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From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Subject: Re: Russian words in English
Message-ID: <Cywv9p.50C@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK
References: <38rmoi$k4j@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> <1994Nov2.155336.13627@guvax> <CypEv1.Fn4@spss.com>
Date: Mon, 7 Nov 1994 18:56:11 GMT
Lines: 42

In article <CypEv1.Fn4@spss.com> markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder) writes:
>So if you haven't heard of a word, it's not English, and people using it
>*owe you an explanation*!!  Right.  

If one native speaker of English hasn't heard of a word, this doesn't
have to mean anything.  If the _OED_ hasn't heard of it, things get a
little more serious.  Quite a few of your words aren't in the _OED_
-- _pravda_, for example, and the monstrosity _nikulturny_.

>Bogomil refers to a member of a Byzantine religious sect, and can be
>found in history books.

Yes, but there is nothing Russian about it.  Last I checked, the
priest Bogomil was Bulgarian, as were most Bogomili.

>Mendelevium is an element; you might have been asleep the day they
>passed around the periodic chart.

There is nothing Russian about this one either.  Mendelevium was
discovered in California, presumably by English-speaking researchers,
and, as I suggested and M Carrasquer confirmed, the _-ium_ elements
are named by an international organisation, whose full name escapes me
at the moment.  This means that the Russian _mendelevij_ is derived
from the Latin (?) _mendelevium_, not the other way around.

>Soyuz is, like sputnik, the name of a Soviet space capsule

Like _sputnik_?  I thought _Soyuz_ was a particular _sputnik_, or a
series of _sputniki_, rather.

>-- oops, that one is a "Russian item", something we're not allowed to
>talk about in English.

We are allowed to talk about it, of course, but since it is a proper
name, it doesn't count as a word borrowed from Russian, any more than
_Apollo_ counts as an English loanword in Russian.

-- 
`That's yer oan problem, Judas', they telt him.  `It's nae concern tae us.'
Ivan A Derzhanski (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk/chaos.cs.brandeis.edu)  (The G-- G--)
* Centre for Cognitive Science,  2 Buccleuch Place,   Edinburgh EH8 9LW,  UK
* Cowan House E113, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Pk Rd, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK
