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[superslayer18.livejournal.com]

Something interesting that I found recently is that the Russian word for peace, Мир, is also the Russian word for world. Is anyone here familiar with Whorf's theory of linguistics? I'd like to see the roots of these words and see how they were related originally, or the philosophy behind why they are the same word if someone knows it. Could be that they are totally unrealated, but somehow I don't think so.

Comments

[arden667.livejournal.com]

i'm not going to vouch for how accurate my info is here, but my russian teacher told us once that they were two different words before the spelling reform.. one was spelled with an "i", and the other with the "и". when they stopped using "i", it was collapsed into "и" so they're both the same now. so I think we can safely leave Whorf out if it :)

[superslayer18.livejournal.com]

I had no idea that there was a spelling reform. When did this take place and what happened with it? Do you have any links to articles or anything by any chance?

[yers.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reforms_of_Russian_orthography

[yers.livejournal.com]

I'm no expert here either, but I think the мир/мiр distinction had been introduced for disambiguation, rather than it being the legacy of a levelled-out difference in phonemes.

"Мир" means "world" in Russian only, of all Slavic languages. Actually, I'm not sure about Ukrainian and Belarusian, but the other Slavic groups (Western and Southern) have svět/świat/свет/svijet ("свет" also exists as a poetism for "world" in Russian, coinciding this time with the word for light.)

"Мир" meaning peace is present in most Slavic languages.

One of the older meanings of "мир" is "village community", with a clear ethymology (people living in peace with one another); possibly this is where the meaning "world" evolved from (compare "tout le monde"). I'm not sure, though.

Hm...

[alektoeumenides.livejournal.com]

I'm not familiar with the language theory you mentioned but there are other words that do similar things. "Krasiviy" (I'm sorry, I really can't be bothered to switch keyboards and start typing it in cyrillic) - "red" and "beautiful" have a certain blending, hense "Red Square" which actually once meant "beautiful square". Red is a special colour, the "Holy Corner" traditionally in Russian houses was the "Red Corner".

Likewise, "Kitai Gorod" in Moscow didn't originally mean "China town" but apparently relates to the word for the wattle fences they used to have.

With my smattering of Polish, I can also point to a few odd, subtle differences between the branches of Slavonic. In Russian, "hour" and "time" are both "chas" but in Polish they have a different word for time, "godina". "Rano" in Russian means early, but in Polish it means "morning".

Through such small changes, it's quite possible that the word "mir" could come to have different meanings. Look at the word in English - chief and chef. They both come from the same French root but because they entered the language at different periods of time, they have slightly different spellings and meanings today.

Re: Hm...

[welgar.livejournal.com]

"Час" is used for the word "time" quite rarely: only in spoken ("Который час?" - "What's the time?") or poetic ("В трудный час" - "At hard times") Russian. In 99% cases you would use the word "время" instead.
Speaking about "рано" and "morning", there is also an old-fashioned and spoken word "рань" which also means "early morning".

Re: Hm...

[declaude.livejournal.com]

I spent some time in Moscow and, like you said, I remember people telling me that Kitai Gorod doesn't really have anything to do China at all. I never knew what it meant until now though, thanks!

But doesn't krasniy mean more "scarlet" than just red?

Re: Hm...

[yers.livejournal.com]

no. 'Krasniy' is red.
Scarlet is 'aliy'.

Re: Hm...

[declaude.livejournal.com]

Scarlet is also yarko-krasniy, though I don't know if anyone uses that.

Re: Hm...

[yers.livejournal.com]

"yarko-krasniy" is what it is literally, "bright red". The difference in connotation is about the same as in English: "aliy"/"scarlet" has more ring to it.

Polish

[yers.livejournal.com]

"godzina" is "hour". "Time" is "czas".

Re: Polish

[alektoeumenides.livejournal.com]

Bollicks - I get so confused these days. Sometimes I use a Polish word by mistake, other times I can't remember a really simple Polish word for the life of me.

Thanks :)

[floatingfire.livejournal.com]

I never noticed that before and I don't think they're connected.
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