Ancient words and their meaning. The Meaning of Old Russian Words

Vocabulary is the totality of all the words that we use. A separate group in the lexicon can be considered old words. They are in Russian a lot, and they belong to different historical epochs.

What are ancient words

Since language is an integral part of the history of the people, the words that are used in this language are a historical value. The old words and their meaning can tell a lot about what events took place in the life of the people in this or that era and which of them were of great importance. Old, or outdated, words are not actively used today, but are present in the lexical stock of the people, written in dictionaries and in reference books. Often they can be found in works of art.

For example, in the poem of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, we read this passage:

"In the crowd of mighty sons,

With friends, in a high grid

Vladimir-the sun was feasting,

The smaller daughter he gave out

For the prince of the brave Ruslan. "

There is the word "Grid" here. Now it is not used, but in the era of Prince Vladimir it meant a large room in which the prince, together with his warriors, arranged festivals and feasts.

Historicisms

Old words and their designation are of different kinds. According to scientists, they are divided into two large groups.

Historisms are words that are not actively used now, for the reason that the concepts that they designate are out of use. For example, "caftan", "chain mail", armor, etc. Archaisms are words that denote concepts that are familiar to us in other words: lips, cheeks, cheeks, revealing lips.

In modern speech, as a rule, they are not used. Clever words and their meanings, which many people do not understand, are not typical for our everyday speech. But they do not disappear completely out of use. Historians and archaisms are used by writers in order to truthfully tell about the past of the people, using these words they convey the color of the era. Historisms can truthfully tell us about what happened once in other epochs in our homeland.

Archaisms

Unlike historicalisms, archaisms denote those phenomena that we face in modern life. These are clever words, and their meanings do not differ from the meanings of words familiar to us, but they sound different. Archaisms are different. There are some that differ from ordinary words with only a few peculiarities in writing and pronunciation. For example, hail and city, gold and gold, young - young. These are phonetic archaisms. In the 19th century there were many such words. It's a clob (club), a stack (curtain).

There is a group of archaisms with obsolete suffixes, for example, a museum (museum), assistance (assistance), a fisher (fisherman). Most often we meet lexical archaisms, for example, eye - eye, right hand - right hand, shuitsa - left hand.

Like historicisms, archaisms are used to create a special world in fiction. Thus, Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin often used archaic vocabulary to give his works pathos. This is clearly seen in the example of the poem "The Prophet".

Words from Ancient Russia

Ancient Rus gave much to modern culture. But then there was a special lexical environment, some of which were preserved in modern Russian. And some are no longer used at all. The ancient obsolete Russian words from that era give us an idea of the origin of the Eastern Slavic languages.

For example, ancient curses. Some of them very accurately reflect the negative qualities of a person. Pustobrech - chatterbox, ryuma - crybaby, tokonnyy forehead - a fool, zahuhrya - disheveled man.

The meaning of ancient Russian words sometimes differed from the meanings of the one-root words in modern language. We all know the words "to throw" and "to shine", they mean a rapid movement in space. The Old Russian word "whitefish" meant the smallest unit of time. In one moment, there were 160 whitefish. The largest size of the measurements was "far distance," which was equal to 1, 4 light years.

Old words and their meanings are discussed by scientists. Old names are the names of coins used in ancient Russia. For coins that appeared in the eighth and ninth centuries in Russia and were brought from the Arab caliphate, the names "kuna", "nogata" and "rezana" were used. Then came the first Russian coins - zlatniki and silver pieces.

Obsolete words from the 12th and 13th centuries

The pre-Mongol period in Russia, 12-13 century, characterized by the development of architecture, which was then called architecture. Accordingly, and then appeared a layer of vocabulary related to the construction and erection of buildings. Some of the words that appeared then remained in the modern language, but the meaning of the old Russian words has changed over the entire time.

The basis of the life of Rus in the 12th century was the fortress, which at that time had the name "detinets". A little later, in the 14th century, the term "Kremlin" appeared, which then also denoted the city. The word "Kremlin" can be an example of how old antiquated Russian words change. If now the Kremlin is one, this is the residence of the head of state, then there were a lot of Kremlin.

In the 11th and 12th centuries, Russia built cities and fortresses made of wood. But they could not resist the onslaught of the Mongol-Tatars. The Mongols, having come to conquer the lands, simply dared the wooden fortresses. Resisted the stone city of Novgorod and Pskov. For the first time the word "kremlin" appears in the Tver chronicle of 1317. Its synonym is the old word "silicon". Then the Kremlin was built in Moscow, Tula and in Kolomna.

The socio-aesthetic role of archaisms in classical fiction

Ancient words, the discussion of which is often found in scientific articles, was often used by Russian writers in order to make the speech of their work more expressive. Alexander Pushkin in his article described the process of creating Boris Godunov: "I tried to guess the language of that time."

Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov also used old words in his works, and their meaning exactly corresponded to the realities of the time from which they were taken. Most of the old words appear in his work "Song of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich." This, for example, "you know," "oh, you are a goyus," or ". Also Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky writes works in which there are many ancient words. They are Dmitry Pretender, Voevoda, Kozma Zakhar'ich Minin-Sukhoruk.

The role of words from past eras in contemporary literature

Archaisms remained popular in the literature of the 20th century. Let us recall the famous work of Ilf and Petrov "Twelve Chairs". Here ancient words and their meaning have a special, humorous tone.

For example, in the description of Ostap Bender's visit to the village of Vasyuki, the phrase "One-eyed did not take his only eye with a grandmaster's shoe" occurs. Archaisms with Church Slavonic coloring and in another episode are used: "Father Fyodor was hungry. He wanted wealth. "

Stylistic errors in the use of historicisms and archaisms

Historisms and archaisms can greatly enhance the fiction, but their inept use causes laughter. Ancient words, the discussion of which often becomes very lively, as a rule, can not be used in everyday speech. If you start asking a passer-by: "Why is it revealed in the winter?", Then he will not understand you (the neck is meant).

In the newspaper speech, too, there is an inappropriate use of historicisms and archaisms. For example: "The principal welcomed young teachers who came to practice." The word "welcomed" is a synonym for the word "greeted". Sometimes schoolchildren insert archaisms into their writings and thus make offers not very understandable and even ridiculous. For example: "Olya ran in tears and told Tatyana Ivanovna about her insult." Therefore, if you want to use old words, meaning, interpretation, their meaning should be absolutely clear to you.

Obsolete words in fantasy and fantasy

Everyone knows that nowadays genres such as fantasy and fantasy have gained immense popularity. It turns out that in the works of the fantasy genre old words are widely used, and their meaning is not always clear to the modern reader.

Such concepts as "banners" and "finger", the reader can understand. But sometimes there are more complex words, such as "komon" and "nasad." I must say that publishers do not always approve of excessive use of archaisms. But there are works in which the authors successfully find use for historicism and archaisms. These are works from the "Slavic fantasy" series. For example, Maria Stepanova's novels Valkyrie, Tatyana Korostyshevskaya's Mother of the Four Winds, Maria Semenova's Wolfhound, Denis Novozhilov's The Three-headed Kingdom. War for the throne. "