The challenges of communiication

[Sky_Blood]

Sounds like it was an accent misunderstanding. Actually in many conferences they are referred to as a "badge" or simply, "name tag"

Well IDK. But since then I always use NAME TAG, just to be on safe side, u know ))

[Kineo]

In our RWD index of Anglo Russian mistakes it says do not ask a lady for her "email", because that is the same word in Russian for sex!!

So you are saying when she is asking for email she is really asking for sex?!?!?!?!
 

[mendeleyev]

Just like it sounds, email, is a commonly used cognate. I don't know many Russians who opt for "electronic post" for email. If unsure just say the English phrase "email address" and that is also commonly understood in Russian.

адрес (address) is another very common cognate.

секс (sex) is also a well used cognate.

(A cognate is a word in common use that is borrowed from another language.)

[SANDRO43]

адрес (address) is another very common cognate.
секс (sex) is also a well used cognate.
(A cognate is a word in common use that is borrowed from another language.)

Not quite, in linguistics those would be termed loan words .

Cognate is itself a loan word from Latin cognatus (lit. co-born, i.e. blood relative), and applies to words that have a common origin (etymology):

Examples of cognates in Indo-European languages are the words night (English), nuit (French), Nacht (German), nacht (Dutch), nicht (Scots), natt (Swedish, Norwegian), nat (Danish), nátt (Faroese), nótt (Icelandic), noc (Czech, Slovak, Polish), ночь, noch (Russian), ноќ, noć (Macedonian), нощ, nosht (Bulgarian), ніч, nich (Ukrainian), ноч, noch/noč (Belarusian), noč (Slovene), noć (Serbo-Croatian), νύξ, nyx (Ancient Greek, νύχτα/nyhta in Modern Greek), nox (Latin), nakt- (Sanskrit), natë (Albanian), noche (Spanish), nos (Welsh), nueche (Asturian), noite (Portuguese and Galician), notte (Italian), nit (Catalan), noapte (Romanian), nakts (Latvian) and naktis (Lithuanian), all meaning "night" and derived from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) *nókʷts, "night".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognate

By extension, cognate also means similar or related - in a non-linguistic context.

An interesting variant of loan words is that of loan translations or calques:

The French "gratte-ciel" is a word-coinage inspired by the model of the English "skyscraper"—"gratter" literally translates as "to scrape", and "ciel" translates as "sky". The same is true for the Swedish word "skyskrapa", Spanish word "rascacielos" and the Italian word "grattacielo" (literally, a "scrape-skies/sky"), the Hebrew words "גורד שחקים", the Estonian word "pilvelõhkuja" (literally: "cloud breaker"), the Russian word "небоскрёб" and to a certain extent the German word "Wolkenkratzer", the Dutch "wolkenkrabber" and Afrikaans "wolkekrabber", the Slovak word "mrakodrap" (cloud scratcher), the Norwegian word "skyskraper" and the Danish word "skyskraber" (both literally, "cloud-scraper") and the Chinese word "摩天大楼" (mótiān dàlóu, literally "sky-scraping big building") or the Greek word "ουρανοξύστης" —"ξύστης" literally translates as "scraper", and "ουρανός" translates as "sky".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calque

[mendeleyev]

Thank you for that clarification, Sandro.

I am not at all disputing what you say as you are a recognized linguist. It seems that many University and language institute professors use the terms loan words and cognates interchangeably. The Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center says, "...the Russian language has borrowed so many words that nearly 25 percent of it is made up of cognates."

Christopher Froehlich of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Learning Russian" along with Thomas Beyer, Ph.D., author of 4 Russian texts, as well as many others treat the terms as the same.

It has been ingrained in me but I'll try from this day forward to distinguish between the two. 


 

[SANDRO43]

The Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center says, "...the Russian language has borrowed so many words that nearly 25 percent of it is made up of cognates."

Linguistically speaking, if it's borrowed it cannot be a cognate, since the latter HAS to be already in the vocabulary of the language .

Borrowing foreign words for new concepts can result in some blunders, e.g. the Russian вокзал obtained by taking the wrong bit of London's Vauxhall train station .

[Muzh]

Thank you for that clarification, Sandro.

I am not at all disputing what you say as you are a recognized linguist. It seems that many University and language institute professors use the terms loan words and cognates interchangeably. The Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center says, "...the Russian language has borrowed so many words that nearly 25 percent of it is made up of cognates."

Christopher Froehlich of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Learning Russian" along with Thomas Beyer, Ph.D., author of 4 Russian texts, as well as many others treat the terms as the same.

It has been ingrained in me but I'll try from this day forward to distinguish between the two. 

I'd venture a guess the majority of these borrowed words were the result of when Pietr I dragged Russia kicking and screaming into the Western Civilization. I've heard Russians use Каравелла when refering to a ship. When was the last time the word caravel (Sp. Caravella) was used to denote a ship as part of our regular language?

[SANDRO43]

I'd venture a guess the majority of these borrowed words were the result of when Pietr I dragged Russia kicking and screaming into the Western Civilization.

Possibly as far as Russian is concerned, although вокзал was much later (about 1840: http://www.russianwomendiscussion.com/index.php?topic=9565.msg182795#msg182795). Kошмар from French cauchemar is an earlier example, maybe from the time of Catherine II and the influence of French literature?

In general terms, foreign words are more likely to be borrowed/adapted rather than simply translated when their meaning is a cultural novelty - or their users are too lazy/ignorant to look for a valid, existing national equivalent: I remember that in the 1980s my IBM Italy colleagues had fallen in love with the English verb to implement, erroneously thinking it meant to strengthen/make more powerful, and they 'calqued' it in Italian into a horrendous implementare . It took years before they finally dropped this monster.

[SFandEE]

East German PhD woman that I dated told me once "I want a Golden Red River" 

[SANDRO43]

When was the last time the word caravel (Sp. Caravella) was used to denote a ship as part of our regular language?

Or Caravela, since it was originally developed by the Portuguese ?

[Anotherkiwi]

...Borrowing foreign words for new concepts can result in some blunders, e.g. the Russian вокзал obtained by taking the wrong bit of London's Vauxhall train station ...

There is a suburb in Auckland called Vauxhall, presumably also named after that part of London, but I would never have made this particular connection even though I already knew the English place!     Sandro, you are simply amazing! 
 
And, by the way, who noticed the double "i" in "communiication"? 

[nicknick]

Borrowing foreign words for new concepts can result in some blunders, e.g. the Russian вокзал obtained by taking the wrong bit of London's Vauxhall train station .

While I would agree with Sandro that the Russian word for station does come from Vauxhall, I believe he's wrong when he says that it refers to Vauxhall station.

Although this is repeated a lot I don't think there is any evidence for this.  It actually comes from ''Vauxhall Gardens''

http://www.jstor.org/pss/40160747


There was a French guy who did a lot of research into this - and other things - in the 1950s called Lucien Tesniere.  I believe that his work is quoted in Russian etymological dictionaries.

Before there was a station in Vauxhall, that area was most famous for the ''Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens'' which had been there since 1661:-

http://www.vauxhallgardens.com/vauxhall_gardens_briefhistory_page.html


The name Vauxhall became synonymous with Pleasure Gardens - in the same way that we call vacuum cleaners ''Hoovers'' - and ''Vauxhall Gardens'' were opened in a lot of cities both in England and in Europe, including Russia.  There was even one in New York:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Vauxhall_Gardens

In fact, there is an area of Birmingham still called Vauxhall which was the original site of the Vauxhall Gardens in that city.


A lot of French terms were borrowed into Russian and Vauxhall was one of them as the French also used the word Vauxhall, borrowed from English.


The first railway in Russia went from St Petersburg to Pavlovsk, in fact it went to the Pleasure Gardens in Pavlovsk and they opened a pavilion at the station similar to those in other Vauxhall Gardens and this became known as the vokzal.  From there, this term came to be applied to all stations.



A Russian travellers account of his visit to the original Vauxhall Gardens:-

http://www.vauxhallandkennington.org.uk/karamzin.shtml

[SANDRO43]

And, by the way, who noticed the double "i" in "communiication"?

Yees, indeed I diid .

[SANDRO43]

While I would agree with Sandro that the Russian word for station does come from Vauxhall, I believe he's wrong when he says that it refers to Vauxhall station. Although this is repeated a lot I don't think there is any evidence for this.  It actually comes from ''Vauxhall Gardens''

Interesting alternative explanation, and I found yet a third (http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Павловск_(Санкт-Петербург) suggesting that воксал does not derive from Vauxhall at all but is an abbreviation of Pavlosk's вокальный музыкальный салон.

Isn't etymology fascinating ?
 

There was a French guy who did a lot of research into this - and other things - in the 1950s called Lucien Tesnière. I believe that his work is quoted in Russian etymological dictionaries.

I had to look him up because I had never heard/saw him cited before, which is surprising because he seems to be a forerunner of structuralists and Noam Chomsky (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucien_Tesnière). 

[OlgaH]

There was a French guy who did a lot of research into this - and other things - in the 1950s called Lucien Tesniere.  I believe that his work is quoted in Russian etymological dictionaries.

Another famous etymologist in Russia is Max Vasmer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Vasmer
The Russian translation of Vasmer's dictionary with extensive commentaries by Oleg N. Trubachev was printed in 1964–73. It is the most authoritative source for Slavic-languages etymology to this day.

[Gator]

Borrowing foreign words for new concepts can result in some blunders, e.g. the Russian вокзал obtained by taking the wrong bit of London's Vauxhall train station .
 

And all this time I thought Vauxhall meant bad English copy of German car.
 
I know you are the world's greatest linguist, yet I find the connection difficult to grasp.  вокзал and Vauxhall sound somewhat similar but not the same.   Also, this would suggest that the Vauxhall station existed before Russia had trains, and the Russian engineers copied the Vauxhall design  for its first station.  Please fill in the blanks for the less gifted readers.

[OlgaH]

According to Max Vasmer the word вокзал (vokzal) came from Polish  woksaɫ, wogzaɫ, that was borrowed from the pleasure gardens of Vauxhall owned by Jane Vaux  in Lambeth, and as Lucien Tesniеre explained from  Faukeshall . First version of Russian вокзал was spelled and pronounced as фоксал (foksal)

[OlgaH]

Russian word немец (nemets) nowadays is translated as German man. But itself the word is from Old-Slavic нѣмьць and its meaning was "a person whose speech was inarticulate and was not understandable", and it also meant немой - dumb. Peasantry usually called any foreigner as nemets. In Vyatsky region a child who did not speak was called as немчик (nemchik), and in Arhangelsk region the words немтырь (nemtyr') and немтура (nemtura) was applied to a stammerer.

[SANDRO43]

And all this time I thought Vauxhall meant bad English copy of German car.

Vauxhall Motors (pronounced /ˈvɒksɔːl/) is a British car manufacturer owned by General Motors (GM) and headquartered in Luton, United Kingdom. It was founded in 1857, began manufacturing cars in 1903 and was acquired by GM in 1925.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vauxhall_Motors
A VERY deliberate car maker, it took them no less than 43 years to come out with their first automobile .

вокзал and Vauxhall sound somewhat similar but not the same. Also, this would suggest that the Vauxhall station existed before Russia had trains, and the Russian engineers copied the Vauxhall design  for its first station. Please fill in the blanks for the less gifted readers.

See http://www.russianwomendiscussion.com/index.php?topic=9565.msg182795#msg182795.

[SANDRO43]

Russian word немец (nemets) nowadays is translated as German man. But itself the word is from Old-Slavic нѣмьць and its meaning was "a person whose speech was inarticulate and was not understandable", and it also meant немой - dumb. Peasantry usually called any foreigner as nemets. In Vyatsky region a child who did not speak was called as немчик (nemchik), and in Arhangelsk region the words немтырь (nemtyr') and немтура (nemtura) was applied to a stammerer.

Which is similar to the origin of barbarian from Greek βάρβαρος:

The word barbaros in Ancient Greek was an antonym for civis and polis. The sound of barbaros onomatopoetically evokes the image of babbling (a person speaking a non-Greek language).

[SANDRO43]

OK, so we have now 3 competing sources for вокзал:

1. From Vauxhall (the railway station)
2. From Vauxhall (the pleasure gardens, directly from English or via Polish)
3. From Pavlosk's вокальный музыкальный салон (yet a pleasure garden of sorts)

Any more contenders ?

[OlgaH]

Sandro,

I just can tell that the second version is the most popular in Russia. 

[Vincenzo]

OK, so we have now 3 competing sources for вокзал:

1. From Vauxhall (the railway station)
2. From Vauxhall (the pleasure gardens, directly from English or via Polish)
3. From Pavlosk's вокальный музыкальный салон (yet a pleasure garden of sorts)

Any more contenders ?

What about?
Falkes de Breauté hall

[SANDRO43]

What about: Falkes de Breauté hall

There were no trains in his time .

Sir Falkes de Breauté (died 1226) (also spelled Fulk de Brent) was an Anglo-Norman soldier who earned high office by loyally serving first King John and later King Henry III in First Barons' War. He played a key role in the Battle of Lincoln Fair in 1217. He attempted to rival Hubert de Burgh, and as a result fell from power in 1224. His heraldic device was the griffin.

When he married, his new wife's home in London was then called "Fawkes Hall" (Falkes' Hall), which over the years changed into "Foxhall" and finally into "Vauxhall". The Vauxhall car company derived its name from that part of London; and still uses de Breauté's griffin as their badge.