Posted by Josefina
Always the faithful reader of «Русский репортёр» [Russian reporter], I came across a rather fascinating article in the latest number (Nr. 9, 13-20 March 2008) under the headline of «Сколько языков знает Россия?» The article focuses on the 150 small languages being spoken by different nationalities in Russia, and their fate in the future of globalization, since some of them are currently in desperate danger of extinction. Yes, it’s sometimes far too easy to forget that Russia is in fact not really ‘Russian’ at all, but a dynamic merge of many peoples, cultures, traditions and languages. The article, which was written in the light of the year 2008 being the year of languages, as decided by UN, is interesting not just because it contains information about languages you’re not likely to hear about anywhere else, but because it explains why any language that ‘dies’ is a tragedy. «Изчесновение малых языков России – настоящая трагедия: гибнет не просто набор слов и грамматических правил – умирает целый космос», the article says, and further explains how it is not the way we look at the world that’s reflected in our language, but that what is reflected in our language determines how we look at the world.
This sculpture in the center of Челябинск [Chelyabinsk, southern Urals] is not the only reminder of the Turkish speaking people who originally inhabited this area. So is the name of the city itsef.
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Posted by Josefina
Today one of my Russian friends sent me this link http://nexilo.ru/index.php?name=News&op=article&sid=42 and immediatly after looking at it I felt obligated to share it with you. Though I was skeptic at first, it turned out to be a lot more (fun!) than these words claim on the site: “Большая коллекция фотографий с интересными моментами из жизни В.В. Путина, посвещёная его уходу с поста президента России” [Big collection of photographs with interesting moments from the life of V. V. Putin, dedicated to his leaving the post as president of Russia.]
Here is Putin with Дед Мороз. Perhaps it’s only me, but doesn’t it seem to you as if Putin is searching for another way, looking for something new in книга добрых дел [the book of good deeds]?
Posted by Josefina
In May three years ago I tried to get on a bus in Omsk [Siberia] but was refused entrance by the conductor with the words: «Нет местов!» It was the first time I had ever heard a Russian make a mistake when speaking their native language and that may have been the reason as to why I was not frustrated with being forced to wait for the next bus. Instead I felt a strange sense of superiority – already after eight months of studying Russian in Russia I knew very well that the word «место» [place; seat] in genitive plural is «мест» and therefore the correct way of saying that there are no seats available would be «нет мест». Of course I had heard from my teachers at Омский государственный педагогический университет [Omsk State Pedagogical University] that Russians, like all other people, make mistakes in their own language, and some far more serious than saying местов or проблемов, but until I heard it with my own ears I hadn’t been able to believe it to be true. One of my teachers in Omsk, with whom I constantly fought on the issue of whether it is correct to say «в Украине» [in Ukraine] or «на Украине» [in the Ukraine] after the Orange Revolution of 2004, gave me a link to an excellent webpage constructed to help Russians speak better Russian: www.gramma.ru/ But don’t let that scare you if you feel your Russian is barely beyond the stage of reading the Cyrillic alphabet – it’s motto «Говорим и пишем правильно: культура письменной речи» [we speak and write correctly: the culture of written speech] clearly shows it’s for anyone who should feel inclined to so-called «ботаничество в области русского языка» [nerdiness in the area of Russian language].
Some see nothing more than a poster advertising the Philologist Day at Ural State University, others see a new way of using a famous poem by legendary 19th century poet Mikhail Yurevich Lermontov: «И скучно, и грустно, и некому руку подать…»
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Posted by Josefina
The 8th of March is International Women’s Day, which in Russian translates into Междонародный женский день, or, even better – выходной день [public holiday]. Since the 8th of March this year falls on a Saturday, the Russian Federation has decided to solve this situation in two ways – one way for those not working or studying on Saturdays, and another for those working or studying on Saturdays (for those to whom this is news – yes, a six days a week schedule is the harsh reality for most students and schoolchildren in Russia). For those not working nor studying on Saturday, thus having the day already be a выходной, Monday is the day off instead. Those who study or work on Saturday get that day off and instead they have to show up to work or to university/school on Monday. And on Monday they’ll have to study according to Saturday’s schedule. This means that the выходной wasn’t really a выходной at all, but you merely get to rest in order to pay it back later. This was one of the most difficult things for me to handle when I first arrived in Russia. However, today’s subject is not “difficult things to handle when first arriving in Russia” but the holiday that celebrates the smarter, oh, sorry, the fairer sex – с праздником!
This is a characteristic card from the 30’s, calling ‘working women to break free from kitchen slavery’. That was however, due to the Soviet state’s incapability of providing enough, or any at all, household appliances, only a farfetched fantasy.
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Posted by Josefina
Everybody knows how to say I love you. «Я люблю тебя» is as much a given as vodka and borsch – and just as much of a cliché. But what about saying “I like you” instead? Not as romantic perhaps, and perhaps not as thrilling, either. Perhaps I find Russians expressions of liking and disliking rather meager only because I was brought up in a country that was afraid to hail its own flag whereas Russians tend to wear white, red and blue whenever the occasion doesn’t forbid them. The new learner will know how to express boundless love for everything from his motherland and his parents to coffee and soccer long before even thinking about emotions a little less heated. The verb to love, «любить», is a wonderful verb not only because of its simplicity and clarity, but also for how it interacts with those dreaded six cases. It has the logical subject in nominative and the logical object in accusative, and to illustrate this I present to you a translation of what the beginner above could express after Russian 101: «Я люблю свою родину, я люблю своих родителей, я люблю кофе и я люблю футбол».
How about this sentence: «Я люблю демократию, но мне не нравятся выборные кампании» [I love democracy, but I don't like the election campaigns].
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I was just commenting on the fact that the term itself is a problematic one, in the context of what I said about Jews reading the Christian Bible. Sorry if I was unclear."
