[identity profile] olydiagron.livejournal.com posting in [community profile] learn_russian
What is the difference between копоть and сажа? Is the first black and the second white?

Date: 2011-11-19 07:01 pm (UTC)
oryx_and_crake: (Default)
From: [personal profile] oryx_and_crake
I daresay they are pretty much the same. Сажа you can usually find in a chimney, and копоть is a finer layer that accumulates with years on the ceilings and walls of a room where there is plenty of candles burned and/or which is warmed by an open fire. Потолок покрыт копотью. В трубе загорелась сажа.

Date: 2011-11-19 07:10 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] shota-kitten.livejournal.com
they are both black. пепел (ash) is white.

Date: 2011-11-19 07:33 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] killing-panda.livejournal.com
i guess you read something like this: "как сажа бела"? the color "белый" is used in a figural sense here . ususally the whole proverb looks like this: дела как сажа бела. which means that everything is as good as сажа is white. => everything is bad because сажа is black)

Date: 2011-11-19 07:44 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] left-bank.livejournal.com
Yes. "Копоть" and "сажа" are about the same. They are black. "Копоть", "сажа", "пепел" are combustion products. And there is one word of these group: "зола".
From: [identity profile] lion-casserole.livejournal.com
.
копоть - that is mainly the burning oil-lamp or candle flame's black. Your cloth, hair or skin could collect it if there is some carbon-smoke in the air;
сажа - a carbon-black substance - a result of collecting unburned particles of carbon. You need to touch a dirty surface to catch it. Sometimes there are black flakes drifting in the air - these are "хлопья сажи", the grey ones are "хлопья пепла".

Inside the oven's flue one could find plenty of "сажа". А thin, virtually transparent film of "сажа" on the oil-lamp's glass could be considered being "копоть" - one could use "закопченное стекло" to watch the Sun during a solar eclipse.

One more thing. The Russian equivalent for "smoked fish" is "копчёная рыба", there is "холодное копчение" и "горячее копчение" i.e. the cold and hot smoke could be used for than.
Edited Date: 2011-11-19 08:19 pm (UTC)

No,

Date: 2011-11-19 08:14 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lion-casserole.livejournal.com
.
"Зола" (Ashes) is not combustible, while "сажа" in the flues could be a source of fire - one needs to eliminate it regularly, i.e. pay to a chimney-sweep for that.

Date: 2011-11-20 12:07 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] laviergedeneige.livejournal.com
I would say that копоть is a thin layer of сажа.

Date: 2011-11-20 01:25 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] khathi.livejournal.com
"Копоть" may also mean the airborne soot, as in a smog or a chimney smoke, but "сажа" refers only to the settled, compact material.

Date: 2011-11-20 03:40 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kys.livejournal.com
Сажа is a black ash, sometimes oily black ash.
Копоть - both a black smoke [e.g. from a candle] and the thin, mostly black ( and sometimes oily ) layer of the products of burning on a ceiling, on the bottom of a staircase, on the walls of a lamp etc )
Edited Date: 2011-11-20 03:41 am (UTC)
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