Some problems of borrowing in the Russian language

S.B. Nevejina

This article concerns borrowings from European languages. Although the study of foreign lexics and, wider, language borrowing has its own history over a long period of time in linguistics both in Russia and abroad (one can mention the names of great scholars who dealt with this problem: Bloomfield, Scherba, Grot. Haugen) the problem of borrowing by the Russian language hasn't been solved yet. The least investigated aspect is the graphic and orthographic one.

Spelling of loans contains complex of theoretical problems: principals of spelling borrowings and ways of reproducing foreign words in the Russian language; description of phonetic and morphological adaptive processes in the foreign lexics; forming orthographic standard, correlation of norm and codification of borrowings.

Ways of transmission of loans and processes of adaptation are examined in the paper. They are considered as applied to the material of foreign words from "Vesty-Kuranty. 1600-1639." - a business written language monument of the XVII century.

Up to now the active borrowing from European languages was believed to begin in Peter I epoch. However the period just precedent was significant too. A lot of words fixed in dictionaries for the beginning of the XVIII century penetrated into the Russian written language in the XVII century. Thus examination of "Vesty-Kuranty. 1600-1639." permits us to correct some data connected with foreign word appearance. According to "Этимологический словарь русского языка " by M. Fasmer the word "галера" penetrated into Russian in 1665. But it was mentioned in the "Kuranty" in 1620. It also concerns the following words: "герб"(1644) - 1620, "коруна"(1613) - 1600, "карета"(XVII - XVIII) - 1636, "миля"(1702) - 1620, "мызник"(1701) - 1600, "персона"(1633) - 1620, "пистолет"(1689) - 1630-31, "рота"(1701) - 1600, "секретарь"(1720) - 1621.[1]

As for the Russian spelling the XVII century was the period of standardizing. Then analyzing orthographical monuments of that time allows us both to retrace orthographical norm forming and to realise phenomena of modern language.

Let me make clear what I mean by borrowing. This concept is used in a variety of senses. I shall use it to mean 1) the element of an alien language which is carried from one language to another as a result of language contacts and also 2) the process of element transition.

It may be said there is some tradition to call the words less adapted in the Russian language "foreign words". Though it is fair that the division of words depending on their adaptation is correct in a certain historical moment only. I suppose the foreign word is more preferable for this work because most of the words presented in the "Kuranty" are at the stage of penetration. But the fact of strange word penetration can't be the evidence of its borrowing yet.[2]

1. Ways of reproducing foreign words

Spelling of foreign words is a pressing and undecided problem in the Russian which is explained by several ways of introducing borrowings into the Russian text. The ways depend upon languages and loans. At present there are various classifications of borrowing ways Russian scholars offer.[4,5,6]

Let me introduce my system worked out on their base. It includes four ways of borrowing: 1)translation; 2)transplantation (according to G.G. Tymofeeva presupposes a mechanical transportation of lexical unit graphemes from one language to another without any changes in borrowed word spelling. E. g.: 'ad libitum' ); 3)transliteration (when graphemes are reproduced by equivalent graphemes of another standardized written language. E.g.:'Диест - German: Diest [i:]'); 4)transphoning (this term from the classification by Tymofeeva should take the place of the conventional (but not very correct and convenient) practical transcription first used by A.M. Suhotyn. So transphoning is a reproduction of a word written form on script. E. g.: 'Киль - German: Kiel [i:]'. It is necessary to divide it into codified transphoning coming through the written language, concordant with accepted rules of transcribing by means of the Russian alphabet and uncodified transphoning coming through the spoken language, unnormatively, where influence of dialects, speaker's individual peculiarities is possible).

"Vesty-Kuranty. 1600-1639." contains a great deal of foreign lexics so long as it is the translation of foreign press reports mainly. The language which the foreign words have come from directly having been defined, word forms in it should be restored. Then, it is necessary to find out the spelling and pronunciation of borrowings in that time. For our work all mass of the foreign words is limited to borrowings from German (Ger.), French(Fr.), Italian (It.), Polish, Greek, Latin.

After the restoration of word forms in foreign languages and their analysis it is observed the absence of transplantated forms in the "Vesty - Kuranty" at all. A series of words is introduced by translation both total (f.e.: Теплый колодезь - Warmbrunn) and partial (Eизеннов городок - Eisenstadt).

It should be noticed there is an obvious tendency to borrow words by transliteration. E. g.: Арбоис - Fr. Arbois [a:rbwa], Анор - Fr. Anor [ano:], Полигна - Fr. Poligny [polin'i], etc.

There is a great number of words demonstrating combination of transliteration and transphoning. E.g.: Монпелир - Fr. Montpellier [mõpeje], Меисен - Ger. Meissen, etc.