Origin of the word slang Amazing every day
In any youth subculture, slang is often a way of self-expression. Remember yourself, you probably, as a teenager, also used various slang “words” that have nothing to do with normal speech?
Many people use these words all the time Everyday life without even thinking about who and when they were invented.
A social dialect arose in the USSR age group from 12 to 22 years old. The youth, with the help of lexical features of speech, opposed themselves not only to the older generation, but also to the official system.
I propose to recall the popular slang words from the times of the USSR.
1960s Slang Dictionary:
Boilers - wrist watch
- Heel - take a leisurely walk
- Shoes on porridge - shoes with thick soles made of white synthetic rubber
- Broadway is the main (central) street of any city. For example, in St. Petersburg they called Nevsky Prospect Broadway, and in Moscow - Gorky Street (Peshkov Street)
- Mani, manyushki - money
- Laces in a glass - an expression meaning that parents are at home
- Baruja is a girl with a broad outlook on how to communicate with guys.
- Sovparshiv - a distorted abbreviation "sovposhiv", that is, things made in the USSR
- Chucha - a song from the movie "Sunny Valley Serenades", which became a cult for the dudes of the Soviet Union
- Music on the bones - a method of recording self-made music records on x-rays
- style - dance
- ramble - have sex
I'll give an example:
“Yesterday we were frail on Broadway, one of my sidekicks promised shoes on porridge and also drove about the boilers of the Shtatskie, but it wasn’t lucky - he threw a fraerok, brought some kind of Riga one. There were manyushki, we decided to go to the "Aist", so there the redneck raised a screech because of my barucha. There was no way they could come to my hut: shoelaces in a glass. Let's go to her. They listened to the Chuchu on the bones, spread it, shrugged it off, there was no mood to ramble - so they fell out.
1970s dictionary:
Polis - militia
- Gerla is a girl
- Khaep - long hair
- Saw a haep - cut it. In those years, this was often done in the police during the arrest
- Hairatnik - a tape that supports the hair on the forehead
- Face - appearance, face
- Outfit - clothes
- Strive - to be afraid, to be frightened
- Fakman - an unpleasant type, a loser
- to joke - to laugh at someone, to mock
- Skipnut - leave, run away
- Drinchit to craze - get drunk to unconsciousness
I recently sawed the policy haer bald, I spent so long for the civilized one. My ancestors still approved of my face, if only I had started a soviet outfit, they would have caught glitches from the buzz. Such jokes aspired me, I felt like a fakmen without a hairdresser. Then my girlfriend at first joked over me, then skipped altogether. For several weeks I walked around like a dead man, all I did was sit like a stoned man, drank hard to the point of craze, nothing caught on.
1980s vocabulary:
Break off - lose interest in something, lose heart, be left with nothing, "burn out"
- Session - concert
- Iron - a farce trader (buyer or speculator), buying things and currency from foreigners
- Ask - to ask for money on the street from passers-by. A popular character in this method of obtaining money was Janis Abaskaitis, a mythological Lithuanian who allegedly lost his ticket to Riga and needed funds to return home.
- Birch - this was the name of the workers of the voluntary squad, who helped the police to carry out educational sanctions against informal youth
- Sister, sister - system girl
- Lubera - residents of Lyubertsy, who wore checkered pants sewn from curtains, and short haircuts, considered it their duty to come to the capital and beat all owners of long hair. These aggressive young people loved in free time swing on homemade simulators.
- Enter - let good people spend the night at home
- Washcloth - a girl who can not be called a "beauty"
- System - common name all informals
- "Tourist" - an inexpensive coffee shop popular among system engineers, located near the Boulevard Ring, a common meeting place for them
- Gogol - Gogol Boulevard
- M2 - federal highway Moscow-Simferopol
Do you use slang words in your everyday vocabulary?
In any youth subculture, slang is one of the ways of self-expression. Everyone goes through that age when the lexicon is clogged with various "words" that have nothing to do with normal speech.
Over time, most slang words become a thing of the past, but people use some of them all their lives, without even thinking about who and when they were invented.
For example, the now popular word "jiving" was coined as early as the 1970s. But the word "gerla" (girl), which was used at the same time, has remained in the past.
Bright Side invites you to remember how young people used to talk 50 years ago, 40 years ago, and so on to this day.
1960s
Boilers - wrist watch
Heel - take a leisurely walk
Shoes on porridge - shoes with thick soles made of white synthetic rubber
Broadway is the main (central) street of any city. For example, in St. Petersburg they called Nevsky Prospect Broadway, and in Moscow - Gorky Street (Peshkov Street)
Mani, manyushki - money
Shoelaces in a glass - an expression meaning that parents are at home
Baruch - a girl who has a broad outlook on communication with guys
Sovparshiv - a distorted abbreviation "sovposhiv", that is, things made in the USSR
Chucha - a song from the movie "Sunny Valley Serenades", which became a cult for the dudes of the Soviet Union
Music on the bones - a method of recording self-made music records on x-rays
Style - dance
dabbling - having sex
The story of a young man from the 60s about an evening adventure could have gone something like this:
“Yesterday we were frail on Broadway, one of my sidekicks promised shoes on porridge and also drove about the boilers of the Shtatskie, but it wasn’t lucky - he threw a fraerok, brought some kind of Riga one. There were manyushki, we decided to go to the "Stork", so there the redneck raised a screech because of my baruha. There was no way they could come to my hut: shoelaces in a glass. Let's go to her. They listened to Chucha on the bones, styled them almost until the morning and fell out.
1970s
Polis - police
Gerla - girl
Khaep - long hair
Saw hair - cut. In those years, this was often done in the police during the arrest
Hairatnik - a ribbon that supports the hair on the forehead
face -appearance, face
Outfit - clothes
Strive - to be afraid, to be frightened
Fakman - an unpleasant type, a loser
to mock - to laugh at someone, to mock
Skip - leave, run away
Drinchit to craze - get drunk to unconsciousness
A guy from the 70s talks about the drama that played out between him and his girlfriend due to the fact that he was shaved bald at the barbershop:
“Recently I sawed the police hair down, I spent so long for the civilized one. My ancestors still approved of my face, if only I had started a soviet outfit, they would have caught glitches from the buzz. Such jokes aspired me, I felt like a fakmen without a hairdresser. Then my girlfriend at first joked over me, then skipped altogether. For several weeks I walked around like a dead man, all I did was sit like a stoned man, drank hard to the point of craze, nothing caught on.
1980s
Break off - lose interest in something, lose heart, be left with nothing, "burn out"
Session - concert
Iron - a farce trader (buyer or speculator) who buys things and currency from foreigners
Ask - to ask for money on the street from passers-by
Bereza - employees of a voluntary squad who helped police officers to carry out educational sanctions against informal youth
Sister, sister - system girl
Lubera - residents of Lyubertsy, who wore checkered pants sewn from curtains, and short haircuts, considered it their duty to come to the capital and beat all owners of long hair
Enter - let good people spend the night at your home
Washcloth - a girl who can not be called a "beauty"
System - a common name for all informals
"Tourist" - an inexpensive coffee shop popular among system engineers, located near the Boulevard Ring, a common meeting place for them
A story about how the disco of the 80s ended very badly for someone:
“I went to a session yesterday with a sidekick and his dude, a clear bix. Music - Otpad, dudes jumped on the stage for credits. Everything was cool until the cops came in large numbers and turned off the disco. It turned out that some kind of iron was pushing all sorts of garbage right at the session, well, they accepted it. ”
1990s
Lave - money
Stick - girl
All above the roof - all is well
Ride on the ears - talk long and tedious
Download - make you think
Cool theme - good music
Crocodile - an ugly girl
"My nerves!" - an exclamation expressing a wide range of feelings from extreme indignation to wild fun
Nishtyak! - expression of approval
Zero - absolutely new (about things)
Pioneer - beginner
Raise kipesh - fuss
Pont - hypertrophied self-esteem
crack - talk
On the way - apparently
Outfit - clothing, clothing style
Fun - bringing joy
Sabantuy - party
Dumb - unfashionable, bad
You can’t wave away cowards - be afraid of something
Umatny - arousing the interest of others, funny
Firm - foreigners
Shebutnoy - cheerful, noisy, lively
Plaster - cosmetics
A guy from the 90s tells a friend about how he met a girl:
“Yesterday I met one club, such a crazy one, well, just Zabava Putyatishna, it crackles incessantly, the outfit is cool. At first I thought to postebat her, but she downloaded me the most I don’t want. I realized that it would not work with her. In short, next week a friend will have a Sabantuy, he invited her there.
2000s
Chel - man
Chiksa - girl
Otpad, awesome - good
Tin, not childish - a strong emotion
Free - free
Roof - head
Make love - sex
Hitting - fight
Hut - apartment
Slippers - shoes
Bratello - friend
Decl - a little
Break off - get by chance, by pull
Lantern - tape recorder
Sucks - bad, unsuccessful
Cool - good, funny
Purple is all the same
In scrap - laziness, reluctance to do anything
Pipes - straight pants
Linden, linden - fake, fake
Brake - a person who thinks slowly
Really, in kind - in fact
To ship - to give a large amount of unnecessary information, sometimes deliberately chatter
Clone - copied, decommissioned
Mobile - phone, communication
Glitch - a bug in a computer program
A happy schoolboy from the 2000s - about how he got his dad's old phone:
“Yesterday such a cool mobile broke off for me, just fly away! My father decided to buy a new one for himself, like this one was not childishly buggy. He was scrapped to carry it in for repairs, well, he sold it to me quickly. And she’s really normal, she slows down only a little bit at all. ”
2010s
wild - strange
The frame is an extraordinary person
Kanat - to approach, to be suitable
Cap is a person who says obvious things
OMG - an exclamation expressing surprise, fear and other violent emotions (from the English abbreviation OMG - Oh my God - Oh my God!)
Parallel - it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter
Fake - fake, falsification, not true (from English fake - fake)
Use - use something
Go - let's go, let's go
Copy-paste - copy other people's texts
Hipster - a person who goes against the mainstream
SLR - professional or semi-professional camera
Nyashno - nice, good, nice, beautiful
carbon monoxide - funny
To stir up - organize a party, start a relationship
Space - An expression of approval, admiration; satisfaction with something or someone
Beggar - free SMS with a request to call back
Shock - very much
Piece - 1000 rubles
Hackentosh - hacked Apple software, derived from "Hack" and "Makentosh"
Pichalka - resentment or frustration
Soap dish - a compact camera with a built-in lens, usually light in weight and small in size
Bayan - repetition
Girlfriends from the 2010s make plans for the evening:
“It won’t be possible to walk today, the weather is just kapets, it’s been raining all day and it’s cold! Therefore, go to the clubhouse, I think. Just do not ask to take a DSLR, it is heavy in shock. I'll take a soap dish, enough for us to take a picture. And don't take your hipster friend. He may be a carbon monoxide dude, but it's painfully wild when he drinks. Everything, as I will be at your stop, I will throw off the beggar, there is no money on the phone. Get out there right now."
YOUTH SLANG
Russian youth slang is an interesting linguistic phenomenon, the existence of which is limited not only by certain age limits, as is clear from its very nomination, but also by social, temporal and spatial limits. It exists among urban student youth - in separate more or less closed reference groups.
Like all social dialects, it is only a lexicon that feeds on the juices of the national language, lives on its phonetic and grammatical soil. The first document where this sublanguage (let's use the term of Yu.S. Skrebnev) is recorded is N.G. Pomyalovsky, who describe the manners and life of the St. Petersburg Theological Seminary in the middle of the last century. Polivanov recalls that during the years of his studies, which fell at the beginning of our century, various specific words were used among his gymnasium comrades: "... in the second or third grade, for example, it never occurred to us to use the word" to treat ": it was regularly replaced through "fund", "fund" instead of "enterprise" or "conceived plan" it always said "fiducia"; the word "comrade" was not used at all: it was necessary to say "cool"; "good Comrade" - " a strain of sacks", etc. etc. "
The flow of this vocabulary never dries up completely, it only becomes shallow at times, and in other periods it becomes full-flowing. This is connected, of course, with the historical background against which the Russian language develops. But this connection cannot be interpreted too straightforwardly, explaining the noticeable revival and intensive word formation in slang only by historical cataclysms. At the beginning of the century, three stormy waves in the development of youth slang were noted. The first dates back to the 20s, when the revolution and Civil War, having destroyed the structure of society to the ground, gave rise to an army of homeless children, and the speech of teenagers and youth students, who were not separated from homeless children by impenetrable partitions, was colored with many "thieves" words.
The second wave falls on the 50s, when "dudes" took to the streets and dance floors of cities. The appearance of the third wave is not associated with the era of turbulent events, but with a period of stagnation, when the suffocating atmosphere of public life in the 70s and 80s gave rise to various informal youth movements, and "hippie" young people created their own "systemic" slang, as a linguistic gesture of opposition to the official ideology .
Russian youth slang of the 70-80s is actively studied (Konylekko 1976; Borisova Lukashanets 1980; Zhurakhovskaya 1981; Mazurova 1989; Radzikhovsky 1989; Gurov 1989; Volkova 199.0; Lapova 1990; Rozhansky 1992; Sternin 1992; 9 Shchepanskaya 1992).
True, one peculiar feature of domestic works devoted to this topic must be answered: some linguists, as if ashamed that they undertook the study of such an "unworthy", "low" subject, begin or end with calls to combat it and justify their study by the need to deeply study evil to know how best to deal with it. Such an approach seems unscientific to us: a linguist cannot and should not struggle with language, the task of a linguist is to explore its diversity, including non-normative manifestations.
To study the youth slang of the 70-80s, we have three types of materials at our disposal:
complementary vocabulary lists published in the last decade (both separate editions and lexicons that are included in works about youth and their language);
numerous materials from newspapers and magazines, in the language of which more and more slangisms appear;
linguistic questionnaires filled out by native Russian informants representing the social and age group of interest to us.
The formation of the dictionary of the so-called "systemic" slang occurs due to the same sources and means that are characteristic of the language in general and Russian in particular. The difference is only in proportions and combinations:
a) Foreign-language borrowings take the first place in terms of productivity, and almost exclusively English-language borrowings. Only two Spanish ones were recorded (to become proud "to get fat" and to fumar "to smoke"), two German ones (Bundes, Bundes "Germans from Germany" and kind "child") and one Finnish (yuks "one ruble"). This method is organically combined with affixation, so that the word immediately comes in a Russified form. As a rule, this is a parodic Russified form: from parents "parents" - prents, parsnts or parsnts, from "birthday" - bezdnik or beznik, etc.
Appearing in such a grotesque guise, borrowed slangism immediately actively enters the system of inflection: girl - girl, girl, street - on the street, parents - with parents, zipper "lightning" - zipper, white "white" - white.
And immediately the derivation mechanism is actively activated:
Gerla, gerlyonysh, gerlitsp, gerlula, gerlushka, gerlovy;
Drink (drinch) "alcoholic drinks", drinkach, drinker, drink-team, drink, drink, drink, drink, drink, drink, drink, drink;
Country "cottage", country "village", "provincial", kuntrumnik, kant - towel.
It is interesting to note that some foreign words, long assimilated into the Russian language, are, as it were, re-borrowed in a different meaning (and sometimes with a different stress) and already in this meaning form derivatives: record (record) "phonograph record" - record "record"; rally "meeting" - meeting "to meet"; ring "telephone" - ring, ring "call by phone", ringushnik "notebook with phone numbers"; speech "conversation" - to speak, to speak "to talk";
b) Affixation as a means is very productive and with native Russian roots:
Ottyag "pleasure", to be delayed "to receive pleasure, indulge in fun";
Pin "pay attention; cling to, mock, get carried away"; joke "something that you can mock, than you can get carried away", prankster, prankster "one who likes to find fault, joke with someone", cool "funny, interesting", funny "fun, original".
Youth slang manages the most standard suffixes and prefixes. For example, most adjectives derived from English roots are formed with a stressed suffix -ov-: branded "completely new", old "old", young "young", lot "long", friend "belonging to a friend", price "money", lefshovy "left", spruce "yellow", hit "popular", fine "good", French "" French", etc.
The exception is the rare in the system of Russian formants, which are used in the formation of common nouns, the suffix -lov-o: hung-up "strong passion", glukal's "state of hallucination", stremal's "feeling of danger";
c) The next powerful source of the formation of the lexical composition of slang is metaphor. Here are metaphors proper (such as pussies "narrow triangular dark glasses, gossip "complete absence of anything", extinguish kill), and metonymy (such as hairy "hippies"). like drugs, metaphors like the road "consecutive traces on the vein from systematic injections" are euphemistic in nature, obscure the negative essence of the called denotations.
In metaphor, there is often a humorous interpretation of the signified. As an example, let's call the metonymy soplevic "ephedrine, a cold medicine that is used as drug", shaggy" bald "or metaphors with ironic connotations basketball player" a man of short stature ";
Compared to the three named (foreign loanwords, affixation and metaphor) specific gravity other sources of formation of the lexical fund of youth slang are insignificant:
d) Borrowing thieves' argotism: chaos "complete freedom, revelry" xiva "documents", wet "beat", "kill";
e) Development of polysemy:
Throw - 1) steal something from someone; 2) take something from someone and not give back; 3) to cheat when making a transaction; 4) do not keep, promise, deceive;
Nishtyak - 1) everything is in order, 2) it doesn’t matter! it's irrelevant! 3) not bad, tolerable; 4) great; 5) please; 6) okay, agreed!
f) Antonomasia (proper name as a common noun): lewis, louis "Jeans", Masha, nitash "girl", listen to Mendelssohn "to be present at the act of marriage", drive Mumu "to lie";
g) Synonymous or antonymic derivation (one of the components of a phraseological unit is replaced by a word of a national language or slang that is close or opposite in meaning):
To score a joint "stuff a cigarette with a drug for smoking"; hammer a joint; nail a joint; nail a joint;
Get on the needle "start using drugs regularly" get hooked on the needle;
Get hooked on the needle "teach someone to use drugs"; put on the screw; put on jeff;
Get off the needle "stop using drugs"; jump off the needle; jump off the needle;
h) Cross-section of roots (apocope): south "yugoslav", trunk "tranquilizer", hair dryer "fenamin";
i) Addition of roots: buzzkill, buzzkiller "a person who interrupts the high state of a friend of their people with his action", ringphone "telephone", chickfire "lighter";
j) Telescopy: cerebellum "go crazy" (from cerebellum + clink glasses), landafshitz "textbook of physics by Landau and Lifshitz";
k) Univerbization (contraction): academician "academic leave", line "linear algebra", automatic machine "credit received automatically";
m) Abbreviation: schmuck "fool, dumbass", schmucky "bad" (from: a person morally lowered), klyukha "a person who sympathizes with hippies, hippies with little experience" (from: Club of Hippie Lovers), zoya "evil" (from: especially venomous snake)
m) Replacing a word with a paronym (the so-called phonetic mimicry): salute "solutan", seed "seminar", rocket launcher "racketeer", valya "lalyuta", spur "cheat sheet;
o) Punning substitution: bucharest "youth party" (from: bukh "alcohol"), bezbabie "lack of money" (from: grandmas "money"), pelvis "unsecured life" (from: sucker "stupid person"), Tchaikovsky "tea" , Chernyshevsky "black bread";
o) Metathesis (permutation of sounds or syllables): bullshit "shoes", farshik "scarf", rukit "smoke", clog itself "of course";
p) Enenteza (insertion of a sound or syllable): tachanka "taxi" (from a wheelbarrow), tapestry "a tall, thin man" (from a sleeper).
The consolidated vocabulary already recorded in various publications of slangisms has about 1000 units. Researchers involved in youth slang include in the scope of study the age from 14-15 to 24-25 years. The comparison shows that the lexicon of different reference groups coincides only partially. The hippies have the most developed vocabulary.
Let's try to outline at least approximately a portrait of a typical slang carrier. Significant moments in the appearance and behavior of hippies are known: men have long hair (no wonder hippies call themselves "hairy"). Young people and girls wear a bag with documents around their necks - "ksivnik", and a beaded bracelet - "fenka" on their arm. All of them hitchhike along the "highway", they like to gather in noisy gatherings of "parties" and "sessions" - parties, rock concerts. But there are very few real wandering hippies in Russia who have broken with their parents and do not have certain occupations. carriers of slang are "hippie" high school students and students. The newspaper "Evening Petersburg" (October 6, 1992) describes, for example, two such young men - Alexander Turunov and Denis Astakhov. In winter, they attend lectures at the institute, pass tests and exams, and in summer, having made a route in advance, they set off on a journey with a flute and a guitar. They vote on the "track", but they immediately warn that they are students and they have no money. They pay for services with songs. In cities they spend the night at train stations. And if you're lucky, local "hippies" they will give you the address of a "registration" - an apartment where you can stay, Sometimes up to 10 people fit into such an apartment. school year Denis and Alexander are returning home.
A. Zapesotsky and A. Fain in the book "This incomprehensible youth" (Zapesotsky, Fain 1990: 53) draw a different portrait: a girl-philologist, graduated from Leningrad University in 1986. I studied in the evening, worked in the library during the day. Contacting with a mass of people, I met hippies. She felt that their views were consonant with her, quickly mastered their manner of communication, became her own in their environment. thesis she wrote in American slang. For my own pleasure, I compiled the Dictionary of Systemic Slang, the 3rd edition of which A. Zapesotsky and A. Fain cite in their book.
Another portrait, provincial: Smolensk graduate student from the "outback". From the first year he has been seriously engaged in the history of literature. Speech is quite normal. At a folklore festival, it suddenly turns out that the girl is fluent in the Smolensk territorial dialect. And at the interuniversity scientific conference, during a break between meetings, the surprised professor accidentally hears his ward speaker chatting briskly with colleagues from Moscow and other cities, filling her speech with picturesque slang.
We must clearly understand that in all cases when we encounter slangisms not in the dictionary, but in live speech, this speech is not jargon, but only jargonized - individual inclusions of slangisms against the background of neutral or familiar vocabulary. The most saturated it is among Moscow and St. Petersburg hippies. In the speech of young people on the periphery, the concentration of slang is much less.
Slang reflects the lifestyle of the speech community that gave birth to it. The most developed semantic fields are "Person" (with differentiation by sex, family relations, by profession, by nationality), "Appearance", "Clothes", "House", "Leisure" (party, music, drinking, smoking, drugs) .
The toponymy of slang is also connected with leisure, with places of youth gatherings in Moscow and St. Petersburg: Cannon "Pushkin Square", Pleshka "Plekhanov Institute", Puddle "Luzhniki". There are much fewer slang terms that refer to the teaching or work of youth.
Slangisms seep very intensively into the language of the press. Almost all materials where we are talking about the life of young people, about their interests, about their holidays and idols, which contains slang in greater or lesser concentrations. And not only in the youth press - "Komsomolskaya Pravda", "Moskovsky Komsomolets", "Change", "Interlocutor", "Student Meridian" or the newspaper "I am young", but also in such popular newspapers addressed to readers of all ages as " Evening Moscow", "Evening Petersburg", "Chimes", "Arguments and Facts". Newspapers are a valuable source because they promptly reflect the current state of the language. Common slang vocabulary gets into them very quickly, and we get the opportunity to objectively judge its frequency.
The proposed material on the study of youth slang in Astrakhan also allows us to obtain some evidence of the evolution of youth slang. For example, this: “chicks”, “dudes”, “girls” have become a thing of the past. Now young people call girls "aunts" or "bees". If the girl is strange or drunk, then they can say about her "departed." Young people; girls are called "uncles" accordingly. If a young man is wealthy, well-dressed ("packed", "pretend"), has a car ("wheelbarrow"), then they say about him: "Well, you're just an ace", as well as "cool" or "serious". Young people are "increased steepness", but there are also "twisted", i.e. not very "cool". In light of the foregoing, it is worth quoting, probably now a fashionable saying: "Only eggs are cooler than you, only stars are higher than you." Speaking about each other, young people call themselves "eccentrics" ("We are here with one" eccentric "yesterday ..."). This is an inoffensive word, a synonym for the former "dude". If a company is going, then it is called "hangout" or "session". "Party" may turn out to be "crazy", i.e. unsuccessful, or successful - "freaky" (MK. 1992. No. 10).
Russian youth slang swirls mainly in Moscow and St. Petersburg. But some of its elements reach the periphery, and some are born there.
Youth slang finds its way into urban folklore. This is a common genre - a parody of the classics ("If I were a king - a furry girl is singing ..."), and a song, and an anecdote built on puns.
As an expressive element that forms a "stylistic breakdown" (Yu.M. Lotman's term), slang is effectively used in microdoses both in prose and poetry. This use of youth slang for stylistic purposes is, as Denise Françoise swept it up, a way for her to turn from the property of a corporate group into the public domain.
Slang is universal. Many features make Russian youth slang related to any kind of slang. This is, firstly, his depreciation: he is very critical, ironic about everything that is connected with the pressure of the state machine. There is a pronounced ideological moment here - "systemic" slang from its very inception has opposed itself not only to the older generation, but, above all, to the rotten through and through official system.
The second feature that unites Russian youth slang with any kind of slang is its inflamed metaphor. B.D. Polivanov very aptly called argotic word formation word-creation; “Here, indeed, we do not encounter an individual invention of a single organizing device, but in the true sense of the word, a broad collective, and sometimes widely diverse in its methods, linguistic creativity” (Polivanov 19316: 158-159).
The third feature is the dominance of the representative, rather than communicative, and even more so non-cryptolalic function. It was the representative function, as organic and important in this case, that B.D. Polivanov, considering schoolchildren's jargon: "When a student says "nafik" or "napsik" instead of "why", he thinks as a communicated complex of ideas not only the translated meaning of the word (i.e. the meaning of "why" or "why") And if you try to convey this "something", then it will turn out to be the following approximately content of a thought - a thought containing a description of both participants in the language exchange (dialogue): "Both of us, they say, are hooligans, or rather, we play into hooligans" [Polivanov 193: 163].
Youth slang is the password of all members of the reference group.
The fourth feature that characterizes Russian youth slang as a universal, a feature that connects it with other slang and especially with student slang - French, German, Bulgarian and others - is its human orientation. Youth slang is not just a way of creative self-expression, but also a tool for double distancing [Radzikhovsky, Mazurova 1988: 136]. If the ludic function, as Huizinga showed, is characteristic of a person in general, then it is characteristic of a young person even more so.
Our research shows that youth slang, like any slang and more broadly - like any sublanguage, is characterized by some blurring of boundaries. Isolate it as a closed subsystem, as object of observation, is possible only conditionally [Skrebnev 1985: 22-25]. The gradual spread of youth slang goes from the center to the periphery, and on the periphery it takes root minimally.
First of all, with its expressiveness, mischievous and cheerful play with the word, it attracts youth slang, which the adult part of the population began to get acquainted with, reading young prose writers and poets in the thaw years, the youth press and listening to their children. Against the background of the depressingly deceitful official propaganda chewing gum, slangs were attracted by fresh metaphors, looseness, and sometimes brevity of designations (for example, an iron - "a blacksmith walking along the sidewalk in front of a hotel, waiting for a client"). The composition of slang reflects the dangerous, disturbing fact of the spread of drug addiction: dozens of words and expressions. The slang also testifies to persistent everyday xenophobia (negative, smoked, chuchmek, chock, Churkestan, etc.).
The main role in the slang language, from our point of view, is played by special words or phrases - markers. These words were a kind of universal messages, replacing a long sequence of sentences that were probably just too lazy to pronounce. One of the professors of the philological faculty at an introductory lecture said: "A philologist should not be afraid of language", which amused the audience a lot.
In addition, they performed the function of encodings that hid the meaning of the conversation from the uninitiated. Suppose one of his reproaches in front of strangers in an unseemly act. You can start a controversy and bring the public up to date. Or you can just strain through your teeth with the right intonation: "Charles Darwin." The phrase is the result of reduction famous quote: "Who is telling me this? Count Tolstoy is telling me this or Charles Darwin?" and means in an approximate translation into the local "himself such."
Slang is characterized more by semantic humor. Most of all, a successful - sometimes gloomy-absurd - play on words is valued: the project of the dialogue "Pydr" - compilations from "Feast" and "Phaedra", a new feeling of "prust" or an exclamation of "boschitelno" and a desire to write "frost"; or "King Fuck's wild hunt"; philosopher Beliberdyaev; six-legged Vshiva; Hysterical homeland and drinking at the court of King Arthur; Or something more complicated, requiring some mental effort to appreciate the joke, for example, Yulia Chezarik's composition "Debelaya Pebbles" ... Mamon Leskov and Rostov at home, ancestral goiter and a song about a socle.
But what is the difference between youth slang and other types of slang?
Firstly, these words serve to communicate people of the same age category. At the same time, they are used as synonyms for English words, differing from them in emotional coloring.
Secondly, youth slang is distinguished by its "obsession" with the realities of the world of the young. The slang names in question refer only to this world, thus separating it from everything else, and are often incomprehensible to people of other age categories. Thanks to the knowledge of such a special language, young people feel like members of a certain closed community.
And, thirdly, among this vocabulary, quite vulgar words are not uncommon.
Thus, these three observations do not allow one to classify youth slang in any single group of non-literary words and force us to consider it as a phenomenon that has the features of each of them. This allows us to define the term youth slang as words that are used only by people of a certain age category, replacing ordinary vocabulary and differing in colloquial, and sometimes rude familiar coloring.
In addition, as already mentioned above, most of the words related to youth slang are derived from professional terms, almost all of which are borrowed from of English language. Therefore, it is necessary to follow:
1) behind the appearance of these terms and their transition into the Russian language;
2) behind the process of education from these terms of youth slang.
The first reason for such a rapid emergence of new words in youth slang is, of course, the rapid, "jumping" development of life. If you look at the numerous magazines that cover the latest market news, we will see that more or less significant phenomena appear almost every week.
Under the conditions of such a technological revolution, each new phenomenon should receive its verbal designation, its name. And since almost all of them (with rare exceptions) appear in America, Europe, then naturally we get it in the dominant English language. When they find out about this after some time in Russia, then for their vast majority, of course, there is no equivalent in the Russian language. And so the Russians have to use the original terms. There is a so-called filling of cultural gaps with the help of English terms. Thus, English names fill the Russian language more and more. The lack of a sufficiently standardized translation in the Russian language, a significant number of branded and advertising terms, and led to a tendency to the emergence of such a number of youth slang.
Many of the existing terms are quite cumbersome and inconvenient in daily use. There is a strong tendency to shorten, simplify words.
Recently, there has also been a craze for young people in computer games. This again served as a powerful source of new words. Various words have appeared for certain concepts, these include "arcade", "walker", "boss" (meaning the most important enemy in the game), "doomer" (a person playing the game "DOOM"), "croak" (play the game "Quake"), etc. It should also be noted that most non-professional users do not have a sufficient level of English. But, one way or another, they still have to use new English terminology, and often there is a misreading of the English word, and the words that arise in this way sometimes firmly settle in their minds. vocabulary. So, for example, from a misreading of the message "NO CARRIER", the expression "NO CARRIER" appeared in slang, and both mean that there is no connection when communicating via modem. As a result of all this, users of youth slang began to speak in a language invented by themselves.
The ways and means of forming youth slang from the English language are very diverse, but they all boil down to adapting the English word to Russian reality and making it suitable for permanent use. Here are the main methods of slang formation, which, in our opinion, cover the majority of the current slang vocabulary:
Tracing paper (full borrowing)
Semi-tracing paper (borrowing the basis)
Translation: using standard vocabulary with a special meaning using slang from other professional groups
Phonetic mimicry
I. Tracing paper. This method of education includes borrowings that are not grammatically mastered by the Russian language. In this case, the word is borrowed entirely with its pronunciation, spelling and meaning. Such borrowings are subject to assimilation. Each sound in the borrowed word is replaced by the corresponding sound in Russian in accordance with phonetic laws. These words seem foreign in pronunciation and spelling, they correspond to all the norms of the English language.
In addition to "addiction", here, of course, the general tendency among young people to attract Anglicisms into their everyday speech also played a role. Passion for anglicisms has become a kind of fashion, it is due to the stereotypes and ideals created in the youth society. Such a stereotype of our era is the image of an idealized American society, in which the standard of living is much higher, and high rates of technological progress lead the whole world. And adding English borrowings to their speech, young people in a certain way approach this stereotype, join the American culture and lifestyle.
It is in this group that Russian or simply misreading takes place English word. Sometimes the error becomes attractive to the point that it seizes the masses: message ® message.
Very often there is a simple transfer of a word into Russian with the wrong accent: label ® label.
Therefore, some slang borrowings are unstable in spelling. For example, you can find several different borrowings of the word keyboard ® keyboard - keboard - cyboard.
It is noteworthy that stylistically neutral in English word language, having passed into the slang of the Russian youngsters, they acquire an ironic-scornful or simply colloquial coloring.
II. Half-calca. When a term is transferred from English to Russian, the latter adjusts the accepted word to the norms not only of its phonetics, as in the previous group, but also of spelling with grammar. During grammatical assimilation, the English term comes at the disposal of Russian grammar, obeying its rules.
Nouns, for example, acquire case endings: application ® applikukha (application program) ® applikukha (V.p.) applikuhi (R.p.).
The words of this group are formed as follows. Derivative models of the Russian language are added to the original English basis by certain methods. These include, first of all, the diminutive suffixes of nouns -ik, -k (a), -ok and others: disk drive ® floppy disk drive, User "s Manual ® manual ROM ® CD-ROM ® sidiromka, etc. , there is also a suffix -yuk, which is characteristic of vernacular in Russian: CD ® Sidyuk, PC ® Pisyuk.
Due to the fact that the source (English) language is analytical, and the borrowing language is synthetic, there is an addition of inflections to the verbs: to connect ® connect (connect using computers), to click ® click (press the mouse buttons).
In accordance with the fact that one of the reasons for the need for slang is the reduction of long professionalisms, there is such a technique as the technique of univerbization (reduction of a phrase to one word). Here is an example of such a phenomenon: strategic game ® strategy.
Here, one word is borrowed from the phrase by this method and at the same time it receives the meaning of the entire phrase. A fairly large number of words in this group came from various abbreviations, names of various protocols, firms.
Derivatives from various readings of these abbreviations fell into Russian slang. In this way, many words have appeared, here are their examples:
Norton Utilities ® NU ® noshka; Execution file ® EXE ® executable.
As a result, a large number of sounds [e] are created that are not typical for ordinary colloquial speech.
III. Translation. Russian youth slang does not always include words borrowed from English. Very often, slang vocabulary is formed by the way of translating an English professional term. In my classification, I distinguish between two possible ways of translation. The first method includes the translation of a word using the neutral words existing in the Russian language, which at the same time acquire new value with reduced stylistic coloring: virus ® livestock.
In the process of translation, the mechanism of associative thinking works. Arising associations or metaphors can be very different: in the form of an object or device: disk ® pancake; adapter card ® tile according to the principle of operation: matrix printer ® wedge, patch file ® patch. Verbal metaphors are also numerous: to delete ® demolish.
It should be noted that this group includes only those words that previously did not have any slang meanings. But the second group is much more numerous - these are terms that have acquired their slang translation by using the vocabulary of other professional groups. As a result, the meaning of the word changes somewhat, acquiring a specific computer slang meaning. Most often there are words and expressions from youth slang: incorrect programm ® glukalo, streamer ® mofon.
The word "chauffeur" means a tape recorder, but the same word refers to a device for storing information on a magnetic tape - a streamer.
There are also numerous word transitions from driving, criminal, etc. slang. In most cases, only the nature of the action or phenomenon is indicated, and its specificity is not determined.
IV. phonetic mimicry. This method, in my opinion, is the most interesting from the point of view of lexicology. It is based on the coincidence of semantically dissimilar common words and English professional terms: error ® Egor; jumper® jumper; button ® loaf; shareware® bloomers.
A word that turns into slang takes on a completely new meaning, in no way connected with the common one. There are both cases based on the phonetic coincidence of the entire English and standard words, and cases based on the coincidence of part of the words. In this case, the slang word is supplemented with the rest of the word, borrowed by the tracing-paper method from the English original: break point ® breakpoint, ARJ archived ® archived, Windows ® Windows carrier.
This phenomenon also includes cases of onomatopoeia, without any resemblance to words from the standard vocabulary. Such words are a kind of play with sounds. They are formed by subtracting, adding, moving some sounds in the original English term: interpretator ® interpreter, Pentium ® pentyukh.
Currently, the vocabulary of youth slang has a relatively large number of words. Therefore, youth slang contains words with identical or extremely close meanings - synonyms. Naturally, the more common the word, the more synonyms it has. Such a phenomenon as the emergence of synonyms is due to the fact that in different regions of Russia (and there are quite a lot of them) for the same term, different slang correspondences may appear. They can be formed in different ways, by people with different levels of English proficiency. And communication between people using different words while not well developed. The Internet is not yet ubiquitous. Therefore, when they do meet, they sometimes do not even understand each other. For the creators of youth slang dictionaries, the first problem is to write down as many possible synonyms for each term as possible and find out some well-known words.
Slang does not remain constant. With the change of one fashionable appearances to others, old words are forgotten, they are replaced by others. This process is very fast. If in any other slang a word can exist for decades, then in youth slang only over the past decade of rapid world progress an incredible number of words have appeared and gone down in history.
But there are also things that have not undergone special changes. But their slang designations do not remain unchanged. There is a process of generational change, and those words that seemed fashionable and funny five to seven years ago now look outdated. Fashion changes, trends in society change, some words just get boring.
It is also impossible to ignore such a problem as the transition of words from slang to the category of normal ones. Most often, rather old slang words that have managed to get used to become normal. The word thus loses its eccentric coloring. Newspapers and magazines play an important role in this. The slang word appears in them in most cases due to the fact that normal words corresponding to them are inconvenient with frequent use or are completely absent. Magazines generally use slang words in abundance in order to create a more cheerful, youthful atmosphere. Here is an excerpt from the magazine "Strana igry" for August 1996: "The fans quickly dubbed the released demo version Wolf and began to kill the Nazi soldiers." But from such entertainment magazines, slang often moves to the pages of more serious periodicals, and sometimes scientific literature. Let us recall at least the word "iron" in the meaning of "hardware", which for some time was exclusively slang, but eventually turned into professional vocabulary. Now it can be found in any computer magazine.
Having traced the path of the word from its birth in English to the transition to slang, we found out that slang in Russian is a kind of "vent", facilitating the process of adapting the English term. Slang helps speed up this process when the language tries to keep up with the flow of information.
In this matter, the Russian language, without a doubt, is under the direct influence of the English language. And we will not be able to stop this process until we ourselves create something unique.
As we can see, youth slang in most cases is English borrowings or phonetic associations, cases of translation are less common, and even then thanks to the wild imagination of young people. To attract foreign words language should always be treated carefully, and even more so when this process has such a speed.
The development of this linguistic phenomenon and its spread among a growing number of native speakers of the Russian language is conditioned by the introduction of "foreignness" into the life of modern society. And youth slang is beginning to be used not only by young people, but also by people who have nothing to do with them at all. Once one grandmother in the store said to another: "You see what HACKED apples they sell!" It seems that youth slang should become the object of close attention of linguists, because, as examples of other slang systems show, special vocabulary sometimes penetrates into literary language and stay there for many years.
