"Merry Christmas" according to grandma....

[kart.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to decipher another phrase that my grandma remembers from the old days. She says something that sounds like - встос вскресь. I guessed at the spelling. Can anyone figure out what it means literally?

She's 81 years old and grew up in a Russian/English speaking household. Both parents were from the old country, but since childhood she has forgotten 99% of her Russian. That which remains is mostly old sayings and some of the most common phrases: слуши! понимаешь? блини со сметаной, etc. or for example, she says "руки на-гора!" (put your hands in the air, or literally hands on the mountain) whenever anyone has a coughing fit or chokes on a piece of food.

Comments

[zhenyach.livejournal.com]

"Христос воскрес!"

I.e. "The Christ has risen from the dead!" On Easter, the Orthodox Russians greet each other so:

-- Христос воскрес!
-- Воистину воскрес! ("Yes, He has truly risen")

[procrastino.livejournal.com]

Христос Воскресь (unsure of spelling) means "Jesus resurected", and is the traditional greeting on Easter. The answer is Воистину Воскресь, which means "Indeed, he resurected".

Воскресение (Resurrection), is the Russian word for Sunday.

So, it's not Merry Christmas that your grandma is saying, it's Happy Easter.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Христос воскресе, not воскресь. It's not Russian, it's Church Slavonic. The answer is воистину воскресе or simply воистину!
Воскресение is Russian word for Resurrection, but NOT for Sunday. The Russian word for Sunday is воскресенье. Yes, it derives from the Church Slavonic воскресение, but its last syllable is spelled and pronounced differently, however small this difference may seem.

[procrastino.livejournal.com]

д`ееееба, the russian orthography is certainly not my strong part. Church slavonic is a russian edition of old-bulgarian, and we say the very same, Христос Воскресе - Воистину воскресе.

thanks for mentioning the difference between resurrection and sunday.

P.S.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Аз малко разбирам български :))

Re: P.S.

[tank-girl.livejournal.com]

)))))

Re: P.S.

[procrastino.livejournal.com]

Вот я тоже понимаю русски, только граматика и отфография, это - блин. =]]

Re: P.S.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Well, I have friends in Bulgaria who speak pretty good Russian, but they all say that the case system in Russian is a nightmare. I could understand them: it should be a nightmare to migrate to a closely related language which has six cases instead of just two, and some letters are suddenly doubled where there shouldn't (like in грамматика) :)))))

Re: P.S.

[procrastino.livejournal.com]

what is strange is that bulgarians find it easier to understand and learn russian than russians - bulgarian.

Re: P.S.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

I don't find it hard at all :) I feel that I would speak Bulgarian pretty well if I'd start learning it systematically. The only thing that really made me start from time to time when in Bulgaria, was that when you think you know the meaning of some words, they mean, in fact, something totally different :)

Re: P.S.

[melange-fiesta.livejournal.com]

We actually had a girl from Bulgaria in our beginning Russian last semester... on the day of the final I remember her saying she had no issues with learning vocab, but she was having issues with the grammar. She would also ask questions about how certain words in Bulgarian related to similar-sounding words in Russian.

[kart.livejournal.com]

Ohhh that makes sense now. You're both right! Thank you :)

Хрїстосъ воскресе изъ мертвыхъ, смертїю смерть по правъ, и сушымъ во гробехъ животъ даровавъ. Хрїстосъ воскресе!

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

a minor correction:

по правъ -> поправъ (to defeat, to overcоme)

A possible translation could be "[He] defeated death by [means of] death".

[noser.livejournal.com]

"Баба" is only polite if followed by a first name, like "баба Катя". That's because the isolated word баба developed a slang meaning which is not really polite. Use бабушка instead :)

[kart.livejournal.com]

Ahh, but fortunately Баба София doesn't realize it is impolite. Around here she's the only baba there is :P However, I will refer to her as бабушка in speech, just to be on the safe side ;)

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

That's right. Баба is a rough slang word for a woman.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

The phrases you are mentioning are:
Слушай! Понимаешь? (Listen! Understand?)
Блины со сметаной are blini with sour cream (blini is a sort of thin, large pancakes.)
Руки на-гора is not really normative Russian, it's some sort of Southern dialect, or mixed dialect between Russian and Ukrainian or Belorussian (some northern parts of Ukraine and southern parts of Belarus still have local dialects heavily influenced by the neighboring language.)

[yers.livejournal.com]

And it doesn't literally mean "hands on the mountain".

[kart.livejournal.com]

Sorry, that was just a guess.

Functionally, it is my grandmother's version of "руки вверх!" Performing this action is supposed to help if you are coughing.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Yes, this is the meaning: на-гора means "up" in some Southern dialects. And this is the word for lifting something up in Russian miners' professional slang: "мы выдали тысячу тонн угля на-гора" - "we have sent one thousand tons of coal up there [to the surface]."

[ataltane.livejournal.com]

And in Polish they say "do góry" for "up" (which fits into your dialect hypothesis above)

[welgar.livejournal.com]

Christmas is "Рождество" in Russian (comes from "рождение" - "birth"). So, on Christmas we usually simply say "С Рождеством" or sometimes "Счастливого Рождества".