Etymological dictionary of the Russian language. Etymology

1. Section of linguistics.
2. Medieval edition of Isidore of Seville.
3. Study of the origin of words.
4. Section of linguistics on the origin of words.

(etymology) - the study and assessment of the origin, as well as the development of words. IN modern linguistics There is a difference between diachronic language learning (etymology) and synchronic learning ( structural analysis) (see Synchronic and diachronic). The subject of etymology is the identification of the origin and changes in the meanings of specific words, as well as historical genealogical groups or “families” of languages, for example, Indo-European, Amerindian ( American Indians) etc.

Etymology

ETYMOLOGY and, f. étymologie f., gr. etymologia Naming a waterfall lord moisture, I personify it, forgetting its etymology, and talk about that invisible moteur, the stimulator of water turmoil. 28.8.1825. P.A. Vyazemsky - Pushkin. // RA 1874 1 170. - Lex. Ush. 1940: etymolo/ Gia.

Historical Dictionary Gallicisms of the Russian language. - M.: Dictionary publishing house ETS http://www.ets.ru/pg/r/dict/gall_dict.htm. Nikolai Ivanovich Epishkin [email protected] . 2010

and. Greek word production, root vocabulary, the study of the formation of one word from another. -gical dictionary indicating the roots, origin of words, word derivatives. Etymologist, scientist in this field. Etymology is a conversation with the past, with the thoughts of past generations, minted by them from sounds, Khomyakov.

and. 1) A branch of linguistics that studies the origin of words. 2) The origin of a word or expression in terms of its connections with other words or expressions of this and other languages.

etymology etymology Through lat. etymologia from Greek. ἐτυμολογία from ἔτυμον "true meaning of words"; see Dornzeif 86; Thomsen, Gesch. 14. Etymological dictionary of the Russian language. - M.: Progress M. R. Vasmer 1964-1973

etymology, g. (from the Greek etymos - true and logos - teaching) (lingual). 1. units only A department of linguistics that studies the origins of words. Sketches on Russian etymology. 2. The very origin of this or that word. This word has an unclear etymology. Establish the etymology of some. words. The etymology of the word "telephone" is Greek. 3. only units. Grammar without syntax (i.e., the study of sounds, parts of speech and forms of words), mainly. as a subject of school teaching (obsolete). Folk etymology (linguistic) - a reworking of an incomprehensible (for example, borrowed) word, explained by the need to bring it closer in sound similarity to something. from familiar words and thus comprehend it, for example. "scupulant" vm. "speculator" under the influence of "buy up"; the word itself is a modified word.

Etymology

(from Greek etymologia - truth + logic)

1) origin of the word (applies to concepts that have arisen in scientific language);

2) a branch of linguistics that studies the original word-formation structure of a word and identifies elements of its ancient meaning.

Studying historical origin and development of linguistic forms.

root words, word production

Wed. ОµП„П…ОјОїО»ОїОіОЇα(ОµП„П…ОјОїОЅ, root, ОµП„П…ОјОїП‚, true) - indication of the true meaning and beginning of the word.

Etymology

etymology,

etymology,

etymology,

etymology,

etymology,

etymologies,

etymology,

etymology,

etymology,

etymology,

etymologies,

Like many other words scientific language, it was formed using the Greek stems etymo(n) - "true meaning" and logos - "teaching".

View value etymology in other dictionaries

False Etymology- the same as folk etymology.

Folk etymology — (false etymology) - understanding the morphological composition of a word and motivating its meaning based on convergence with consonant words that are different from it in origin........
Large encyclopedic dictionary

Folk etymology— - everyday explanation of the origin of words, not related to special historical linguistic knowledge and training; e.g. lat. "proletarian" by origin.........
Psychological Encyclopedia

ETYMOLOGY— ETYMOLOGY, -i, g. 1. A branch of linguistics that studies the origin of words. 2. The origin of a particular word or expression. Determine the etymology of the word. * Folk etymology........
Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary

ETYMOLOGY- ETYMOLOGY, etymology, w. (from the Greek etymos - true and logos - teaching) (lingual). 1. units only A department of linguistics that studies the origins of words. Sketches on Russian etymology. 2. The most........
Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary

Etymology- and. 1. A branch of linguistics that studies the origin of words. 2. The origin of a word or expression in terms of its connections with other words or expressions of this and other languages
Explanatory Dictionary by Efremova

This edition of M. Vasmer’s “Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language” is the first experience in translating such books into Russian. Compared to the usual translation of scientific books, this translation poses some specific difficulties. The Dictionary was compiled in difficult conditions wartime, which the author himself speaks about in his preface and which also cannot be ignored. Taking into account all these circumstances, the editors, when preparing M. Vasmer’s “Dictionary” for the Russian edition, considered it necessary to carry out the following work.

The author published his dictionary over a relatively long period of time in separate editions. Almost each of them evoked numerous responses and reviews, which pointed out noted inaccuracies or controversial interpretations, provided additions, and sometimes new etymologies. Everything that the author considered necessary to take into account from these comments, he collected in an extensive addition placed at the end of the dictionary. During translation, all the author's additions, clarifications and corrections are included directly in the text of the Dictionary, and inclusions of this nature are not noted or highlighted in any way. The translator also provided the Dictionary with some additions, drawn from publications that appeared after the publication of M. Vasmer’s work, and partly from rare (mainly Russian) publications that were inaccessible to the author for technical reasons. In addition, N. Trubachev included a number of additions to the dictionary that are in the nature of scientific comments and new etymologies. All translator's additions are enclosed in square brackets and marked with the letter T. Editorial comments are also enclosed in square brackets. They are given with the mark “Ed.” Without any litter in square brackets only editorial clarifications related to geographical names are given, for example: “in the [former] Smolensk province.”

When working on M. Vasmer’s “Dictionary,” translations of not all etymologized words were given. Naturally, for Russian It makes no sense for the reader to determine the meanings of all Russian words, as the author did when compiling his dictionary for the German reader. Therefore, in this translation, definitions of the meanings of words in the common Russian language are omitted, but Vasmer’s interpretations of rarer, outdated and regional words are preserved. This last one, as well as determining the meanings of the parallels from other languages ​​cited in the articles, required a lot of additional work from the editors. M. Vasmer, for obvious reasons, widely attracted Russian studies containing not only Russian, but also Turkic, Finno-Ugric, Baltic and other materials. At the same time, he translated the meanings of words given in the sources into German. With the usual polysemy of words, reverse translation of meanings (in particular, those contained in Dahl and in regional dictionaries) from German into Russian or interpretation of meanings, for example, Turkic words, through a third (German) language could lead to a direct distortion of the semasiological component in establishing the etymology of the studied words To avoid this error, the editors subjected a complete verification of the definitions of the meanings of Russian and Turkic examples, reducing them to those given in the sources. Concerning language examples of all other languages, their meaning was determined in most cases using the corresponding dictionaries. At the same time, the writing of non-Russian examples was checked (or their subordination modern standards spelling), as well as the correctness of references. The need for this work is evidenced by the following examples: by the way careless M. Vasmer, referring to Gordlevsky (OLYA, 6, 326), cites: “and Turk. alyp äri". In fact, Gordlevsky: “Turk. alp är". In the dictionary entry for the word buzluk, M. Vasmer cites Turkm with reference to Radlov. boz meaning "ice". In fact, according to Radlov, boz means “gray” (buz “ice”), which also corresponds to modern Turkmen usage. In the dictionary entry for the word ashug there is a reference to Radlov: Radlov 1, 595. The link is incorrect, it should be: Radlov 1, 592. The correction of all such inaccuracies in the text of the “Dictionary” is not marked with any marks.

Finally, it should be pointed out that the editors, keeping in mind a fairly wide contingent of readers, considered it necessary to remove several dictionary entries that could be the subject of consideration only in narrow scientific circles.

Reconciliation with Russian sources was carried out by L. A. Gindin and M. A. Oborina, and with Turkic sources - JI. G. Ofrosimova-Serova.

Preface

The long and fruitful scientific activity of M. Vasmer was strictly consistent in its focus. Most of his research was devoted to lexicology in its various industries: study of borrowings in Russian from Greek language, study of Iranian-Slavic lexical connections, analysis of toponymy of Eastern Europe Baltic and then Finnish origin, Greek elements in the Turkish vocabulary, etc.

The consistent completion of these private studies was the “Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language”.

If the vocabulary (registry of words) of the etymological dictionary is not limited to arbitrary selection and widely covers vocabulary language, then it reflects the multifaceted culture of the people - the creator of the language, its centuries-old history and its wide connections (between tribes in ancient times and international ones in modern times). In order to correctly understand the extremely complex vocabulary of a language like Russian in composition and origin, knowledge of many languages ​​is not enough; broad awareness of its history and dialectology, and, in addition, the history of the people and their ethnography is necessary; you also need direct acquaintance with ancient monuments - language sources not only the Russian language, but also its neighbors. Finally, it is necessary to master a huge scientific literature on Slavic lexicology.

It is beyond the power of one person to go through and master this entire circle. Now it’s clear to everyone that it’s high scientific level the task of a modern etymological dictionary can only be accomplished by a team of linguists, which includes specialists in all related philologies for each language. But M. Vasmer, like many other etymologists of the past and our century, undertook to solve this problem single-handedly. A daring plan is characteristic of this outstanding scientist.

At the beginning of our century, a rather successful attempt to single-handedly prepare an etymological dictionary of the Russian language was made by the Russian scientist A. Preobrazhensky. Having collected and summarized the scattered studies on the etymology of Russian words in his still very useful etymological dictionary, he only added his own materials and careful critical remarks here and there.

M. Vasmer included in his dictionary not only the etymological hypotheses of his predecessors, but also the results of his own research, which occupied a very prominent place there. The author's extensive experience and erudition have provided, in many cases, a convincing, acceptable solution to controversies within the areas of interaction between Russian and neighboring languages ​​that he has well studied. However, sometimes inaccuracies, errors and even unjustified comparisons appear in M. Vasmer's dictionary. This is most often observed in Vasmer’s interpretation of the dictionary reflections of Russian-Turkic and Russian-Finno-Ugric connections. The first was noted by E. V. Sevortyan in his review of M. Vasmer’s dictionary. In the same way, B. A. Serebrennikov also pointed out the mistakes of Vasmer in etymologies based on the material of the East Finnic languages. There are also mistakes in the use of Baltic material. I will limit myself to one example. About a hundred years ago, Bezzenberger, in the marginal gloss of the Lithuanian translation of the Bible by Bretkun, incorrectly interpreted the word darbas as Laubwerk ‘braid of leaves’, which served as the basis for the erroneous comparison of this word by I. Zubaty with the Belarusian dorob'basket'. M. Vasmer, without checking in authoritative dictionaries, repeated this untenable etymology (see E. Frenkel’s explanation in the second edition of his “Etymological Dictionary Lithuanian language", page 82). The word darbas never had such a meaning either in old monuments, or in modern literary language, or in Lithuanian dialects, but meant ‘labor, work; work, product.

Some of the reviewers (for example, O. N. Trubachev) give great credit to M. Vasmer for the inclusion dialect vocabulary and onomastics. But in this direction M. Vasmer took only the first step: from the enormous dialectal stock of “extraliterary words” available even in published works and the no less immense stock of local names and personal names, he included only some part. In addition, as the reviews that appeared and the reconciliation undertaken by the editors show, it was in dialect and toponymic etymologies that he made the most inaccuracies.

As for the creation of an etymological dictionary of all Russian (and especially East Slavic) toponymy and hydronymy, it is not yet possible to solve this problem. This will take many decades preparatory work of an entire team, the creation of complete collections of critically selected material of personal names and local names, which we do not yet have. Therefore, the composition of the onomastic part of M. Vasmer’s dictionary naturally gives rise to some critical comments. Fairness requires that it be noted that the author has given a number of successful articles, such as, for example, the articles Don, Danube, Moscow, Siberia. However, the current state of the study of these problems has led to the fact that in M. Vasmer’s dictionary there are also random and less successful entries in terms of selection and scientific interpretation, such as, for example, Baykanavofield and etc.

Most weak side M. Vasmer's dictionary are his semantic definitions and comparisons. He himself admitted this indirectly in the afterword to the third volume of the dictionary. Here is one example:

I. 137: " Bakhmur‘nausea, dizziness’, Nizhegorod-Makaryevsk. (Dahl). I understand how to compound with gloomy‘cloud, darkness’. The first part is probably an interjection bah!, therefore, originally: “what darkness!” Wed. similarly Ka-luga, Kaluga from puddle["what a puddle!"].

The last thing that needs to be warned about to everyone who will use the dictionary is M. Vasmer’s exaggeration of the German influence on the vocabulary of the Russian language, especially German mediation when borrowing European cultural terms, often coming directly from Dutch, French, Italian or Latin. Compare, for example, the articles: admiral, adju, actuary, altar, pineapple, anise, questionnaire, argument, barge, barricade, bason, basta and many others. It is characteristic that the dictionary contains almost no articles about ancient Slavic personal proper names, such as Kupava, Oslyabya, Ratmir, Militsa, Miroslava and others, while M. Vasmer found it necessary to give the etymology of personal names German origin, such as Sveneld, Rogvolod and under.

In the process of editing the dictionary, the editors discovered and eliminated a large number of oversights by M. Vasmer in references to sources, incorrect spellings and interpretations of words from little-known languages. Inaccuracies in quotations, incorrect emphasis of some dialect words, etc. have been corrected.

The publication of the Russian edition of M. Vasmer's dictionary will have great importance not only because it contains a summary of etymological studies of Russian vocabulary 8a over the last half century (including little-known foreign works), but also because the very fact of the publication of M. Vasmer’s “Etymological Dictionary” will apparently cause a revival of domestic etymological research , will refresh general interest to questions of the history of the native language, will help to reconsider many traditional techniques and methods of etymological reconstructions. ABOUT practical value this book as useful reference book Much has already been said, she is beyond any doubt.

Prof. V. A. Larin

Preface by the author

On the compilation of the “Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language” as a main goal his scientific activity I dreamed even during the first studies devoted to the influence of the Greek language on the Slavic languages ​​(1906–1909). Flaws early works prompted me to further intensively study Slavic antiquities, as well as most of the languages ​​of the neighboring peoples of the Slavs. At the same time, the works of F. Kluge drew my attention to the need to first research Russian professional languages, which gave me a reason to study great job on collecting materials about the language of Russian Ofeni. I hoped that during this time the publication of the excellent “Slavic Etymological Dictionary” by E. Bernecker and “Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language” by A. Preobrazhensky would also be completed, which would facilitate my further experiments in this direction. It was only in 1938, while in New York, that I began to work systematically on the Russian etymological dictionary, after decades during which I had made only occasional extracts intended for this purpose. When a significant part of the dictionary had already been prepared, a bomb hit (January 1944) deprived me of not only this and other manuscripts, but also my entire library. It soon became clear to me that after the war I would have to concentrate all my efforts on the dictionary if I was to continue my work as planned at all. The card index was destroyed, but I could count on the rich collection of books of the Berlin Slavic Institute.

But, unfortunately, after 1945 I have no opportunity to use this library. At my disposal in currently There is no good university library either. Under these conditions, the work could not turn out the way I imagined it in my youth. It is based on extracts that I collected during the famine years of 1945–1947. in the deserted libraries of Berlin and later, during my two years of study in the libraries of Stockholm (1947–1949). I cannot now fill in many of the gaps that are obvious to me. I decided, yielding to the persuasion of my students, to prepare the dictionary for publication, as far as possible. modern conditions. Decisive role At the same time, the conviction played a role that in the near future, given the current state of Slavic libraries, it is unlikely that anyone in Germany will be able to offer more comprehensive material.

Lack of space, unfortunately, does not allow me to give here a long list of people who tried to help me out with books. My colleagues gave me especially great help: O. Brock, D. Chizhevsky, R. Ekblom, J. Endzelin, J. Kalima, L. Kettunen, V. Kiparsky, K. Knutsson, V. Mahek, A. Mazon, G. Mladenov , D. Moravcsik, H. Pedersen, F. Ramovs, J. Stanislav, D. A. Seip, Chr. Stang and B. Unbegaun. Of my students, I am especially grateful to E. Dickenman, W. Fayer, R. Olesch, H. Schröder and M. Woltner for the books they gave me.

Those who know the USSR will be surprised by the presence in my book of such old names as, for example, Nizhny Novgorod(now Gorky), Tver (instead of Kalinin), etc. Since the linguistic material I used was drawn mainly from old publications, which were based on Administrative division Tsarist Russia, changing the names threatened to cause inaccuracy in determining the geography of words, and references like “Gorky” would entail confusing the city of Gorky with the writer Gorky. Thus, the old names are used here only to avoid misunderstandings.

I am especially grateful to my colleague G. Krahe for his kind interest in my dictionary during the process of its publication. My student G. Breuer helped me with the difficult reading of proofs, for which I also express my heartfelt gratitude to him.

M. Vasmer

Author's afterword

I was completely absorbed in compiling this dictionary from the beginning of September 1945. At the same time, I was more interested in sources than linguistic theories. Therefore I cannot understand how one of my reviewers could claim that I “could not draw my material directly from the sources” (“Lingua Posnaniensis”, V, p. 187). I can only ask the reader to check for himself, when reading my dictionary, how true this statement is, and at the same time also pay attention to my list of abbreviations.

Until June 1949, I was only engaged in collecting material. I then began processing the manuscript, which continued until the end of 1956. The literature on etymology published after 1949 was so extensive that, unfortunately, I was not able to make full use of it. Full processing latest literature would have delayed the completion of the work and, given my age, could have generally cast doubt on its successful completion.

I am aware of the shortcomings of my presentation. Your knowledge of the Russian dictionary of the 16th and 17th centuries is especially unsatisfactory. But at the same time, I ask you to keep in mind that even such a work as F. Kluge’s “Etymological Dictionary of the German Language,” which has served as an example for me for half a century, deepened the history of the word in the proper sense only gradually, from edition to edition. I marked the first appearance of the word with the instructions “for the first time at...” or “(starting) with...” If I have written horn (Gogol), Burmite(eg, Krylov), etc., then such references do not mean that I consider these particular cases to be the oldest, as some of my reviewers decided.

My original intention was to also include important personal and local names. When I saw that the material was growing to alarming proportions, I began to limit it and decided to process personal names separately. Many of them have been studied so little that a meager interpretation of them would hardly be convincing. The need to limit the volume of the dictionary also did not give me the opportunity to trace in all details the spread of Russian borrowings in neighboring languages, because then I would have to take into account Russian borrowings not only in the Baltic and Polish languages, but also in the Finno-Ugric languages. Nevertheless, I have presented the most important of them for the history of language.

From modern vocabulary I tried to reflect the words found in best writers XIX century, represented, unfortunately, far from completely even large dictionaries. Dialect words were quite involved large quantities, because they reflect regional differences and often, as relict words from the language of a displaced population, can shed light on the ethnic relationships of prehistoric and early historical eras. Various references to correlative words are more easily visible in a printed dictionary than in a manuscript, especially if the latter is large in volume, as in this case. If I were to prepare a new edition, the number of references to different articles in it would increase, and references to the first appearance of a word would appear much more often. From Old Russian language included words of linguistic, cultural and historical interest.

In the “Additions” I corrected the most important typos noted so far and expressed my attitude to some of the comments of my reviewers. An exhaustive analysis of the other points of view that emerged during this time would require too much space.

My student and friend G. Breuer gave me great help in the difficult work of proofreading. For constant help in technical training I am grateful to Mrs. R. Greve-Zigman for compiling the word index - she and R. Richardt.

Many wishes expressed in reviews of my dictionary will undoubtedly be useful for the subsequent Russian etymological dictionary, which should pay attention to Special attention numerous words mentioned here as unclear. If I had to start work again, I would spend more attention tracings and semasiological side.

The word index acquired the following big sizes, that it was necessary to refuse to include the compared words of Slavic languages ​​and Western European words that underlie later cultural borrowings.

M. Vasmer

Berlin-Nikolaev, April 1957

An etymological dictionary is a dictionary containing information about the history of individual words, and sometimes morphemes, that is, information about the phonetic and semantic changes that they have undergone. Large explanatory dictionaries may also contain notes on the etymology of words. Since the origin of many words cannot be accurately determined unambiguously, etymological dictionaries record various points view and contain links to relevant literature.

The tradition of compiling etymologies of individual words dates back to ancient times, but etymological dictionaries in modern sense this word appeared only in late XVIII V. Their predecessors in the 17th century. were etymological Latin language(lat. Etymologicum linguae Latinae) Vossius (1662), Etymologicon in English(lat. Etymologicon Linguae Anglicanae) S. Skinner (1671). After its establishment in the 19th century. laws of regular sound changes, the compilation of etymological dictionaries has become one of important tasks specialists working in the field of comparative historical linguistics.

Some etymological dictionaries include information about groups of languages ​​and contain a reconstruction of the vocabulary of the proto-language and its contacts with other proto-languages ​​being reconstructed.

Max Vasmer, or in the Russian manner - Maximilian Romanovich Vasmer, was born in St. Petersburg on February 28, 1886 in a family of Russian Germans: his father, a merchant, moved to St. Petersburg as a young man. M. Vasmer studied at the classical gymnasium of K.I. Maya - at that time in Russia they provided an excellent classical education. In 1903, seventeen-year-old M. Vasmer passed the matriculation exam and in the same year began studying St. Petersburg University Slavic and comparative linguistics under the leadership of the remarkable Slavist Baudouin de Courtenay, founder of the Kazan linguistic school. From memory close friend M. Vasmer Margaretha Woltner, in Baudouin de Courtenay he found an understanding and very enthusiastic teacher, a caring fatherly older friend, whose breadth of scientific horizon and fearlessness in the struggle for own beliefs became for Vasmer, and through Vasmer for his students, the ideal of a true scientist. Among M. Vasmer’s teachers, A. A. Shakhmatov should also be named. M. Vasmer later recalled that he was grateful for every Sunday morning spent with A. A. Shakhmatov in the circle of scientists that gathered with him at that time. “By birth, by culture acquired in childhood, by education, he was a Russian man, a scientist who remained faithful to the Russian theme until the end of his life. He was a philologist of the Russian school; open his dictionary (meaning “Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language.” - M. Ch.), and you will see how much space is devoted there to dialogue with its luminaries - with Shakhmatov (with whom he often disagrees in interpretations), with Ilyinsky ( to whom he is critical), with Sobolevsky (many of whose specific judgments he often accepts)” - this is what he wrote about M. Vasmer and the reflection of Russian in his dictionary philological school O. N. Trubachev.

For a Russian person greatest value presents the work that M. Vasmer considered the goal of his life - “Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language.” “I dreamed of compiling an “Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language” as the main goal of my scientific activity even during the first studies devoted to the influence of the Greek language on the Slavic languages ​​(1906-1909). The shortcomings of the early works prompted me to further intensively study Slavic antiquities, as well as most of the languages ​​of the neighboring peoples of the Slavs,” wrote 64-year-old M. Vasmer in 1950 in the preface to the dictionary.

In 1950, the first issue of the Russian etymological dictionary appeared, called by V. Kiparsky in the Horace words “a monument stronger than bronze” (“monumentum aere perennius”). In 1958, the Karl Winter publishing house in Heidelberg completed the publication of the dictionary, which amounted to total three volumes. The appearance of M. Vasmer's dictionary coincided with increased interest in etymology in Slavic countries.

A B C D E F G H I K L M N O P R S T U V

Constant replenishment of the vocabulary of the Russian language makes native speech more imaginative and richer. Already known words do not lag behind new ones - they can gradually change their meaning, giving them new shades of meaning. Our speech is a living organism that carefully cuts off dying and inactive particles from itself, growing new, fresh and in the right words. And to understand the meaning of new words, you need an etymological dictionary. Its functions, structure and significance are described below.

Definition

What is an etymological dictionary? First of all, the halls of ancient libraries with tomes covered with cobwebs come to mind. But now, thanks to the Internet, the etymological dictionary of the Russian language is available to the widest circles of the population. You can use it at any time.

The answer to the question of what an etymological dictionary is is contained in the definition. Such dictionaries determine the origin and history of various words. Many words are of non-Slavic origin, they original meaning sometimes it is quite far from the generally accepted. Even the word “etymology” is of foreign origin. This term is borrowed from the Greek language and consists of two parts: in translation etymos means “truth”, logos means “word”. The combination of these two concepts means “the truth of words.” The designation alone gives an idea of ​​what etymology does and what an etymological dictionary is. IN general view such a dictionary is a list of words of foreign or Russian origin, each of which has its own history and interpretation.

History of etymology

Attempts to explain the meaning of words appeared long before the spread of writing; fragments of the writings of Sumerian, ancient Egyptian, and Akkadian sages have reached us, in which they explained the meanings of words in their native language. And already in those distant times there were words that were older than the most ancient civilizations, the origin of which, most likely, will remain unexplained.

Over the centuries, languages ​​and countries mixed, absorbed and disappeared, reviving new words. But there were always people collecting the surviving pieces of speech and trying to interpret them. The first etymological dictionary included several words and stable phrases. Later lexicon expanded, and each individual part of speech was given its own interpretation.

Russian words

The first official etymological dictionary of the Russian language was published in 1835. But long before this, attempts were made to explain the meaning and origin of words. Thus, Lev Uspensky in his wonderful book “A Word about Words” quotes Feofaniy Prokopovich’s phrase that compiling a dictionary - “Making a lexicon” - is a difficult and painstaking task. Even just collecting all the words of a literary language, separating them from special terms, dialects, and dialects is backbreaking work. Although many enthusiasts have put long years his life in order to collect the words of his native language into one etymological dictionary.

First dictionaries

History has preserved the names of the first enthusiasts, collectors of the Russian word. They were F. S. Shimkevich, K. F. Reiff, M. M. Izyumov, N. V. Goryaev, A. N. Chudino and others. The first etymological dictionary of the Russian language in modern form came out at the beginning of the 20th century. Its compilers were a group of linguists led by Professor A.G. Preobrazhensky. Under the title “Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language,” it was republished several times, with changes and additions. Last thing famous publication dates back to 1954.

The most cited etymological dictionary was compiled by M. Vasmer. The book was first published in 1953. Despite the numerous linguistic works published by domestic linguists later, the Fasmer Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language is considered the most authoritative publication of this kind.

How words are learned

The language of every people on earth is like a river - it is constantly changing and taking on new forms. Each of us has noticed how new, borrowed or modified words and entire phrases gradually enter the spoken language. At the same time, outdated and rarely used concepts disappear - they are “washed out” of the language. The forms of composing words are also transformed - sometimes sentences become simpler, sometimes they become heavier with additional constructions that make speech more figurative and expressive.

Interpretation of words

Explaining words is not an easy task. The study of a single word involves not only a list of its interpretations in the past and present, but also looks for the roots of words that are similar in sound or spelling, explores possible ways transition of individual terms from one language to another. The historical and etymological dictionary will tell you about the historical transformations taking place with various words of the Russian language. It focuses on how different meanings change of this word over time. There is also a short etymological dictionary - it usually indicates a brief description of words and its probable origin.

A few examples

Let's look at what an etymological dictionary is using several examples. Everyone is familiar with the word “entrant”. The etymological dictionary of the Russian language explains that this linguistic unit It has German roots. But the word came into the German language from Latin. In the language of the ancient Romans it meant “leaving.” Almost the same meaning was given to the word in German. But modern Russian speech gives a completely different meaning to “entrant”. Today this is what they call a person entering a higher educational institution. The etymological dictionary also indicates derivatives from this word - entrant, entrant. As studies show, the fewer adjectives and the later this linguistic unit entered Russian speech. The birth of the Russian “entrant” occurred no earlier than early XIX century.

Perhaps those words that we are accustomed to consider Russian have less interesting biography? Here, for example, is the familiar and familiar word “heel”. There is no need to explain it, it is in everyone Slavic languages, it is also found in ancient Russian texts. But scientists are still researching the history of this word, and there is still no clear opinion about the origin of the “heel”. Some derive it from the common Slavic root “bow”, which means “bend, elbow”. Other scholars insist on the Turkic version - in the languages ​​of the Tatars and Mongols, “kaab” meant “heel”. The etymological dictionary impartially lists both versions of the origin of the “heel” on its pages, leaving the right of choice to its readers.

Let's consider another familiar word - “sneak”. This is what we call headphones and informers. Nowadays, “sneak” is a well-known curse word, but once upon a time a sneak person lived in respect and honor. It turns out that this is what public prosecutors were called in Rus' - currently this position is occupied by prosecutors. The word has Old Norse roots. Interestingly, it is not used in other Slavic languages ​​(except Russian and Ukrainian).

Results

The importance of an etymological dictionary cannot be overestimated. If the interpretations of individual words are known, it is easier to understand all the nuances of its meaning. An etymological dictionary will make its reader more literate, because often the correct spelling in the Russian language is checked by selecting words with the same root.

In addition, the Russian language is very sensitive to various borrowings. Words of German, English, French are found in it in a slightly modified form, the correctness of which can be checked with the same dictionary. There is no need to explain what an etymological dictionary means to students humanitarian universities, journalists, translators, literature teachers. To all those whose work is connected with the word. For them, the etymological dictionary is necessary tool at work.