Many words used to be in application in early times vanished from the living language either because items or notions, denoted by them became out of date and quitted of usage in altered conditions of life or since they were replaced by new nominations which became generally used. However such words which gone out of usage are still commonly used in literary language with a peculiar lexical purpose.
Indeed words of English origin are those which refer to the Old English period. The other portion is foreign words which came from Latin, Greek, French, Scandinavian and other languages. There are two ways of new words penetration. The first is spoken language, that is, owing to the vivid communication of two nations using different languages the adoption of new words denoting material items or cultural notions appears. In this way new words assimilates completely faster. The second way is literary or written, that is, borrowing of new words from foreign texts during the translation of them into Target language. In this way new nominations preserve their phonetic, grammatical and orthographic features for a long time.
English language was formed by two major layers of English lexis: Anglo-Saxon and Romanic. Romanic layer in its turn can be divided into Latin and French. Moreover there are a lot of words which were borrowed from about 50 languages of the world, including Russian during the period of 1500 years.
Upon the whole such easiness of the new words adoption lays within the fact that England is an island and its geographical position was always the main reason for the attempts to conquer it by many other communities.
2.2 Classification of borrowings
Borrowings which are included in the vocabulary of a language can be classified into three groups:
1) according to the source of borrowings[10];
2) according to the aspect which was borrowed;
3) according to the level of assimilation.
According to the aspect that was borrowed, loan-words are divided into: phonetic and transcription, when the sound structure is rendered to be completely new, so this is when the sound structure remains unchanged in the borrowed word it only acquires some phonetic peculiarities of the Target language; calque-translations (the blue-print translation of the notion); semantic loan-words and the borrowing of wordbuilding elements.
Under the semantic borrowing we should understand the adoption of new nomination; it is often a figurative meaning to the already existing notion. The words “pioneer” and “brigade” have already existed in English word-stock before the penetration of sovetisms into it, but the definitions “” and “” they acquired under the influence of Russian language of Post October period.
As to the Russian language, in Before October period the words were borrowed mainly referring with the peculiarities of Russian nature, life and objects of trade: sable “соболь”, astrakhan “каракуль”, starlet “стерлядь”, steppe “степь”, verst “верста”, izba “изба”. There are a lot of sovetisms in English. Among them there are phonetic borrowings, where new notion and new sound structure are borrowed together: soviet, sputnik, bolshevik, kolkhoz, activist. After having made the analysis of new word definition with the original language one it turned out that it preserves just a part of definitions, often one of them and besides not the primary, but derivational one and it is quite often becomes a term (for example: sputnik and soviet.)
Calque-making - is the process of borrowing new words within adopting its associative meaning and the structure of the word or word combination 9for example: house of rest – “домотдыха”, five-year-plan – “пятилетнийплан, пятилетка”). During the process of calque the words or word combinations are translated separately and then combined together according to the foreign pattern of the word or word combination. According to the structure of the Target language calques can be divided into three groups:
1) word-formative calques – the morphological structure is reproduced;
2) phraseological – the process of blue-print translation of each word;
3) semantic – to attach figurative meaning to the already existed word according to the foreign pattern.
So that the process of calque-making realizes a very important function, being the guide of intercultural influence between languages. Word-formative calques can be inexact: during the translation one of the morphemes can be interpreted with the help of approximate equivalent.
Calque-making and transcription as the means of borrowing should be distinguished from the of the same name methods of translation. They do not differ by the mechanism but they do by the final result: the enlargement of vocabulary doesn’t take place during the process of translation, whereas during the process of borrowing new lexical units appears in the language.
2.3 Periods of Russian words’ penetration into English language
Most of research workers divide Russian influence on the English lexical system into two periods:
1) borrowings of the pre-revolutionary period;
2) borrowings of Soviet period.
However, V.V.Akulenko in his Ph.D. thesis (candidate's dissertation) divided the history of Russian language interaction with other Occidental languages, including English, into four periods.
The first period covers the influence of Old Russian language of the Kiev Russia on the Old and partially Middle English languages.
The second period is closely connected with the development of trade and political communication of Russia and England, the upgrowth of Russian nation’s power; it begins from the second half of XVI century and continues up to the middle of XIX century.
The third period begins from the 60 years of XIX century and lasts till 1917. Here the modifications in economical and social spheres are in the focus of interest, the increasing power of revolution struggled with the reaction and a great progress in the development of native science and culture.
The fourth period of Russian influence is the Soviet epoch. One could say about a new stage in the development of political and social-economic vocabulary of Russian language and also about the further development of its international significance in the post-war period connected with the beginnings of powerful camp of peace, democracy and socialism as far as the creation of UNO (United Nations Organization), where Russian language was declared as the international language along with English, French, Spanish and Chinese.
Today we can speak about the fifth Post-Soviet period.
2.3.1 The first period
The mutual attention between English, French and Russian nations may be observed from ancient times. The Kiev state had extremely wide connections with different nations of Asia and Europe, including ancient Englishmen. As far back as in the XI century Novgorod was well-known by English people first of all as the supplier of furs and jewelry. The marriage of Vladimir Monomakh with the daughter of the English king Gerald had taken has taken place by this time. The cultural level of Kiev Russia was so high that occidental people thought it to be a rival to the Constantinople. Undoubtedly, the importance of Russian language must have been very considerable with such position of Russian state. Especially with the regard of the fact that Russian nation have already made a significant progress in its economical, political social and cultural spheres by this time. However, the process of borrowing new words by English language were not so large in number and the interpenetration of languages in this period did not occur, though it presents itself very probable that Russian language was able to make some influence on the vocabulary of English language.
There are a number of words which were borrowed in different periods from Slavic languages into the Old Germanic. The main part of them got into the Scandinavian languages, the native speakers of which had a direct connection with the Slavs. As to the Old English, the number of Slavic borrowings is not so numerous in it. Thus, for example English words “talk” (разговор, беседа) and “to talk” (говорить, разговаривать, болтать) goes back to the Scandinavian root “tolk” from Russian “толк” (that is: толковать, толковый). At the same time the word “sable” from Russian “соболь” appears not just in English but in many other occidental languages as the expansive fur of this small animal was selling to many countries by East-Slavs. But during the period of assimilation this word acquired the second meaning – the adjective “dark”.
Even in ancient times Old English as many other German languages had a number of words which went back with the roots of words Slavic in origin. It is obvious that they were already borrowed in XII century. They are: “мед” – meodu (Old English) and mead (contemporary English), “молоко” – meolk (Old English) and milk (contemporary English), “плуг” – ploz (Old English) and plough (contemporary English) and others. Professor A.I.Smirnitsky have distinguished a more early Slavic borrowing in Old English language: the word “syrce” (рубаха, панцирь, кольчуга) which goes back to the Old Slavic “sork” which can be compared with Russian “сорочка”.
It is interesting that there are the same Slavic borrowings in both Old English and Scandinavian languages and it is hard to find out weather they were borrowed from Slavic language into each separately or they penetrated directly from Slavs into Scandinavian and then to Anglo-Saxons.
2.3.2 The second period
This period (XVI-XVII centuries) is well-observed by means of three sources:
1. «Словарь московитов» (French-Russian, 1586);
2. «Записнаякнижка» - Richard James’ Russian-English dictionary (1618-1620);
3. «Русскаяграмматика» by Henry Ludolf (Oxford, 1696).
Stable relations between Russia and England nations were settled only in XVI century. This time is characterized by lasting commercial and diplomatic relations between England and Muscovy and by real interest of London merchants in maintenance of business connections with Russian nation. On the other hand the ignorance of foreign languages, including English in Moscovy was at that time an extremely important motivation towards the studying Russian languages by foreigners. Consequently, owing to the development of capitalism in England and the expansion of traffic by sea England was very interested in communications with Moscovy. English government in XVI-XVII centuries took care of permanent trainings for translation staff from Russian language.
The most of Russian borrowings of this period penetrated into English by writing – over the different reports, diaries and descriptions of Englishmen who visited Russia. In most cases they were nominations of marketing articles, household goods, officials’ names, geographical names and others.
1. Names of officials, subordinate people and governors, nominations referred with the state arrangement: tsar, voivode, knes, bojar, mouzhik, Cossack and others;
2. Measures of weight, distance and currency: verst, arshin, pood, rouble, copeck, chervonets;
3. Objects of clothing and food which were exotisms for Englishmen: shuba, kvas, shchi, borshch, calash, vodka, nalivka, bliny, okroshka and many others;
4. Household goods: troika, izba, telega, balalaika, samovar, tarantas, droshki, kibitka, makhorka;
5. Geographical peculiarities and animals: steppe, tundra, taiga, suslik, borzoi;
Later on English language borrowed another words like: kokoshnik, khorovod, beluga, obrok, zolotnik, otrezok, vedro, matrioshka. Thus for example the word “mammoth” was borrowed by English language as the name of prehistoric animal which was founded in Russia.
word english russian language
2.3.3 The third period
This period is characterized by the developing of industry and at the same time the working class. The struggle of leading people against tsarist government, the growth of people's democratic liberation movement and further strengthening revolutionary movement in XIX and the beginning of XX centuries were reflected in borrowing of such Russian words as: nihilist, nihilism, nihilistic, intelligentsia.
The word narodnik and narodism appeared in English language as a result of the narodnik movement’s development.
The English lexical system is rapidly enriches itself by many new neologisms which express social concepts. From the latter half of the XIX century Russian literature became the matter of interest for deep and serious studying in Occidentals. Thus, the word “nihilist” penetrated into English after the translation of the novel «Отцыидети» by Turgenev.
Undoubtedly, the roots of such words as “Decembrist” or “intelligentsia” are Latin and there already existed words of the same root, but, nevertheless, it is absolutely correct to treat them as Russian because their new meanings were acquired in accordance with the Russian reality of that days. The word “Decembrist” refers to the range of political ideas, which appeared as a result of armed revolt against autocracy and serf-ownership which took place in Saint-Petersburg on the 14 of December 1825.
In the very beginning of the XX century the words “duma”, “pogrom” were borrowed by English language.
2.3.4 The fourth period
The language is directly connected with the human activity and as the result it reflects all changes in industry, society, politics and other spheres. As more significant the event, occurred in one country, so much attention it stimulates in other countries.
As far as the XX century begun, the new Socialistic state was formed in Russia. Russian political terms became well-known in the whole world, they entered into international usage and filled up the word-stock of many languages.
Such words as “Bolshevik”, “Menshevik” and others became widespread. This fact shows the interest of English nation to the political situation in Russia. The grate number of Marxist-Leninist terminology was borrowed by many languages, including English after the victory of the Great October Socialistic revolution.
Words which were borrowed from Russian language in this period are called sovetisms which serves to denote the ideas, concepts and institutions appeared owing to the revolution and appearance of the first socialistic state - the Soviet Union.
For example the word “Soviet” was fixed by English dictionaries in 1917 and was very common in English and American periodical press and literary in 1918-1919 years. However, the Russian word “совет” has an appropriate equivalent in English - “council” with the meaning of administrative, social organ (e.g. Council of ministers – Советминистров), but it did not became established as it could not express the whole range of concepts which were included in this notion.
This period is characterized by appearance of such words as: sovkhoz, kolkhoz, Komsomol, Leninism, bolshevism, commissar, collectivization, industrialisation, subbotnik and many others.
The development of socialistic agriculture which was the foundation for the appearance in English language of such words as: “jurovisation” (яровизация) and the verb “to jarovize”, “podzol” (подзолистаяпочва) and the adjective “podzolic”.
During the Second World War English language enriched with such words as: stormovik (штурмовик), partisan (партизан), Yak (самолет – як).
Russian borrowings played a great role in the perfection of contemporary philosophic and political terminology of many countries, including English.
Also, during the Soviet period English language was penetrated by such new phraseologisms as: hero of labour (геройтруда), socialist construction (социалистическоестроительство), indestructible moral-political unity (нерушимоеморально-политическоеединство), vital interests of the people (жизненныеинтересынарода), reclamation of virgin and unused lands (освоениецелинныхизалежныхземель).
2.3.5 The fifth period
The first Russian word which was borrowed in this period was the word “glasnost”[11] that was used in English since 1986. It was registered in the dictionary of neologisms as “the willingness of the Soviet government to be more open about its affairs” (Longman Guardian New Words Ed. By S.Mort – Bristol, 1986). During the process of assimilation the word “glasnost” formed new word “preglasnost”. This fact proves that this word became widespread in English vocabulary.