(no subject)

[yers.livejournal.com]

Russian polite expressions haven't changed since the Middle Ages. Nowadays, people use them without thinking of their literal meanings, which are often obscure. In fact, these expressions are curious samples of flowery, ultra-polite medieval speech which is, for better or worse, very different from modern Russian.


здравствуй(те) (polite greeting): imperative of the verb здравствовать "to be in good health". The verb is obsolete, and survives only in a few bookish cliches, such as живёт и здравствует (~"lives and prospers"). Note that the first в is silent in здравствуйте only in its idiomatic usage as a greeting; otherwise, both в's should be pronounced in all forms of здравствовать.

спасибо (thank you): a contraction of спаси Бог (God save [you]). Routine use has compleletely obliterated the religious subtext, just like most English speakers are unaware that "goodbye" was once "God buy you". Intuitively, however, Russians never use спасибо when they thank the Lord, in any context.

пожалуйста (please; you're welcome): пожалуй is the imperative of пожаловать. Slightly obsolete now, it's a verb with a distinctly Russian shade of meaning that is hard to convey in another language: it means something like "to condescend by doing a favour". -ста, from старый "old", is an archaic form of polite address which was eventually replaced by the 2nd person plural.

добро пожаловать (welcome): another occurrence of that patriarchic verb, one of whose secondary meanings is "to do an honour by visiting". Добро (good) is a noun, and only a noun, in modern Russian, but here it seems to be an archaic modal adverb. So the meaning of добро пожаловать is, in simple terms, "O.K. come in"; and comprehensively, - "you are commended to most graciously enter".

Comments

[bugtilaheh.livejournal.com]

Are you sure "good-bye" didn't mean "God be with you"? Where'd you get "God buy you"? O.o; When I googled (ha, that's becoming a verb! Eww.) for "God buy you," all I found was literature. God buy you doesn't make much sense to me, but at the same time it does (because bye/buy). Odd.

[yers.livejournal.com]

"buy" = deliver, redeem?
I don't remember where I have it from. Maybe it is "God be with you".

[bugtilaheh.livejournal.com]

I think at one time it was one and then the other.
http://www.wordwizard.com/clubhouse/founddiscuss.asp?Num=3507 :

Here’s the etymology of ‘goodbye’ given in the Dictionary of Word Origins by John Ayto:
GOODBYE: The ‘good’ of ‘good-bye’ was originally ‘God.’ The expression is a contraction of ‘God be with you,’ a form of farewell first recorded in the late 16th century. Its gradual reduction can be traced through a series of metamorphoses (Shakespeare, for instance, had ‘God be wy you’ and “God buy’ ye”[16th and 17th century]), and there was “ God b’y you” [17th century] and numerous other versions and it did not reach its modern form until the 18th century [M-W says 19th]. The substitution of’ ‘good’ for ‘God’ seems to have been mainly due to the influence of such phrases as ‘good day’ and ‘good night.’

Every dictionary I've come across online says "God be with you". *shrugs*

[corriel.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting this, I sometimes wondered about the origin of these words.

Interesting...

[immortalecstasy.livejournal.com]

I'm Josh's friend Keslie, I think I talked to you. :) I love reading stuff I really don't understand. Thanks for posting this, tho I've never heard of any of it. Made my morning a little more interesting. *hugs*

~ForeverLongingSilver