Russianism,
Russism, or
Russicism is an influence of
Russian language on other languages. In particular, Russianisms are Russian or
russified words, expressions, or grammar constructs used in
Slavic languages, languages of
CIS states and languages of the
Russian Federation.
However, the scope of the Russian language influence is wider. For example, in
Italian language Russisms rank fifth and sixth after
Anglicisms,
Gallicisms,
Germanisms,
Hispanisms, and
Arabisms. The difference between russianisms (russisms) in, say, the
Italian language and the
Ukrainian language is that in Italian Russisms stay for original Russian notions which did not exist in Italian and thus, Italian had to loan such words to describe Russian reality, whilst Ukrainian uses Russianisms to replace existing Ukrainian words, which describe Ukrainian reality.
In his own researches
Jovan Ajduković reinterpret and innovate the "theory of transfer" of lexical borrowing (е.g., Rudolf Filipović 1986, 1990) and introduce the "theory of approximate copying and activation" of
contact-lexemes.
In the "theory of transfer", the concept of Russianism (Russism) in lexicographical sources in the broader sense means (1) an unmotivated or motivated word of Russian origin which has kept a strong formal-semantic connection with the corresponding word in Russian (e.g. Serb.
baćuška, votka, dača, samizdat, sputnjik, uravnilovka), (2) an unmotivated or motivated word of Russian origin which has partially or completely lost its formal-semantic connection with the original Russian word owing to adaptation (e.g. Serb.
blagovremen, iskrenost, istina, pravda, ljubimac, ljubimica, predostrožan, predostrožnost), (3) an unmotivated or motivated word of non-Russian origin borrowed through Russian (e.g. Serb.
agitprop, agitpropovski, almaz, bandura, aul, kilka, tajga, čaj, korsak, jantar, kumis, kaftan, aršin) and (4) an unmotivated or motivated of Russian or non-Russian origin borrowed into the receiving language through a transmitter language (e.g. Maced.
boljar, kolhoz, sovhoz, kolhozovština). For example, the transmitter language in Russian-Macedonian language contacts is Bulgarian or Serbian (Ajdukovic 2004: 94; 340).
In the "theory of approximate copying and activation" (so-called "Ajdukovic's Theory of Contacteme"), the concept of Russianism (Russism) means a word having one or more "independent contactemes", which have arisen under the dominant influence of Russian (e.g. Serb.
vostok, nervčik, knjiška, bedstvo, krjak). Jovan Ajduković introduce the term "contacteme" for the basic unit of contact on each separate level of language. He distinguish "contact-phoneme", "contact-grapheme", "contacteme in distribution of sounds", "prosodic contacteme", "derivational contacteme", "morphological contacteme", "semantic contacteme", "syntactic contacteme", "stylistic contacteme", "contact-lexeme" and "contact-phraseme" (e.g. Serb.
čovek u futroli, Baba Jaga, pali borac, planska privreda, široke narodne mase, Sve srećne porodice liče jedna na drugu, svaka nesrećna porodica nesrećna je na svoj način) (Ajdukovic 2004: 99; 340) .
Russianisms and Russification
In countries that have long been under the influence of
Russian Empire,
Soviet Union, and modern
Russia, Russianism is a direct result of "
russification", when native words and expressions were replaced with Russian ones. Russianisms are especially frequent in
Ukrainian and
Belarusian, as the languages linguistically close to Russian.
Examples of russianisms in Ukrainian would be "часи" (
časy, "clock") instead of "годинник" (
hodynnyk), "ковьор" (
kov'or "carpet") instead of "килим" (
kylym), "празнувати" (
praznuvaty, "to celebrate") instead of "святкувати" (
svjatkuvaty), and many others. Examples from
Moldavian include "odecolon" and "subotnic".
Depending on speaker's region and social status, his/her use of russianisms may be as high as 50 per cent,as happened in Moldovan dialect of Romanian language (the closer to Russia the higher). Use of russianisms results in creation of Russian-Ukrainian or Russian-Belarusian
pidgins (called
surzhyk and
trasianka accordingly).
Even after the
dissolution of the Soviet Union, russianisms are still penetrating into national languages due to Russia's cultural and linguistical influence in
post-Soviet states (via media, trade, politics etc.).
See also
