we very actively use it in the meaning of "day, 24 hours", although the day generally means only daylight hours. Why not ask: "How much nights was that back?" Why is night worse than day? Probably, the law is again subconsciously operating: do not mention unclean time! (By the way, the very word day also has an interesting history: it is associated with verbs weave, poke. Day- this joint, the confluence of day and night, their connection; day woven from day and night.)
Let's continue our journey through time. The year is divided into months. In russian language
word month denotes both 1/12 of the year and the moon. Is it by chance? The etymological dictionary will tell us that it is not; moreover, we learn that the word month historically associated with words measure, measure. It turns out that the year was previously divided into equal periods precisely according to the time of the appearance of the moon, the moon was a measure of time.
The names of the twelve months in Russian are mostly self-explanatory. They are fraught with many interesting things, so we will devote a separate trip to them.
Behind month goes a week. This word historically has at least two meanings. One of them - "a part of the month, consisting of seven days" - is preserved in the Russian language to this day, while the other remains only in related Slavic languages: weeks Sunday is called in Ukraine, Serbia, the Czech Republic, Poland and other Slavic countries. Scientists believe that this word was formed from a combination not to do, that is, "rest, not work." Thus, historically in the word a week the root stands out - DEL - and, therefore, the meaning of "non-working day" is its original value.
Word Sunday, which replaced the week in the meaning of "day off", also has an internal form, that is, it is quite understandable from the point of view of one's education. It is associated with the verb resurrect; Sunday called the first day of Easter - a holiday dedicated to resurrection from the dead Jesus Christ.
The names of the other days of the week are also clear. Monday- the day following weeks(Sunday); now, however, Monday is perceived as the day that opens, begins the week (seven days). Words Tuesday Thursday And Friday have a numerical root in their composition - these are the second, fourth and fifth days of the week, respectively. Name Wednesday associated with the word middle: Wednesday- day standing in middle weeks.
Just one word Saturday remains incomprehensible and requires special investigations for its explanation. The etymological dictionary will tell us that it was borrowed from Old Slavonic, where in turn it came from Greek. However, in the Greek language this word was a stranger: its history goes back to the Hebrew language, in which the word Shabbat meant "a day of rest, rest." So it is no coincidence that the last two days of the week are considered days off. I wonder what with the word Saturday the word is related in origin coven, meaning the unauthorized termination of work.
Among the smaller units of time, noteworthy are minute And second. These words come from Latin. A minute meant "small, small" in it. Or rather, “small, small,” because it meant part of an hour. And since the minute, in turn, was divided, it became necessary to name the “particles” of time that resulted from the second, that is, subsequent, division of the hour.
They came up with a word second: in Latin it means "second". It's funny that the second was originally fully referred to as "small second part" - pars minuta secunda, that is, its name included the word minute(small). So, originally these words are adjectives, and even in the feminine gender!
Have you ever wondered why a snowdrop is called a snowdrop, a dandelion is a dandelion, and a forget-me-not is a forget-me-not, and nothing else? The question "Why is it called that?" not only children like to ask, but also linguists.
What is the "internal form" of a word?
Try to guess how the phrases are combined red ink And cut off hunk. Does not work? Then here are some more combinations from this series: colored linen And shoot a gun. If this time it doesn’t work out, then take a closer look at the main words in these phrases and think about whether they are derivatives (that is, produced, formed from any words). Ink once denoted a black liquid used for writing; any color adjective with this word, in principle, is superfluous. Why is the combination red(or green, blue, yellow) ink doesn't hurt our ears? Gradually, over time, from the lexical meaning of the word ink the sign "black" fell out, and any liquid for writing began to be called ink. However, this feature was preserved inside the word (scientists call such a feature underlying the name internal form of the word ) and is realized by the speaker when he specifically thinks about it. We see the same in other phrases. hunk- this is what break, And cut off hunk From a historical point of view, it looks like an absurdity. Initially, colored underwear could not be: that's why it underwear- from the word White. It was possible to shoot only from a bow, because fire is to send arrow; the gun, in theory, should shoot. Thus, in all the given phrases, a certain contradiction is found between the meaning of the word and its internal form.
Let's look at the dictionary!
Let's think about the word wallpaper. Does it have an internal form?
It turns out yes. In the old days, wallpapers were made of fabric and were not glued to the wall, but were upholstered with them in rooms. Modern wallpapers, on the other hand, would be much more logical to call wallpaper. Much more often, however, the meaning of the word and its internal form (that is, the sign underlying the name) are consistent. An alarm clock is not just a clock, but one that is specially designed to sound a signal that wakes up (here it is, the sign that gave rise to the word!) A sleeping person. The rower rows with oars, it is the hand that is thrust into the sleeve, and the branchy tree has many branches.
In principle, any sign can become the basis for a word. The mill was named after its main work - it grinds grain, but it could just as well be called a martyr: after all, as a result of grinding, flour is obtained. The janitor cleans the yard, that is, the word is based on the designation “place of work”, but based on other signs (guess which ones) the janitor could be called a metun or a trash can.
It happens that in different languages the same object gets a name based on different features. Russian dandelion (you blow - and flies around) in German means literally "oil flower", that is, yellow like butter, and in French "lion's fang" (think why). The boletus (named after the place of growth) in German is called the “little red cap” (in appearance), and the porcini mushroom is called the “stone mushroom”. But forget-me-not in English, and in German, and in French is also called - “do not forget me!”
We train !
1. Which names of the days of the week have an internal form, and which do not? If you are learning a foreign language, also check the names of the days of the week in that language as well.
2. One foreigner who does not know Russian very well flatly refused to go to the hospital. “A hospital is a place where people get sick! Is it possible to become healthy there? he declared with conviction. Have you guessed on what basis the foreigner made such a conclusion? (For the correct solution of this problem, let's assume that our foreigner has never been in a hospital before.) In Russian there is a word for health resort. Would this foreigner agree to go to a health resort? What does the word wellness really mean? What signs formed the basis of the words hospital, health resort, clinic?
Very often, when faced with an unfamiliar word, people try to understand it through the internal form. Moreover, if it does not stand out in the word, then it is “embedded” there, sometimes even distorting the word. An example of such a distortion is found in A. Milne's fairy tale "Winnie the Pooh and All-All-All":
We are going on an expedition. Everything,” said Christopher Robin, getting up and dusting himself off. Thanks, Pooh.
Are we going on a expedition? Pooh asked with interest. - I've never seen one. And where is she, this expedition?
Winnie the Pooh, having heard the unfamiliar word expedition, immediately remade it into an expedition, linking it with the familiar verb search. It turned out a word with a completely understandable internal form.
If you've read Winnie the Pooh, you've probably noticed that, despite the sawdust in his head, Winnie the Pooh is quite prone to various linguistic reflections. Here is how, for example, he explains to Piglet why the edge of the forest, where friends are building a house for the donkey Eeyore, should not be called Downy Piglet Edge, but simply P'ukhova: “I could call this place Downy Piglet Edge, if Pooh Edge didn’t sound better . But it only sounds better because it is fluffier and, therefore, more like a fringe. Is the bear cub right when he sees an internal form in the word edge? Is the edge associated with fluff or something fluffy?
Let's look at the dictionary!
According to the explanatory dictionary, the word edge has two historically related meanings. edge they call not only the edge of the forest, but also the fur lining along the edges of the clothes. The fur is soft, fluffy - that's why this sheathing began to be called edge. And only then this word began to denote the edge of the forest, a strip of land directly adjacent to the forest. Historical connection with the word fluffy now lost and can only be realized with a special effort. So, in general, Winnie the Pooh turned out to be a very insightful bear cub, trying to find a connection between words. edge And fluffy.
Scientific etymology
Remember our conversation that we had about the etymologically related words pepper and gingerbread on the pages of the ninth issue of Svetozar? Recall: the usual word for us pepper goes back to the ancient word pier b ( In the Old Russian language, the letter ь (“er”) denoted in a strong position (as a rule, in a position under stress) a sound close to [‘e]: pr - [p’er].): "spicy", that is, spicy and fragrant in taste, smell. Adding a suffix ec-, which in the Old Russian language corresponded to the suffix -tsy-, and the removal of one of the repeated syllables (pi) (remember the haplology) gave the word pepper. BUT gingerbread, in turn, is a suffix formation from the word spicy ascending to ppr(from plpr). So: plpr > ppr + -tsy- (-ets-) > drink (pepper) And plpr > ppr + -yan- + th > drunken (spicy) + -ik > pryanik (gingerbread).
As you can see, scientific etymology is not content with explaining the word according to the first consonance that comes across, such as: pillow - "under the ear (ear)"; greasy (glossy from dirt; greasy) - "fat"; capital - "to save" etc., or the associations that this word evokes (recall the Stoics). It takes into account, firstly, the sound correspondences related languages. (Languages derived from one common base language (parent language) are called related. For example, languages are related: Russian, English, Belarusian, Dutch, Danish, Spanish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Moldovan, German, Polish, Romanian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovak, Ukrainian, French, Czech, etc., dating back to the common Indo-European language.) Secondly, it clarifies the pre-existing morphemic structure of the word, its past word-formation connections, determines the source and time of the appearance of the word, establishes the method of its formation from the corresponding generating base ...
Therefore, only a scientific etymological analysis will help to understand why the words pepper and gingerbread, cufflink and comma, doctor And lie are etymologically related, and the words ox And Wolf- No.
Let us turn to the history of these and some other words.
Ox, wolf and bagpipe
Words ox And Wolf, although consonant, are not etymologically related. lexeme ox(“bull intended for agricultural work”) is common Slavic in origin and goes back to the word vel(“big”), but with a vowel e / o. The animal was named for its large size, strength; cf. with words great, noble (< vel"big" and maybe"strong man, rich man"). Word Wolf- a common Slavic Indo-European character (cf., for example, with the German Wolf) and has the same root as drag, drag("drag, drag"). Wolf literally - "carrying" (livestock). And the word bagpipes(“a folk wind musical instrument made of several tubes embedded in a leather bag or bubble through which air is blown in”) goes back to the geographical name Volyn, from where this musical instrument became widespread in Russia.
Therefore, in order to prove the relationship of words (or its absence), it is necessary to know and take into account not only the phonetic, morphological and other laws of the language, but also to involve the facts of related languages.
Let's look at a few more words.
Cufflink and comma
Common Slavic word stud("fastener, threaded into the loops of cuffs on a shirt") - a suffixal derivative of zapẹti (the sound [ẹ], denoted in writing by the letter "yus small", in the Old Russian language was nasal [en], later it turned into the sound [a]) "detain", prefix (attachment) formation from pẹti"delay". Stud literally - “what holds, closes” > “loop, clasp, cufflink”. And the word comma goes back to the passive participle from the verb coma "detain". Etymologically related to them are the words stumble, obstruction, (mark) punctuation.
There are a lot of cases when seemingly completely different words turn out to be related. For example, the word doctor formed with a suffix -whose from lie(to lie), which in ancient times meant "to speak". Yes and a word doctor originally meant someone who speaks, wizard. And the word paddle, for example, formed with the suffix -slo from the verb carry(oar > paddle) and literally meant what they use to move through the water.
But for correct etymologization, linguistic knowledge is often not enough, especially when metonymy is involved in the changes, based not on the connection of concepts, but on the connection of things. In these cases, the historian comes to the aid of the linguist. For example, a linguist can easily explain that the word shabby comes from the word meal- "lunch, meal", borrowed from the Greek language, where trapedza means "table". But where did the word shabby did the meaning “everyday, everyday, worn out” arise, if they always change into a clean dress for dinner? The historian explains that shabby does not come directly from the word meal, but from the word shabby or shabby- “cheap mottled fabric”, made by a manufacturer named Zatrapeznov.
Thus, the scientist-etymologist must address not only the facts of the language, but also the facts of history.
But etymologization by the first consonance that came across, without taking into account phonetic laws, ways of transferring meanings and grammatical composition and its changes, and rethinking an unknown or obscure word by chance similarity with a more well-known and understandable one is called in linguistics folk , or false, etymology .
"Folk etymology"
Each of us at least once in his life tried to explain the origin of a word, that is, he was engaged in etymologization. However, often the result obtained did not stand up to criticism from an experienced (and often beginner) philologist. At first glance, there is nothing easier than to explain, for example, the origin of the word sebaceous- “greasy, shiny with dirt” (greasy sleeve, greasy hair). Naturally, most people will say that it goes back to the word Salo(“fat deposit in the body of an animal or a product from this substance”)... and he will be mistaken! The fact is that the science of etymology should not be based on the first consonances that came across, as in this case, but should take into account all those laws (linguistic and non-linguistic) that took place in the history of not only one particular language, but also in the history of related languages languages. And the word sebaceous in the indicated meaning does not go back to the Russian word Salo, and to French sale- "dirty, indecent." Another proof that the words sebaceous And Salo are not etymologically related, - the use of the adjective in Russian sebaceous in a meaning identical to French sale: greasy (that is, indecent) anecdote, hint, joke ...
Alteration and rethinking of a borrowed (rarely native) word following the model of a similar-sounding word of the native language, the establishment of semantic connections between them on the basis of a purely external, random sound coincidence, without taking into account the real facts of their origin, is called in linguistics folk(or false) etymology.
Let's take a few more examples.
In the novel "Eugene Onegin" there is a word roast beef- "fried piece of beef, cut from the spinal part of the carcass" ( In front of him is a bloody roast-beef...). This word was borrowed into Russian in the first quarter of the 19th century from English, where roast means "to fry" beef- "meat" (literally - "fried meat"). Since the word was incomprehensible to most native speakers of the Russian language (we see that even the poet renders it in Latin letters, it is barbaric), they tried to explain its origin by accidental consonance, raising it to the verb smash (smashing= roast-beef).
Word skimmer- “a large spoon with frequent holes” - is still often explained as a derivative of noise, make noise(boiling soup makes noise). Actually skimmer- a borrowing from the German language, in which Schaumloffel means literally foam spoon (cf. French ecumier from ecume- "foam").
Word a tear, at first sight, is related to the verb get down(in folk etymology a tear- this is what peels / flows down the cheek). But it turns out that transparent a tear etymologically related to a completely non-poetic word slime.
A popular Russian expression says:
« In April the earth dies". “Preet” means “thaws”, “becomes wet, damp from heat”. In April and last year's grass is rotten(that is, damp from heat, having a special smell). And the people tried to raise words April And spit to the same etymological root. Is this true? No. April(name of the second spring month) - borrowing from the Old Church Slavonic language, where april transmits ancient Greek april(o)s from latin Aprilis("solar"). And the word rotten is native Russian: it is a suffixal derivative of the verb spit.
Interestingly, scientists sometimes resorted to folk (false) etymology. For example, a well-known fighter for the purity of the Russian language in the 19th century (1754–1841), one of the presidents of the Russian Academy (1813–1841), proving the self-sufficiency of the Russian language, tried to trace some foreign words to Russian roots. Word student for him, this is not a borrowing from the German language (Germ. student < лат. students, -entis- "student"), and the distorted Russian student(from the word "meager", that is, poor, living in poverty); word boulevard has nothing to do with French or German roots (cf.< нем. Bollwerk – «аллея посреди улицы, широкая улица, обсаженная деревьями, первоначально – на месте крепостных валов»), а опять же искажённое русское gulvar(from the verb to walk), etc. Naturally, these are all examples of folk etymology that has nothing to do with scientific etymology.
The phenomenon of folk (false) etymology is a vivid sign of vernacular, therefore, writers often resort to using words reinterpreted by accidental consonance and semantic convergence to characterize the speech of their characters. For example, in "Lefty" there are words melkoscope(microscope and small), governess(governess and nanny), etc. Often such folk etymologies acquire great satirical expressiveness: slander(feuilleton and slander).
In the end, it should be noted that the phenomenon of folk (false) etymology should not always be considered as a negative, it is also a phenomenon of folk culture. Indeed, thanks to the folk etymology in the Russian language, such a beautiful expression appeared as raspberry ring(“pleasant, harmonious ringing of bells”), which has nothing to do with the name of the berry: it goes back to the name of the Belgian city of Malin, where the old cathedral is located, which has a special school of bell ringers, a kind of “Malinov” musicians on bells.
Everyone knows how difficult, and most importantly, boring to memorize words with unverifiable vowels. And sometimes learning is not necessary. Etymology can help spelling.
What can etymology do?
It is said that every discovery begins with surprise. A person will be surprised at what everyone knows and sees: why the apple falls down, why the leaves are green, why the table is called “table”. He will think, begin to question, read, study - and make a discovery. Even if science has long explained these phenomena.
The name of the science that studies the origin of words is, of course, familiar to you - etymology.
What can etymology do?
Etymology can do a lot. She can talk about how others grow from some words. From the word dol, for example, came the words valley, down, overcome, overcome. From the ancient vent ("throat") - the word necklace. And the wolf got its name because it drags its victim along the ground.
Here are some strange encounters...
And knowing the etymology can help ... write words correctly. In this case, the etymology is said to be in the service of orthography.
Take, for example, those terrible and so dangerous unverifiable vowels. Having opened any textbook of the Russian language, we read: "Unchecked vowels in the root of the word should be remembered or checked in a dictionary." And examples are given: a wheel, a shovel, a page ... Meanwhile, in most cases, “unverifiable” vowels can (!) And need (!) to be checked if we conduct an etymological analysis of the word, that is, find out its history
What associations does the word ship evoke in us? “Sea or river vessel; airship; spaceship…” Globally! But we no longer remember that once this “globality” fit in a simple box - “bast or birch bark product for laying and wearing something”, from which the word ship came from. And related to him are the words crust and trough.
And the spelling A in the name of the part of the world west is easy to explain as etymologically related to fall, fall. Everyone knows that the sun hides (falls) behind the horizon in the west. By the way, the Old Russian verb zapadat with the meaning "to go in, roll up, hide behind something" is formed from the verb to fall.
It is easy to explain the spelling of O in the words wheel, nonsense, track, about, ring, rotation, travel. The fact is that they all go back to the word kolo with the meaning "circle, circumference".
Flipping through the pages of books, newspapers, magazines, we hardly remember the Old Slavonic language, and it is to him that we owe the appearance in the Russian language of such a word that has already become native. A page in modern dictionaries of the Russian language is interpreted as "one side of a sheet of paper in a book, notebook." And the relatives of the page are the words country, strange, space. And in all of them there is a non-vowel combination of ra, in which, of course, the letter A is written.
The story of why you can not climb on the rampage
But not only spelling can help etymology. This science is just like hot cakes. Here, for example, you will meet an incomprehensible word as part of a stable phrase - a phraseological unit. Some kind of trouble (get into a mess), or baked (baked on the side), or lyasy. And what is it?
Etymology will come to the rescue here and explain both the history of the phraseological units themselves and the history of the words included in them.
Each of us has ever sharpened lasses, beaten buckets and played spillikins. And why? All of us, doing some business (and often idleness!), One way or another, perform the actions that are mentioned in the highlighted combinations of words, namely: sharpen, beat or play. But this does not mean at all that we are whittling down some kind of folly, beating some kind of bucks and playing incomprehensible spillikins.
The expression to sharpen lyasy (or balusters) in modern Russian is characterized as colloquial and disapproving and has the meaning "to engage in empty chatter, idle talk, gossip." Meanwhile, our ancestors would hardly have accepted it as negative, offensive. It is believed that it is an expression of professional origin with the original meaning "to carve patterned figured columns of railings." Balusters and balusters are carved decorations of some parts of the building, in particular the railings (in Italian balaustro - “column, chiseled railings”). However, there is another opinion about the origin of this expression. So, some researchers believe that the connection of the expression with the word balussy (baluster) in the meaning of "carved or chiseled column" (comparable with the Ukrainian balusters "railing") is nothing more than folk etymology, that is, such an etymology that is not based on scientific principles of analysis, but on random comparisons caused by simple consonance of words. According to these scientists, the turn to sharpen lyasy (balusters) could be formed on the basis of the Russian word balyasy (“tales”), the Ukrainian word balyas (“noise”), ascending directly to the common Slavic root *bal - “to tell”.
The stable phrases beat the buckets and play the spillikins, as well as the expression to sharpen the balusters (balusters), are characterized by a disapproving emotionally expressive coloring. To beat the buckets means "to mess around, to engage in trifling business, to idly stagger." The most common version of the origin of this stable phrase is associated with handicraft, common in the former Nizhny Novgorod province. It was there that wooden spoons, cups and other utensils were made. The blanks for such utensils chipped off from a log were called baklushas. The figurative meaning is explained by the fact that the production of baklush was considered by the people to be easy, requiring no effort and skill. The bucket itself was an insignificant thing (hence the association with a trifling occupation). By the way, this version of the origin of phraseologism was proposed by V. I. Dahl and then repeated by many etymologists and ethnographers.
But why is it still impossible to climb on the rampage?
The expression to climb (throw) on the rampage is colloquial and has the meaning "to undertake something deliberately risky, doomed to failure." The outdated word rampage once meant a pointed stake (horn), which was used when hunting a bear. The enraged beast climbed on the rampage - a wide knife, sharpened on both sides, on a long stick with a crossbar under the blade, which the bear himself grabbed.
Now you understand why you should not climb on the rampage?
Morphemes - significant parts of a word - do not remain unchanged over time.
Why lzya - you can, but you can not - no?
Or vice versa: if it’s impossible, but if it’s impossible, it’s possible?
And this is how to look...
Everyone knows that the word lzya does not exist and there is no such root. But isn't there a perfectly distinct "not" in the word?
Indeed, in a language common to all Slavs, there was the word lґga "freedom". This root still exists in the words privilege, benefit (it is difficult to recognize it there, but believe me). The singular dative form of lgal-lze "can". Ne lze - "it is not possible."
The same negative “not” was also highlighted in the word week (“a unit of time equal to seven days, from Monday to Sunday inclusive”). Now we isolate the root of the weeks in it - and the ending - I, but in the Old Russian language the prefix not-, the root - del- and the ending - I stood out from the word: not-del-ya.
Why? earlier this word had a completely different meaning from the modern one - “a day of rest” - and went back to the combination “not to do”. Thus, in the process of the historical development of the Russian language, the word first lost its semantic connection between the bases of words, and then there were changes in the morphemic structure.
The semantic connection with the original bases was also lost in the words palace- (cf .: dvor-b), red-th (cf .: kras-a).
There are other reasons for such changes. For example, the word has no relatives. This happened with the word furrier - “a master in dressing furs from skins, in the production of fur products”, therefore we single out only the root furrier in it - and the zero ending. Meanwhile, in the Old Russian language there were the words skora (“skin, skin”), kornya (“a product made of leather, fur”), and the morphemic articulation was different: the root is scor-, suffixes - n-, - yak- and the ending - ъ: speed-n-yak-b.
By the way, in the words day, spouse, twilight, the prefix su-, which means "near, near," was previously distinguished. over time, the root absorbed the prefix, included it in its composition.
Changes in the morphemic structure of the word can also be explained by phonetic reasons. This means that some combination of sounds was difficult to pronounce. For example, the word masl-o in its origin is associated with the verb to smear, and in the Old Russian language it had the root maz-, the suffix - sl - and the ending - o. It sounded like a muzzle, which, of course, was inconvenient in pronunciation, and the “interfering” sound disappeared. the word oar, which owes its origin to the verb to carry, went the same way: to carry > oar > oar.
Changes in the morphemic structure of a word, in which the stem becomes simpler, prefixes or suffixes cease to stand out in it, and everything merges into one root, in linguistics they are called the simplification of the stem.
Does the opposite happen? That is, the reverse process, when prefixes or suffixes begin to stand out from the whole root in the stems? It happens. (In the meantime, think about what such a process could be called.)
For example, in the word flask, borrowed from the Polish language (flaszka), only the root of the flask - and the ending - a were originally distinguished. However, by analogy with the words of the Russian language book-k-a, road-k-a, knife-k-a and similar, where - k- is a diminutive suffix, it began to be considered as a word with a derivative stem. In Russian, the word flask arose with the alternation g / f. hence the modern articulation: flask-to-a.
The word umbrella comes from the Dutch language: zondek. It was borrowed as a word with a non-derivative stem (umbrella), but under the influence of words like a table, spout, and the like, it began to be understood as a diminutive formation, that is, as a word with a derivative stem (hence originated the original Russian umbrella).
Have you come up with a name for this process? Since the base becomes more complex, then this is a complication of the base.
So the foundation can get simpler and it can get harder. Anything else happen to her? Yes maybe.
As a result of the historical development of the language, the boundaries between morphemes may also change, that is, morphemes begin to be segmented in a new way. This is the process of re-decomposition of the base.
For example, in the word living creature in modern Russian, the suffix -ness is distinguished, and not -ost (cf.: new-ost), since the adjective living, from which the noun was formed, has fallen out of use. The former articulation of liveliness has been replaced by the articulation of liveliness. In the word rod (“a part of a fishing rod is a long flexible stick to which scaffolding is attached”), the suffix - lisch- is now distinguished, and not - search-, as in the word city-isch-e. The composition of this suffix included the suffix -l-, which previously belonged to the word udil-o, lost in modern Russian.
Interesting? Then try to complete our tasks. Good luck!
CONTEST
Try to determine the morphemic articulation of the words sign, feast, witch in Old Russian and modern Russian. What historical change took place in the morphemic structure of these words?
ancient Russian singer-songwriter
musical instrument
it's not a goat's business to play on it
Pushkin's character, singer, "Ruslan and Lyudmila"
character in the play "Bug"
a kind of grand harmonica with a complex fret system
a kind of accordion, named after the legendary ancient Russian singer-storyteller
chromatic harmonica
fabulous old Russian poet
what can be torn at a wedding?
on his right keyboard there is a full chromatic scale - from B-flat of a large octave to C-sharp of the fourth
the hero of Leonid Bronevoy in the film "Mayakovsky laughs"
what musical instrument invented in the last century was named after one of the first bards?
this is the name of the musical instrument, which the British call the "Russian accordion"
keyboard-pneumatic musical instrument
advanced harmonica
pre-revolutionary literary magazine
musical instrument that the goat does not need
character of Pushkin's poem "Ruslan and Lyudmila"
character in Mayakovsky's play "The Bedbug"
Russian chromatic harmonica
with fur, but not a beast
chromatic accordion
prophetic songwriter among the Slavs
"Ass - accordion, goat - ..."
rural accordion
descendant of accordion
type of harmonica
Russian accordion
you pull him - he plays
singer-storyteller in Russia
accordion "wide open"
in the picture
type of harmonica
accordion
torn at the wedding
"Russian accordion"
fairy tale poet
"Fuck the goat..."
mecha plus eight buttons (music)
people think that the goat does not need it
older brother of the Russian harmonica
he doesn't need a goat
accordion playing in the orchestra
harmonic
Russian harmonica
the harmonica that the goat does not need
harmonica with "buttons"
accordion brother
the best cruiser of the Port Arthur squadron
painting by Viktor Vasnetsov
big accordion
the harmonica that made a career
even animals don't need it
what a goat doesn't need
what word will you get if you mix the letters in the word "bath"?
it is believed that the goat does not need it
what music. inst. don't need a goat?
a hodgepodge of the word "bath"
anagram for bath
change the letters in the word "bath"
mecha + eight buttons (music)
forty buttons and a folded shirt
(button accordion) in Russian mythology, an epic poet-singer (mythical)
archaeological culture of the Neolithic era (4th millennium BC), on the territory of Romania, Bulgaria
ancient narrator of epics
legendary ancient Russian singer-storyteller, whose name is mentioned in the Tale of Igor's Campaign
male name: (Bulgarian) name of a legendary singer, fearless
part in the opera "Ruslan and Lyudmila" by Glinka
storyteller of epics
thought of the Russian poet K. Ryleev
meaning of a male name (Bolg.) the name of a legendary singer, fearless
Pushkin's character, "Ruslan and Lyudmila"
character of the opera by the Russian composer M. Glinka "Ruslan and Lyudmila"
"songwriter" from Vasnetsov
old Russian songwriter
thought of the Russian poet Ryleev
narrator
epic bard
Slavic bard
epic poet-singer
singer and gossip
"creator of songs" of Ancient Russia
bard from Russian epics
This amazing Esperanto
There has long been a myth about how people decided to build a tower in Babylon that would reach the sky. The builders began their work, but the angry God "confused their languages", they ceased to understand each other and could not continue the construction.
Attempts to create a language that would be understandable, common to all people, began to be made in ancient times. In IV-III centuries. BC. ancient Greek thinker Alexarch based on Koine Greek (from Greek koine4 dialektos - "common language") developed the first artificial language in history.
Since then, hundreds and hundreds of projects of international artificial languages have appeared, but only a few of them have gained distribution and support. These languages include Volapuk (Volyapyuk), Interlingua, Ido, Occidental and, of course, Esperanto.
Volapyuk (Volyapyuk), created in 1879 by the German scientist I. M. Schleyer, became the first artificial language to be implemented in oral communication and literature. In Volapuk, the words of natural languages, in particular Latin, English, German, French and others, are modified in such a way that they lose their recognition. An example is the word itself. Volapuk formed from two English words: world("peace") > vol + speak("to speak") > pu#k. In this way, Volapuk(volapu#k) - "world, world language".
A little later, two more artificial languages \u200b\u200bwere created: interlingua (name speaks for itself) and oksidental (occidental) ("Western language"). Their grammatical structure is based on the Latin language, the vocabulary includes the roots of different European languages. These languages suffer, however, from one drawback - they are oriented towards the people of the Western world. The assimilation of such a language for the inhabitants of the East is very difficult.
But the most widespread international artificial language is, by far, Esperanto , created in 1887 by the Warsaw physician and polyglot Ludwik Zamenhof (1859–1917), whose pseudonym Dr. Esperanto(esperanto in Esperanto - "hoping") became the name of the new language.
Initially, Esperanto became widespread in Poland and Russia, but by the beginning of the 20th century it gained many supporters in other countries of the world (now millions (!) of people speak it).
This language is extremely easy, it can be learned "jokingly". A short Esperanto course will take you less than two hours, after which you will be able to read Esperanto texts with a dictionary, and if you have already tried to learn any of the Romance or Germanic languages, even without a dictionary. The fact is that Esperanto compares favorably with other artificial languages not only in the logic and simplicity of grammar, but primarily in vocabulary, which is basically international: the roots of words in it are 60 percent taken from Romance languages (mainly Latin), 30 percent from Germanic and 10 percent from Slavic. This means that any educated person will be able to recognize familiar words in Esperanto texts. Telegrafo, macino, citrono… It is unlikely that in this case you will need a translation.
A huge role in Esperanto is played by word-building affixes, which makes it possible to produce the entire vocabulary of the language from a limited number of roots.
But the most important thing is grammar. It includes only 16 basic rules that do not allow exceptions - the dream of any student! So, for example, all nouns have the ending -about
(homo - "man", patro - "father", patrino - "mother"), suffix -in
indicates feminine. All adjectives end in -but
(homa - "human", patra - "paternal", patrina - "maternal"). Adverbs end in -e
(bone - "good", malbone - "bad") etc.
The article for all names and their forms is la . Plural gets ending -j . There are only two cases - nominative and accusative. In the accusative, the ending is added to the stem -n , other case meanings are transmitted using prepositions.
Now let's learn the verbs. They also differ in endings: the indefinite form ends in -i (skribi - "to write"), currently on -as (mi skribas - "I write", li skribas - "he writes"), elapsed time on -is (mi skribis - "I wrote"), the future is on -os (mi skribos - "I will write"). Conditional and imperative moods are also formed using special endings, respectively. -us (mi skribus - "I would write") And -u (skribu - "write, write").
Knowing the basic rules of Esperanto, you can easily translate from it, for example, the following poetic lines:
Blankadas velo unusola
En la nebula mara blu'.
Of course, this is M. Yu. Lermontov: “The sail of a lonely one turns white / In the fog of the blue sea.”
But even if you were unable to translate it yourself, you were able to read the lines of Lermontov's "Sail"! This is not difficult to do, since each letter in the Esperanto alphabet (Latin is taken as the basis) is always read the same way, regardless of its place in the word and combinations with other letters. The stress always falls on the second syllable from the end.
Thanks to the ease of learning (relative, of course), neutrality (Esperanto does not belong to any people), richness and flexibility, this language has become a truly living, full-fledged means of communication.
Today, works of world literary classics from more than 50 languages have been translated into Esperanto: the Bible, Sophocles, Aesop, Dante, Shakespeare, Pushkin, Bulgakov, Tolkien, etc., original compositions are created on it. More than one hundred and fifty periodicals are published, and more than ten radio stations broadcast. It is the second most spoken language on the Internet (after English).
There are over 20 million Esperantists in the world. If you want to join their ranks, grab the textbook "La Esperanto" as soon as possible.
emperor and cake
About proper names and common nouns
The legendary ancient Russian singer-poet and musical instrument, the Roman patrician and patron of sciences and arts, the French emperor and puff pastry with custard… Is it possible to find a connection between these concepts? It turns out that it is possible: they correspond to homonyms. One of them ( Bayan, Maecenas, Napoleon) are proper names and serve as the names of single objects, isolated from a number of homogeneous ones; other ( button accordion, philanthropist, Napoleon) - household names , serving as generalized names of objects.
Proper names arise on the basis of common nouns. However, a common noun becomes a proper name only when the connection between its meaning and what it names is broken (compare: Faith Hope Love as abstract concepts and Faith Hope Love as female names; ball- a small ball and Ball- dog name, etc.).
But the reverse process is also possible, when common nouns are created on the basis of their own. So, the big perfected harmonica accordion named after their own Bayan (Boyan). Let us recall the lines from the Tale of Igor's Campaign:
“But the prophetic Boyan, if he wanted to sing a song to someone, then spread his thoughts along the tree, like a gray wolf on the ground, a gray eagle under the clouds.<…>O Boyan, the nightingale of the old time!”
The Roman patrician (an aristocrat in Ancient Rome) Gaius Tsilny Maecenas, who lived in the 1st century BC, being a wealthy man, patronized poets (including Virgil and Horace). Over time, this name turned into a household name and began to denote a generally generous patron of the sciences and arts. And Napoleon cake and cake, according to legend, owe their name to Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, who loved this type of confectionery.
There are many examples when proper names become common nouns. Let's consider the most interesting ones.
One of the ancient legends tells about the handsome young man Narcissus, who was so in love with himself that he did not notice anyone or anything around, but all the time looked at his reflection in the water. The gods, angry, turned him into a plant. The white narcissus flower leans to one side and seems to be looking down at its reflection with a yellow eye. Such plant names are also associated with ancient mythology, such as cypress And hyacinth. Once, the son of King Keos and friend of Apollo, Cypress accidentally killed a deer while hunting - his favorite and the favorite of all the inhabitants. The inconsolable young man asked Apollo to give him eternal sadness, and God turned him into a slender cypress tree (since then, the Greeks began to hang a cypress branch at the door of the house where the deceased is). The beautiful (usually bright red) hyacinth flower is named after the son of the king of Sparta, Hyacinth, who died during a discus throwing competition. The flower of sorrow grew from the blood of Hyacinth.
Sometimes plants get their names from the place where they were taken from: coffee(from the name of the country Kaffa, located in Africa), peach(from Persia - modern Iran), Orange(Dutch word appelsien Literally translated as "Chinese apple"). And not only plants. For example, the common word trousers comes from the name of the Dutch city of Bruges.
Quite often, common names go back to the names of famous scientists, inventors ... Here are some: ampere(after the French physicist Ampère), watt(named after the English physicist Watt), volt(named after the Italian physicist Volta) ... The French cavalry general Galliffet invented trousers of a special cut - riding breeches, Scottish chemist Mackintosh - waterproof raincoat. Colt, Maxim, Mauser, Nagant - famous inventors of weapons. The Belgian master Sachs gave the name to the popular wind instrument - saxophone.
Along the way, let's say a few words about common nouns - derivatives of surnames.
The names of the outstanding Russian scientists D. I. Mendeleev (mendelevium), I. V. Kurchatov (kurchatovium) are immortalized in the names of new chemical elements. Many minerals are given the names of our compatriots: Yu. A. Gagarin (gagarinite), M. Yu. Lermontov (lermontovite), M. V. Lomonosov (lomonosovite) ...
Proper names, becoming common nouns, can reveal the character of a person with extraordinary accuracy. For example, we call a stupid half-educated youth mitrofanushka(after the character of the comedy D. I. Fonvizin "Undergrowth"), an obsequious, hypocritical person who is afraid to express his opinion, an unprincipled careerist - silent(A. S. Griboedov "Woe from Wit"), a liar and a braggart - Munchausen(R. E. Raspe "Stories of Baron Munchausen ..."). About famous people:
Maybe Plato's own
And quick-witted Newtons
Russian land to give birth ...
M. V. Lomonosov
N.V. Gogol, speaking about his heroes, emphasized the timeless universality of the images he created. For example: “Perhaps… they will say that now Nozdryov is gone. Alas! Nozdryov will not be out of the world for a long time. He is everywhere between us and, perhaps, only walks in a different caftan; but people are frivolously impenetrable, and a person in a different caftan seems to them a different person.
Some proper names that have become common nouns are known to us as philological terms.
For example, one of the Slavic alphabets is called Cyrillic(by the name of one of its creators - Cyril); many names of literary movements go back to proper names: Byron - Byronism, Karamzin - Karamzinism, Petrarch - petrarchism... Adventure-rich wanderings or woeful wanderings we call odyssey(Odysseus - the mythical king of Ithaca, the hero of the Trojan War), the adventures of a hero deprived of human society - robinsonade(Robinson is the hero of Defoe's novel "Robinson Crusoe")...
Years, decades, centuries pass... Proper names are often forgotten... But many of them have found a new life, becoming common nouns.
The misadventures of translation, or why beets turned into compote
Once, the newspaper Nedelya conducted a half-joking, half-serious experiment to find out what changes a text undergoes after it has been translated into other languages. Professional translators were involved in the experiment. Each of the invitees, having an excellent knowledge of two adjacent languages, had to accept a text from his colleague and, transposing it into another language, pass it on to the next one.
An excerpt from “The Tale of how Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Nikiforovich quarreled” was taken as the source: She (Agafiya Fedoseevna) gossiped, and ate boiled beetroot in the morning, and swore well, - and with all these various activities, her face was not on for a minute did not change its expression, which only women can usually show.
Translators, having received the text, set to work. At first, in the English and German versions, little has changed. But now, passing through Japanese, French and Indonesian (in the latter, the personal pronouns he and she are denoted by the same word), and then through Dutch and Turkish, the phrase was transformed as follows:
While the woman was swearing while eating the liquid beetroot brew, the man was talking. They did this without showing their feelings, as is customary for women.
But a resident of Sudan was especially creative in approaching the matter, changing a specific concoction of beets into a common concoction of the fruits of the earth and, conversely, the general was engaged in chatter for a specific boast of his imaginary exploits. In turn, when translated from the Yoruba language into English, the fruits of the earth turned into fruits, and the expression about boasting of exploits was conveyed by the English idiom beat in timpani.
There is very little left. “What is a liquid fruit brew? - thought the connoisseur of two languages at the same time - the African tribe of Bambara and French. Yes, this is nothing but compote! Well, where there are timpani, there are tom-toms (this is such an African drum).
And now came the final phase of the experiment - a comparison of the most recent translation with the original language. After passing through the hands of at least two dozen translators, Gogol's phrase was transformed into the following ridiculous lines:
After drinking the compote, she threw the junk out of the hut, and he joyfully scored into the tom-toms.
Of the 35 words of the original, only one came to the finish line: the personal pronoun she, and the meaning of the phrase was completely lost!
The well-known linguist and popularizer of the science of language E.A. Vartanyan, analyzing this experiment in his book Journey into the Word, asks the question: “What happened? Why did the “broken telephone” mechanism work during the translation?
It turns out that there are many dangers in the difficult task of literary (and not only literary) translation. Here are the main ones.
The so-called false friends of the translator Words in one language that are similar in sound to words in another, but different in meaning. There are many such words in every language. You may encounter them when learning a foreign language, such as English. It's pretty easy to confuse English compositor with Russian composer, while in English this word does not mean a person who composes music, but a typographical compositor. This happened to one translator who translated The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. In his version, the famous detective, seeing someone's hands stained with printing ink, immediately guesses that this person is ... a composer! ..
Here are some more examples of false friends of the translator in Russian and some Slavic languages: the Czech word trup does not mean at all corpse, but torso; in Polish zyletka not vest, but blade; in Ukrainian heel not heel, but ring, ring; in Belarusian ratch not speech, but thing, just like seamelon has nothing to do with watermelon, which means pumpkin.
Aren't they funny examples? You will probably find many such tricky pairs when comparing your native language with Russian, although, most likely, in the case of non-closely related languages, there will still be fewer of them.
The second reason for numerous mistakes is ignorance idiom (stable expressions, phraseological units). Recall that it was precisely because of the incorrect translation of one idiom that in the end the ill-fated tom-tom appeared in our experimental phrase.
When an Englishman says: He is pulling your legs”, he does not mean at all that someone is pulling your leg. It's just that they laugh at you, make fun of you. When the Germans tell you Hals- und Beinbruch! They don't want you to break your neck at all. On the contrary, they want neither fluff nor feathers. On this account, there is such a rule: you need to translate foreign proverbs and sayings not verbatim, but replace them with parallel Russian ones, otherwise oddities cannot be avoided.
Many errors are also caused by the fact that the translator does not know (or knows poorly) the culture of the country from whose language he is translating. Recall once again the experiment described above: many mistakes were caused precisely by the fact that translators brought into the text the linguistic and cultural features of their native language. But there is such a thing as non-equivalent (untranslatable) vocabulary. In every language there are words that do not have exact analogues in other languages. In the language of the Sami, who live in the north of Sweden, Finland and Russia, there are a lot of peculiar words related to reindeer breeding, naming their different breeds, types of pastures, etc. The Arabic language is rich in words for varieties of sand or breeds of camels. And in the languages of Asia, a rich vocabulary has developed regarding rice and dishes from it. The translator, if he strives for the most accurate transmission of the original, cannot but take into account the fact that languages “see the world” differently.
So, a lot of traps lie in wait for the translator at every turn. And in order to get around all these traps, a translator needs three things: excellent knowledge of the language, linguistic flair and respect for foreign culture and traditions.
How Jean-Francois Champollion fell ill
hieroglyphs
It's hard to believe, but humanity owes the greatest discovery in linguistics of our time to... Napoleon Bonaparte.
The famous commander was a smart man who respected science and scientists, so he decided to take on his Egyptian expedition not only 38 thousand soldiers, but also 200 artists and scientists. While the soldiers fought, scientists had to study the ancient monuments left over from the once great civilization of Ancient Egypt. And although the expedition failed and Napoleon did not conquer Egypt, the scientists did their job: North Africa ceased to be a mysterious country, with the exception of one riddle - the riddle of Egyptian hieroglyphs. The case helped.
In August 1799, during earthworks near the city of Rosetta, a soldier of the Napoleonic army came across a slab of black basalt covered with some kind of inscriptions. There were three texts on the stone. At the top, the text was written in hieroglyphs - "sacred" signs, in the middle - in some unknown language - with "native" letters, and at the bottom - in ancient Greek. Only these last - "Hellenic" - letters could be read by scientists, since the ancient Greek language at that time was well known to all educated people. All three inscriptions reported the same thing: they glorified the Egyptian king Ptolemy. Apparently, the priests wanted to tell the whole world about this and therefore addressed people of three different nationalities in three languages known to them. Fairly assuming that they have three versions of the same text (in other words - trilingua), the scientists realized that they had the key to decipher the hieroglyphic writing.
The news of the discovery quickly spread around Europe and fueled the excitement of researchers: everyone wanted to be the first to decipher the mysterious inscriptions. However, no matter how hard the scientists fought, they did not succeed.
But in 1802, an eleven-year-old boy accidentally saw a copy from the inscription of the Rosetta Stone. His name was Jean Francois Champollion. As if spellbound, he examines the hieroglyphs carved on a stone slab. "Can I read this?" - he asks the famous physicist and mathematician Fourier - a member of the Egyptian expedition. Fourier shakes his head. And then little Jean says with confidence: “I will read this when I grow up!” From that time on, the boy simply “fell ill” with hieroglyphs and could no longer think of anything else.
Having set a goal for himself, Champollion did not deviate a single step from the intended path. By the age of 13, he had learned not only Latin and Greek, but also a number of ancient Eastern languages, including Coptic, a descendant of ancient Egyptian, because some ancient Egyptian words could have been preserved in Coptic. However, glory was still very, very far away. It took a long twenty years before Champollion was able to read the first texts written in hieroglyphs.
How did the scientist manage to do what no one before him could do? Champollion was a special, unusual person. In addition to the extraordinary talent that manifested itself in him from early childhood, he possessed one especially valuable quality for a scientist - the absence of rigidity of thinking. Before Champollion, many thought that hieroglyphs were signs for conveying words and concepts. The number of different signs can reach several thousand, and therefore it is almost impossible to decipher the mysterious letters - this was the conclusion of the scientific world. Fortunately, completely wrong.
Among the hieroglyphs of the Rosetta Stone, Champollion found the names of the Egyptian king Ptolemy and Queen Cleopatra (they were enclosed in special ovals - cartouches).
It's all about these names. And not because they are royal, but because they are their own. And proper names sound in a foreign language about the same as in their native. So, the scientist concludes, such names should be transmitted not by hieroglyphs-concepts, but by hieroglyphs-letters! This was the first discovery of the young genius.
Comparing the records of various names made in hieroglyphs with their Greek translation, Champollion received the first 24 characters. Here, a detective lover can say that, knowing so many characters, you can quite easily decipher any text. This is true if we are talking about the alphabetical writing system familiar to us. Another thing is hieroglyphs. Champollion established that there are different types of hieroglyphs: ideogram signs (for example, the sign of the sun can mean the concepts of “bright”, “light”, “day”), letter signs that convey individual sounds (as is the case with proper names), and , finally, the signs-determinants, which themselves are not readable, but help to distinguish the meanings of homonymous words.
The scientist made this discovery in 1822. Champollion is called the linguistic genius of the 19th century and the father of Egyptology.
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When someone posts an old joke or duplicate news, everyone yells: "Bayan!!!" and cling to a picture of a musical instrument. website In fact, the tool has nothing to do with it. They began to call the old, well-known post "bayan" about 25 years ago in the Russian-speaking segment of the FidoNet network, and the people there were going to be smart and educated, not like the current tribe of Internet warriors. Then the Runet came with its permissiveness, they forgot about Fido, the generation of the Unified State Examination appeared, and the tradition of calling all junk "bayan" remained. However, this has nothing to do with a musical instrument. Bayan is an ancient Russian singer and songwriter. Researchers suggest that he lived in the second half of the 11th century, Bayan is mentioned in the most famous ancient Russian chronicle "The Tale of Igor's Campaign", the author of the chronicle calls Bayan an "old nightingale", that is, a singer from the past. Bayan composed songs about the battles, campaigns and militias of his era. In general, when Fido shouted "Bayan !!!" the name of the legendary ancient Russian poet was meant: like Bayan himself sang about this in his songs about Ancient Russia, and not at all a reed button-pneumatic musical instrument. accordion
Ancient Islamic - bon (speech, word). The word was known in the ancient Russian era, but in dictionaries it first appears in 1935 as the name of a musical instrument, a large accordion. It is possible that the noun "bayan" is derived from the Old Russian verb "bayati", which comes from the Church Slavonic "bay", "bayati" - "to tell, to speak." The word is of Indo-European origin and goes back to the Greek fani - "I speak" from fono - "voice", and is also related to the ancient Islamic bon - "speech, word". Related are: Ukrainian - button accordion. Czech - bajan. Derivative: accordionist. accordion Cm. poet... Dictionary of Russian synonyms and expressions similar in meaning. - under. ed. N. Abramova, M.: Russian Dictionaries, 19991. Fairy-tale ancient Russian poet. Accordion or Boyan - a mythical singer, whose name is mentioned several times in the Tale of Igor's Campaign. The form "Bayan" has now become popular in Russia, while among other Slavs and in the "Tale of Igor's Campaign" only the form is found Boyan. In the current century, the word B. has become a common noun for a poet, and almost all Slavs consider Bayan their singer. In reality, however, this historical or mythical person belongs entirely to Russia, and only in a Russian literary monument can one find some information about him, which, however, is completely unsatisfactory. In The Tale of Igor's Campaign, Bayan's name is repeated four times, and all the cases have been analyzed in detail by two Russian scholars who almost disagree with each other on nothing. Vsevolod Miller in his "In... A, m. A kind of large harmonica with a complex system of frets. II prsh. button accordion, th, th. Russian bayan school. Accordion
I
Bayan (Nur Bayan)
Nur Galimovich (May 15, 1905, the village of Anyak, now the Aktanyshsky district of the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, - April 23, 1945, Austria), Tatar Soviet poet. Born into a peasant family. He began to publish in 1925. B.'s poems are saturated with lofty patriotism—Our Banners (1937) and Lenin Among the People (1941). The front-line songs of B. during the Great Patriotic War are imbued with faith in the victory of the Soviet people: “Spring” (1942), “Lenin's milestone on our way” (1943), etc. He died in the battles for the liberation of Austria. Op.: Shigyrler. Poemalar, Kazan, 1954: Shigyrler. Poemalar, Kazan, 1960. Accordion bayans, (Source: "Full accentuated paradigm according to A. A. Zaliznyak")
BAYAN is one of the most perfect and widespread types of chromatic accordion. Named after the legendary ancient Russian singer-storyteller Bayan (Boyan). (named after the legendary other Russian singer-storyteller Bayan (Boyan)) - keyboard-pneumatic. instrument, improved harmonica with chromatic scale for playing melody and bass-chord accompaniment in all keys. The prototype of the first B. was a four-row Petersburg. harmonic. Name "B." originally (1903) was applied to the piano harmonica. In modern understanding, the term was introduced by the master P. E. Sterligov and the harmonist Ya. F. Orlansky-Titarenko. By order of the latter, in 1907 Sterligov made a B. with 4 rows of keys (in the form of spatulas) on the right keyboard. The Sterligov system was named. Petersburg (Leningrad). There were also the systems of V.P. Hegstrem, N.Z. Sinitsky, and others. The Moscow system became the commonly used system. In it, the buttons of the right keyboard (usually 52) are arranged in three rows like a Bavarian harmonica. In each position of the right hand, the performer has 3 buttons located diagonally under the finger - in the first, second and third rows. They also allow... accordion Iskon. Neologism of the Russian accordionist A. F. Orlansky-Titarenko (1877-1941) based on the ancient Russian poet's own name Bayana(cf. Mauser, mac., riding breeches etc.). School etymological dictionary of the Russian language. Origin of words. - M.: Bustard N. M. Shansky, T. A. Bobrova 2004 Accordion BA I H, -but, m. . 1. The position of the dominoes is six to six. 2. Syringe. 3. Nonsense, trifle, stupidity. 4. A talkative person, talker, idler, yap.
Duma accordions. 2. - from narc. Cm. also pick up the button accordionDictionary of Russian Argo. - GRAMOTA.RU. V. S. Elistratov (or boyan), button accordion, m. (music). Musical instrument in "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" this is the name of the song-singer of ancient times. (Source: "Dictionary of foreign words included in the Russian language". Pavlenkov F., 1907) singer in "The Tale of Igor's Campaign". (Source: "The Complete Dictionary of Foreign Words Used in the Russian Language". Popov M., 1907) Accordion Russian chromatic harmonica; It was named by the designer P. E. Sterligov and the harmonica player Ya. F. Orlansky in 1907 after the singer-narrator Bayan (Boyan). Bayan (Boyan) ancient (XI or early XII century) Russian or Slavic songwriter, singer-storyteller; composed songs of glory in honor of the exploits of the Russian princes. He was first mentioned in The Tale of Igor's Campaign, where he was called a "nightingale of the old time" and a "prophetic" singer. It is also mentioned in the "Zadonshchina" (XIV century). Boyan's name has become a household name for the poet. The fate of eponyms. 300 stories of the origin of words. Dictionary-reference. M.G. Blau. Accordion `Biographical Dictionary` Bayan, see Boyan. 1) a liter of vodka, 2) a fingerprinting machine, 3) a saw, 4) a syringe for injecting drugs see syringe accordion
-but
,
m. Large harmonica with a complex fret system. [After the name of the ancient Russian poet Bayan] BAYAN - see Word about Igor's regiment. accordion ACCORDION 1. ACCORDION, -but; m. Large harmonica with a complex fret system. ● Named after the legendary ancient Russian singer-storyteller Boyan (Bayan). ◁ Bayanny, th, th. B. register. 2. ACCORDION see Boyan. Great Dictionary of Russian language. - 1st edition: St. Petersburg: Norint S. A. Kuznetsov.Accordion `Explanatory Dictionary of Efremova` 1. m. 1) The legendary old Russian singer-storyteller. 2) Poet, performer of songs, legends. 2. m. Large harmonica with a complex system of frets. accordion BAYA ´ H(boyan) - 1) the legendary singer-poet of ancient Russia, which is mentioned in the “Word of Igor's Campaign”: “Start your songs according to the epics of this time, and not according to Boyan's plan. Boyan is more prophetic, if anyone wants to create a song, then he will spread his thoughts along the tree, a gray volk on the ground, a shiz eagle under the clouds. 2) Common name of an ancient Russian poet. Poetic dictionary. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia Kvyatkovsky A.P., scientific. ed. I. Rodnyanskaya 1966
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