Single Letter Words

[mokslininkas.livejournal.com]

Hello,

Russian has an interesting use of single letter words that number at 8 and they are: o, k, v, c, ya, i, y, a – and have meanings as follows: o – about eg o kom? k – to eg k komu? v – in/at eg v kom? c – with eg – c kem? ya – I am – I – and - whilst the letters y and a have no meaning but are used in speech, like y kogo – whose - but the ‘y’ bit absolutely has no meaning just like the ‘a’ as in a gde? – where - so it seems the last two are used in Russian providing almost like an introduction to the word – either way I think these two single letter meaningless words are quiet an interesting thing esp as they do not have the same function as the English use of ‘a’ and ‘the’.

And here’s a ridiculous sentence making use of all these 8 sigle letter words:

-O kom vi govrili kogda ya prishol k nimu v tri chasa nochi i y kogo vi sprashivali ‘A gde on hodit?’

Comments

[krasem.livejournal.com]

here "y" = "u". you are mistaken

[crazy-queer.livejournal.com]

can you translate into english?

[hitry-shmyak.livejournal.com]

Who where you talking about when I came to him at 3am and whom had you asked: "Where is he?"

[hitry-shmyak.livejournal.com]

Who where you talking about when I came to him at 3am and whom had you asked: " And where is he?"

[hitry-shmyak.livejournal.com]

All these single letter words (as you call them), exept "a" and "ya", are prepositions indicating the cases.
As to "a" - it's a conjunction. In sentences it is used for opposition: "Ya poidu, a ty ostan'sya zdes'" (I shall go and you stay here - it can be translated as "and" or "but"). Some times it is used to brighten you speech with some expression.

[orloffm.livejournal.com]

but the ‘y’ bit absolutely has no meaning just like the ‘a’ as in a gde

That's wrong. "У кого моя книга" is strictly "At who's is my book", but it's being understood as "Who has my book". In the past that would be "У кого была моя книга".

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

>but the ‘y’ bit absolutely has no meaning just like the ‘a’ as in a gde

Wrong.
У (u) is a preposition which means "by", "near", "at".
А is also a preposition which means "and", "but".
Do not mistake it for the exclamation "A!" which is roughly the same as "ah!" or "ouch!" in English.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Sorry. А is a conjunction, not a preposition :) Not meaningless, anyway.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

The correct Russian spelling of "O kom vi govrili kogda ya prishol k nimu v tri chasa nochi i y kogo vi sprashivali ‘A gde on hodit?" would be,
О ком вы говорили, когда я пришёл к нему в три часа ночи, и у кого вы спрашивали: "А где он ходит?".

Quite a nonsense though :)

[gvadelupa.livejournal.com]

You've forgotten about particle "b" = "by" (бы).
Ya b voditeli poshel -- pust' menya nauchat.
(Я б в водители пошёл -- пусть меня научат).

[welgar.livejournal.com]

BTW, this means: "I'd like to [learn to] become a driver, let them teach me".

[welgar.livejournal.com]

There is another single-letter word: "ж" (zh). It is a short (usually, spoken) form of "же" particle.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

There is also this brief "б" form of "бы" (the particle that marks subjunctive): Anton Chekov used to say to his dog Tyotka (Auntie) who was listening to him with a visible effort to understand -
- Вам бы в больницу б. Вам бы там бы полегчало б.
(You'd better go to the hospital. You'd be better there.)
The dog was nodding, which made Chekhov's guests laugh.

BTW Chekhov is NOT ONLY the Enterprise staff officer from Star Trek :)))

[a-sokolov1960.livejournal.com]

'A' is not meaningless. When you say 'a gde' instead of simple 'gde' you show your question belongs to a chain of questions - a gde? a kto? a zachem? a skol'ko stoit? a potom chto? and so on. When you use simple lone 'gde' you show you are interested in this question only.

[aveleen.livejournal.com]

"i" is a conjunction as well.
There are more of them. Another "a" is an interjection, as are "e", "y", "o", "yo", "ye", and "u".

[http://users.livejournal.com/_marginal_/]

Who were you talking about, when I came to him at 3am, and whom had you asked: "And where is he?"

Or maybe "Whom were you talking about".