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IN SLOVAKIA #153 (213)
Projective lexicon of the Russian language September 10, 2006
Dear friends!
After the summer break, we are resuming fresh weekly episodes of The Gift.
First of all, I would like to welcome new readers and subscribers. Their number increased by 150 - and reached 2902. I am very pleased with your interest in “The Gift” and invite you to actively participate in our discussions, guest and reader issues!
Subject:
Re: Preved, corrected
Date:
Fri, 12 May 2006 16:11:28 +0400
From:
Lesya Grushevskaya <travis79@mail.ru>
To:
Mikhail Epstein <russmne@emory.edu>
I could appreciate the growing popularity of fanetics during my summer trip to Moscow and St. Petersburg. I had the opportunity to speak with reflections on the state and fate of the Russian language in many places: at the philological departments of Moscow State University and St. Petersburg State University, at the Russian State University for the Humanities, at the Akhmatova Museum (St. Petersburg), at the Sakharov Center (Moscow)... And everywhere I was asked questions about the “preved” : does this spoil the Russian language, does it threaten literacy, etc. I believe that no, it does not spoil or threaten. Spelling is a game with spelling, a conscious, playful violation of its norms, which thereby re-establishes them - by contradiction. This will not reduce literacy. On the contrary, it requires a fair amount of knowledge of the language and some sophistication to suggest an orthographically different but spelling-accurate spelling of a given word. For example, “brivet” or “prifet” (as opposed to “preved”) are no longer suitable, although they replace only one letter - but the pronunciation changes. "Afftor" is pronounced like "author" - and therefore can be considered a stroke of spelling; but “avdor” would no longer work. Thus, conscious violation of the rules (according to certain rules) contributes to better mastery of them, and therefore I would even suggest introducing spelling as a game element in school lessons. But one should not exaggerate the importance of this game - it is on the periphery of the language and is unlikely to be able to deeply influence its evolution.
network project Mikhail Epstein's "The Gift of Words" has been published since April 2000. Every week, subscribers are sent several new words, with definitions and examples of use. These words are not in any dictionary, and yet they denote significant phenomena and concepts for which there has not yet been a place in the language and public consciousness. "Dar" also conducts discussions about the Russian language, discusses letters and suggestions from readers. “The Gift” can serve as a guide to word creation, an introduction to the world of linguistic fantasies and mental technologies. “The word controls the brain, the brain controls the hands, hands control the kingdoms” (Velimir Khlebnikov).
Projective lexicon of the Russian language September 10, 2006
Topic of the week: preved, spelling, fanetics, Albanian language
Dear friends!
After the summer break, we are resuming fresh weekly episodes of The Gift.
First of all, I would like to welcome new readers and subscribers. Their number increased by 150 - and reached 2902. I am very pleased with your interest in “The Gift” and invite you to actively participate in our discussions, guest and reader issues!
A number of other events occurred over the summer that I would like to share:
1. During my meeting with the rector of St. Petersburg University Lyudmila Alekseevna Verbitskaya, an agreement was reached on the creation of a Center for the Creative Development of the Russian Language on the basis of the International Association of Teachers of Russian Language and Literature (MAPRYAL). I will keep you updated on further developments of this initiative.
2. In July I visited a dialectological expedition in the Seliger region. Expedition, led by professor from St. Petersburg. University of Lyudmila Vladimirovna Zubova, recorded many dialect words that are interesting not only in themselves, but also as evidence of the living state and creative possibilities of the Russian language. I will share some of these lexical finds with readers in the coming issues.
3. Cooperation has been established between “The Gift of the Word” and Gramma. ru , one of the largest language portals on the Runet dedicated to the culture of written speech. There are links to “The Gift of the Word” (in the “Dictionaries” section) and to the article “ Russian Language in the Light of Creative Philology ” (in the “News” section). I invite readers of "Dar" to access the rich information resources of this portal, which was created by employees of the Faculty of Philology of St. Petersburg. university.
4. My article “Love Names” was published in the July issue of “October” magazine. Introduction to erotonymy , previously published as separate chapters in issues of "The Gift" (142-145).
Over the past months, I have received quite a few letters from readers. I propose to publish that part of the correspondence that is informative and conceptual in nature in Dar. Today's episode is dedicated to a curious modern phenomenon - the deliberate distortion of the spelling of words while maintaining their pronunciation. For example, the word "hello" can be written as "preved" - and it is pronounced exactly the same, since the unstressed "e" is pronounced like "i", and the final "d" is stunned. This language game pits spelling against spelling, revealing their internal tensions and discrepancies.
Below I present my correspondence with Muscovite Olesya Grushevskaya, who very vividly and, as they say, first-hand described this phenomenon. Here's what she says about herself:
“I’m 27 years old, I’m not officially working at the moment. I’m doing what’s called
direct marketing, for a couple of companies. I'm coping well, but most of my
acquaintances are firmly convinced that I chose the wrong specialty - there should be
psychologist. Perhaps someday I will heed their urgent advice...
Here, in fact, is a short excursion into my biography."
Subject:
Date:
Sat, 06 May 2006 11:51:40 +0400
From:
Lesya Grushevskaya <travis79@mail.ru>
To:
russmne@emory.edu
Dear Mikhail!
In your response to your next letter I came across the expression “continuous
preved". And I had the idea to share with you and your readers
with your own thoughts, where did this manner of free handling with
Russian language on the Internet.
The fact is that I spend a lot of time on the Internet, including
forums and chat. This state of affairs developed already seven years ago, so
that, probably, I can already draw some general conclusions and identify
retrospective. The Internet folk call “completely spoken language” “Albanian language”,
however, this is just a recent practice. I'll start from the beginning of mine
observations in this area.
In 2000, I graduated from college, wrote my diploma and at the same time went
work in an Internet cafe. It’s not hard to guess that on the Internet I became
spend a lot of time, including chatting. It must be said that in
at that time even teenagers tried to communicate in Russian without distorting
words and cases. Surprisingly, among the people chatting, there were quite a few
literate people, but, of course, many did spelling and
punctuation errors, completely, however, unintentionally, due to their
individual circumstances. The first sign of "Albany" was
What.
Somehow, imperceptibly and very organically, the manner of
indicate mood, intonation or gestures, facial expressions using words. This
it was done like in a play, when the author describes similar moments in parentheses.
For example:
- What are you doing this evening? (coquettishly)
or
- Are you serious? (smiles)
Asterisks and slashes could be used as brackets,
known as back slash. There's a lot going on here. In my opinion,
The reason for this phenomenon was that, when communicating in writing,
It’s quite difficult to express with just words and punctuation marks
your emotions and mood. It would seem that nothing is wrong.
But later these comments began to almost replace the remarks themselves,
For example:
- Loves it!
Those. the "Indian" practice of talking about oneself in the third came into use
face. I must say, she was very popular.
Further more. Over time, against the backdrop of fairly high illiteracy
(it must be taken into account that not all people are capable of
impeccable knowledge and use of language) a new fashion has appeared in
deliberate distortion of words. Combined with the manner of talking about oneself in
third person, it already looked like this:
- Abajait!
And then like this:
- Abajaid!
And, of course, the famous "preved".
It is quite obvious that an attempt to disguise
poor knowledge of the laws of the Russian language, and a certain gaming component. IN
At present, even literate, highly educated people believe
completely natural in a chat or forum (i.e. when communicating with others
people) use the "Albanian" language.
I’ll make a small lyrical digression. Seeing words like "abazhaid" or
"tsyluid", we, a few idle, literate, admirers of creativity
Kharms (who, by the way, also loved to play with words and their spelling,
"Yaroneya" alone is worth it), the words "roofing felt" and
"celluloid", only as verbs. Essentially, they served
synonyms of the above mangled words. We even got a game:
come up with as many noun words as possible that could serve
verbs in chat. It was a game of absurdity, but thus, I confess, we are in
to some extent contributed to the enrichment of “Albany”.
Currently, the trend is only gaining momentum, new terms and
abbreviations, new versions of words appear almost every week,
causing everyone to laugh and amusing the Internet residents.
In conclusion, I would like to give a few more examples from the “Albany” language.
First of all, I am amazed at how the chat's inhabitants say hello and
say goodbye to each other, how inventively and precisely they mean
words of attitude, emotion and action, for example:
- Salud! or Translate!
This is a neutral greeting with a stranger or a complete stranger.
human.
Further, in increasing order, follow:
- Smack! or
- Smack smack smack! (in case of lack of time or laziness, it is reduced to
"ччч")
- I'm blowing my nose!
- I heard I heard about ushkom!
- Kusyafk musyafk tender!
The latter is, in my opinion, simply an apotheosis.
Such remarks are common among the female part of the chat population. Similar men's
the lines sound like:
- Friday!
- Hugs!
- I’m shaking whoever! (+saw)
Further, the demonstration of emotions, for example, laughter, also produced certain
evolution. If at the beginning it was
- Hahaha!
then over time it turned into
- Hype
and then it was completely shortened to “yyy”.
Words from the classics are also used, for example, the well-known
Kipling's "schasvirnus".
Basically, "Albanian" differs from Russian exclusively in deliberate
changing endings, unstressed vowels and (sometimes, in particularly advanced
cases) by replacing voiceless consonants with voiced ones and vice versa. Essentially this is
introduction of the rules of oral speech from the point of view of phonetics into written form
communication. However, I managed to collect a good collection and quite
original words, which is constantly updated.
Dear Mikhail, I am writing all this to you with a not entirely clear purpose: either
explain to you the reasons for “preveda”, or simply designate this phenomenon as
it is. Anyway, I hope my mini-research was
informative and useful for you. After all, now it is part of our life,
whether we like it or not. By turning a blind eye to such things, we cannot
expect them to immediately evaporate without a trace. Things have gone too far.
With wishes of success and deep respect,
Olesya
Subject:
Preved, found nics
Date:
Sun, 07 May 2006 18:24:06 -0400
From:
Mikhail Epstein <russmne@emory.edu>
To:
Lesya Grushevskaya <travis79@mail.ru>
Dear Olesya,
thanks for your letter! It arrived on time. I have long been planning to talk with the readers of "The Gift" about this phenomenon of preveda, and your letter just provides us with excellent material. I call this phenomenon in its own spirit - spelling game , where, thanks to the incorrect letter “i” instead of “o”, the word “game” fits in. However, why is it so wrong? After all, there are the words “electrification, gasification”...
Another name is “ fanetics ”, where “fan” fits in, in two senses: fan - fan, and fun - fun, pleasure. To christen this technique (distortion of spelling while maintaining pronunciation), it is appropriate to use it.
In English, I would dub this “phanomenon” funnetics (pronounced “fanetics”, the same as phonetics, phonetics), from the crossing of phonetics and fun. (You can, of course, not double n - funetics - but then it will be pronounced differently: funetics). Another name - it seems to be used sometimes - is “ left spelling ” (cf. “spelling”).
In general, it seems to me that this spelling came to Russian from English, where it has been in use for a long time, and not only on the Internet, but also in advertising and trade signs. For example, an advertisement for chickens looks like this:
eat mor chikin (correct: eat more chickens, “eat more chickens”)
And a vegetarian restaurant mixes the spelling of two versions of its slogan, intertwining their letters:
let us surprise (let's be surprised)
lettuce soup rice (salad soup rice)
Fanetics has long been used in English as a means of attracting more than pakupatil. This is a way of defamiliarizing the word, defamiliarizing it, deautomatizing it. This, according to the theory of the formal school, is the goal of art, which does not want automatic recognition of a thing, as in utilitarian use, but long-term attention to it for its own sake. And now business is trying out the strategy of art, making it difficult to perceive its clichés, instead of making it easier. All genres are good, except boring. All means of advertising are good, which keep attention to it. But I'm afraid that fanetics is a mechanical tool that doesn't work for a long time. “Preved” becomes familiar just as quickly as “hello.”
What do you think about the origins and, most importantly, the prospects of this phenomenon? What is its function in network communication? Entertainment, challenge, defamiliarization? Is this phenomenon on the rise or decline? Are there any recognized masters and masterpieces of spelling on the Internet? Could you please provide links to them?
Once again, thank you very much!
Michael Epstein
Subject:
Re: Preved, corrected
Date:
Fri, 12 May 2006 16:11:28 +0400
From:
Lesya Grushevskaya <travis79@mail.ru>
To:
Mikhail Epstein <russmne@emory.edu>
Dear Mikhail!
Thank you for your response to my letter. Indeed, in English-speaking countries it is
the phenomenon of "spelling", as you call it, has long spread not only to
Internet communication, but also on everyday life in the real world. English for this
has - poor in vocabulary, it is rich in meanings. So there's nothing
It’s amazing that puns, phonetic
charades, etc.
In Germany, scientists are seriously concerned that English is increasingly
is being introduced into German. The speech of young people is densely sprinkled with English words, and
The pure German language is increasingly losing its position to some kind of surzhik.
In fact, we have the same process in Russia, adjusted for national
peculiarities. But our “spelling” has very little in common with this trend. Based on my observations, I can say that the majority of Runet inhabitants who are prone to distortion
language, they don’t go beyond the elementary incorrect spelling of words, and this
incorrect spelling does not carry any meaning. The purpose of such actions
is purely fun, a game, and not about any challenge or protest against
there is no question of anything at all.
As I already wrote, the “Albany” trend is only gaining strength, the epidemic is still
not even in full swing. However, perhaps I am overestimating the scale of the disaster.
As for links to Internet sources where you could familiarize yourself with
examples of the “Albany language”, then I hasten to remind you that such language is typical
almost exclusively for real-time communication, i.e. for chats. Sort of
written oral speech. If you go to any chat (even if it’s mail.ru), then
you will be able to observe “Albany” in all its glory.
I hope I answered your questions. Sincerely,
Olesya
PS
I hasten to report the news (however, maybe not news for you). My acquaintance
literally today I saw an advertisement for the following Newsweek magazine on the Garden Ring
content: in the foreground Leonid Parfenov shouts “Preved!”, and in the background above
Bears fly in the silhouettes of Moscow buildings. Here is an example of how Russian advertising agencies are introducing “spelling” following their European counterparts.
I could appreciate the growing popularity of fanetics during my summer trip to Moscow and St. Petersburg. I had the opportunity to speak with reflections on the state and fate of the Russian language in many places: at the philological departments of Moscow State University and St. Petersburg State University, at the Russian State University for the Humanities, at the Akhmatova Museum (St. Petersburg), at the Sakharov Center (Moscow)... And everywhere I was asked questions about the “preved” : does this spoil the Russian language, does it threaten literacy, etc. I believe that no, it does not spoil or threaten. Spelling is a game with spelling, a conscious, playful violation of its norms, which thereby re-establishes them - by contradiction. This will not reduce literacy. On the contrary, it requires a fair amount of knowledge of the language and some sophistication to suggest an orthographically different but spelling-accurate spelling of a given word. For example, “brivet” or “prifet” (as opposed to “preved”) are no longer suitable, although they replace only one letter - but the pronunciation changes. "Afftor" is pronounced like "author" - and therefore can be considered a stroke of spelling; but “avdor” would no longer work. Thus, conscious violation of the rules (according to certain rules) contributes to better mastery of them, and therefore I would even suggest introducing spelling as a game element in school lessons. But one should not exaggerate the importance of this game - it is on the periphery of the language and is unlikely to be able to deeply influence its evolution.
_________________________________________________________________
Aphorism
When a person’s sense of the norm is cultivated, then he begins to feel all the charm of justified deviations from it.”
L.V. Shcherba. Controversial issues of Russian grammar. "Russian language at school", 1939.1, p.
100.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Memo (from previous issues)
MoskOvinka, MoskvInka (cf. sourness, bitterness, weirdness, sadness, slyness ) - a piece or imprint of something Moscow, a feature of Moscow behavior or character in its smallest manifestation; an elementary particle of “Moscowness”.
He only studied in Moscow for a year, but he no longer looks like ours, some kind of Muscovite has appeared in him ._________________________________________________________________Oh, I immediately got excited, “Malako” - look, the Muscovite plays in it like that.
Who knows where he came from, maybe from St. Petersburg, but still there is some kind of Muscovite feeling in him .
(issue 120 )
network project Mikhail Epstein's "The Gift of Words" has been published since April 2000. Every week, subscribers are sent several new words, with definitions and examples of use. These words are not in any dictionary, and yet they denote significant phenomena and concepts for which there has not yet been a place in the language and public consciousness. "Dar" also conducts discussions about the Russian language, discusses letters and suggestions from readers. “The Gift” can serve as a guide to word creation, an introduction to the world of linguistic fantasies and mental technologies. “The word controls the brain, the brain controls the hands, hands control the kingdoms” (Velimir Khlebnikov).
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