Expert talks about linguistic roots of people’s unity
2026 is officially the Year of Unity of the Peoples of Russia. On February 5, President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin declared the year open during a ceremony in Moscow. One of the most striking testaments to the bonds holding the country’s multi-ethnic society together is language. Natalia Gabdreeva, Chair of the Department of Russian as a Foreign Language at the Leo Tolstoy Higher School of Russian Philology and Culture (part of the Institute of Philology and Intercultural Communication), spoke about how the lexical stock was formed and why the process of borrowing is a natural path of development.
According to the professor, modern Russian language is a system consisting of native and introduced elements, the appearance of which is linked to the history of the people.
“The presence of borrowed words (today scholars cite figures ranging from 4 to 22 percent) does not deprive the language of its identity, because it assimilates foreign words, adapting their form and semantics to modern norms, so to speak. There are various classifications regarding the degree of assimilation of loanwords. Thus, the extreme points in this chain are words fully assimilated by the system and not perceived today as borrowed (khleb听摆产谤别补诲闭,听sobaka听摆诲辞驳闭,听platok听摆蝉丑补飞濒闭,听sunduk听摆肠丑别蝉迟闭,听vafli听摆飞补蹿蹿濒别蝉闭,听chai听摆迟别补闭,听vrach听摆诲辞肠迟辞谤闭,听sreda聽[Wednesday], etc.) and unassimilated ones, the meaning of which is not always known even to native speakers (as a rule, new loanwords鈥�cringe,听mules,听catering,听hype, and many terms, etc.). The Russian poet Alexander Pushkin called the Russian language very ‘sociable,’ implying, among other things, its openness to linguistic contacts,” the expert informs.
There is a scientific discipline called contactology which studies the universal processes of borrowing. One of its key tasks is attribution – determining the source and the route of a word’s entry into the language. As a rule, loanwords are grouped by thematic areas reflecting the history of cultural, economic, and political contacts between peoples.
“Sports terminology often comes from English, fashion vocabulary from French, and terms related to horse breeding from Turkic languages,” explains Natalia Gabdreeva.
The long history of ties between the peoples who inhabited the territory of modern Russia is evidenced, for example, by Finno-Ugric languages.
“Many proper names came from Finno-Ugric languages – Moscow, Volga (‘white’), Oka (‘river’), Dvina (‘quiet, calm’), Vologda (‘white city’), Kargopol, Kama (‘stream’), and others,” the philologist says.
A certain number of common nouns also came from these languages:聽sevryuga聽(stellate sturgeon),听syomga聽(salmon),听kambala聽(flounder),听sani聽(sleigh),听yama聽(pit),听khutor聽(farmstead),听tundra,听kover聽(rug/carpet),听gulyash聽(goulash), and聽shalash听(丑耻迟).
“Turkic languages enriched the Russian lexical system with words such as:聽bashmak聽(shoe),听sunduk聽(chest),听yubka聽(skirt),听tabun聽(herd),听saray聽(shed/barn),听biryuk聽(lone wolf/recluse),听balyk聽(cured fish),听alyi聽(scarlet),听kaban聽(boar),听balalaika,听azu聽(tartar stew),听tuman聽(fog),听chulan聽(pantry),听karaul聽(guard), and horse coat colors:聽karakovy聽(dark bay),听mukhorty聽(bay with yellow markings),听bulany聽(dun),听bury聽(brown), etc.,” lists the scientist.
Some of these loanwords, for example聽kaymak聽(clotted cream), have regional specifics, remaining more frequent in places of original distribution, but are also known in the Russian language, having been recorded in the dictionary of the Russian writer, lexicographer, and ethnographer Vladimir Dal.
“There are internal borrowings, that is, the transition of dialect words into the national language. These were very much loved by the ‘Village Prose’ writers (poyma聽[floodplain],听zrya聽[in vain],听doyarka聽[milkmaid],听zamshely聽[moss-grown/ancient],听novosyol聽[new settler],听khleborob聽[grain grower]),” the interviewee lists.
The reasons why a language borrows words were formulated by the founder of the Kazan Linguistic School, Jan Baudouin de Courtenay. He divided them into internal (linguistic) and external (socio-historical). The first include the need to name a new concept, phenomenon, or object for which the language has no precise designation. When such an object enters daily life, its name often becomes established. The second include cultural influence, fashion, and prestige. This is manifested especially clearly in our time in youth slang.
“Young people have formed a reverence for English expressions, so they often use Anglicisms and their derivatives in their speech (ok,听yuzat聽[to use],听skriptit聽[to script],听farmit聽[to farm],听generit聽[to generate]). However, this is most often noted in adolescence. A person who knows English well is unlikely to use聽hype听补苍诲听cringe. This is most likely a demonstration or an attempt at self-affirmation,” explains Gabdreeva.
In such cases, the borrowing performs not so much a nominative function as a socially marking one, serving as a label of belonging to a certain group or subculture.
The philologist clarifies that the term “hidden borrowings” does not exist in linguistics. The discussion usually concerns two phenomena. First, calques – literal translations of foreign words or expressions. Second, fully assimilated words.
“There are words not perceived by native speakers as foreign; there are quite a lot of them in the Russian language (kofta聽[cardigan],听kareta聽[carriage],听vodka,听bazar聽[market],听loshad聽[horse],听palto聽[coat],听vokzal聽[train station],听svyokla聽[beet],听dekan聽[dean],听sakhar聽[sugar], etc.),” concludes the scholar.