Russian Borrowings in English: Similarities and Differences in Lexicographic Description
Russian Borrowings in English:
Similarities and Differences in Lexicographic
Description
Mirosława Podhajecka
University of Opole
1. Introduction
The study of word origins enjoyed considerable popularity in the past, and etymologies, a traditional component of a dictionary entry, were often hotly debated, even though ‘the amateurs who, as late as 1900, filled the pages of popular journals with their conjectures on word origins, had no idea that they should have used their time reading rather than writing’ (Liberman 2005: 158).
To contemporary dictionary users etymology sections seem to have less appeal. According to surveys carried out by Barnhart and Quirk, what is usually searched for is information on the meaning of words, their spelling, pronunciation and usage (qtd. in Hartmann 1987: 125). In response to the potential needs of users, general monolingual dictionaries do include brief etymologies, but more extensive references have been confined almost exclusively to etymological and historical dictionaries, on the assumption that they can engage the attention of scholars and students of the history of English only. Word histories are, however, of great interest to metalexicographers, or lexicographic researchers, who study various aspects of dictionaries and the dictionary-making process. The present paper focuses on one area for which etymological references are vital: foreign elements in the English lexicon. More precisely, I look at Russian borrowings recorded in dictionaries of English, and focus on similarities and differences in their lexicographic description. As the term ‘borrowing’ refers to different types of lexical importations—loanwords, calques, loanblends and semantic borrowings (Haugen 1950: 214–
215)—it is important to highlight that this paper covers only loanwords proper, i.e., narrowly interpreted Russian borrowings.
2. A History of Russianisms in English
Anyone interested in the origins of English words knows
Similarities and Differences in Lexicographic
Description
Mirosława Podhajecka
University of Opole
1. Introduction
The study of word origins enjoyed considerable popularity in the past, and etymologies, a traditional component of a dictionary entry, were often hotly debated, even though ‘the amateurs who, as late as 1900, filled the pages of popular journals with their conjectures on word origins, had no idea that they should have used their time reading rather than writing’ (Liberman 2005: 158).
To contemporary dictionary users etymology sections seem to have less appeal. According to surveys carried out by Barnhart and Quirk, what is usually searched for is information on the meaning of words, their spelling, pronunciation and usage (qtd. in Hartmann 1987: 125). In response to the potential needs of users, general monolingual dictionaries do include brief etymologies, but more extensive references have been confined almost exclusively to etymological and historical dictionaries, on the assumption that they can engage the attention of scholars and students of the history of English only. Word histories are, however, of great interest to metalexicographers, or lexicographic researchers, who study various aspects of dictionaries and the dictionary-making process. The present paper focuses on one area for which etymological references are vital: foreign elements in the English lexicon. More precisely, I look at Russian borrowings recorded in dictionaries of English, and focus on similarities and differences in their lexicographic description. As the term ‘borrowing’ refers to different types of lexical importations—loanwords, calques, loanblends and semantic borrowings (Haugen 1950: 214–
215)—it is important to highlight that this paper covers only loanwords proper, i.e., narrowly interpreted Russian borrowings.
2. A History of Russianisms in English
Anyone interested in the origins of English words knows
References: Dictionaries The Barnhart Dictionary of New English 1963–72 (1973) Bronxville, N.Y.: Barnhart. The Century Dictionary: An Encyclopedic Lexicon of the English Language. First edition (1889–91), Supplement (1909) New York: The Century A Dictionary of the English Language (1755) Johnson, Samuel. London. CD-ROM (1996) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Etimologičeskij slovar’ russkogo jazyka [Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language] (1986 [1950–58]). The Oxford English Dictionary. The New English Dictionary on Historical Principles. First edition (1884–1928), Supplement (1933), Supplement (1972–1986) Oxford English Dictionary Additions Series (1993–1997) Oxford: Clarendon Press. Second Barnhart Dictionary of New English (1980) Bronxville, N.Y.: Barnhart Books. Third Barnhart Dictionary of New English (1990) Bronxville, N.Y.: H. W. Wilson. Tolkovyj slovar’ živogo velikorusskogo jazyka [Explanatory Dictionary of the Live Russian Language] (1880–82) Sankt Peterburg Webster’s New International Dictionary of the English Language. First edition (1913 [1909]) Springfield, Mass.: G Webster’s New International Dictionary of English. Second edition (1953 [1934]) London: G. Bell–Springfield: G. Other Literature Béjoint, Henri (2000) Modern Lexicography Benson, Morton (1962) Russianisms in the American Press. American Speech, 37.1, 41–47. Brewer, Charlotte (2004) The ‘Electronification’ of the Oxford English Dictionary. Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America, 25, 1–43. Cannon, Garland (1987) Historical Change and English Word-Formation. New York: Peter Lang. Curzan, Anne (2000) The Compass of the Vocabulary. In Mugglestone, Lynda ed. Lexicography and the OED. Engelstein, Laura (1997) From Heresy to Harm: Self-Castrators in the Civic Discourse of Late Tsarist Russia. In Hara, Teruyuki and Kimitaka Matsuzato eds Sapporo: Slavic Research Centre. 1–22. 20 Nov. 2005 . Finkenstaedt, Thomas and Dieter Wolff (1973) Ordered Profusion. Studies in Dictionaries and the English Lexicon Francis, Winthrop N. (1965) The English Language. An Introduction. New York: W. W. Norton. Hakluyt, Richard (1598–1600) The Principal Navigations: Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation […] Hartmann, R. R. K. (1987) Dictionaries of English: The User’s Perspective. In Bailey, Richard ed. Dictionaries of English Haugen, Einar (1950) The Analysis of Linguistic Borrowing. Language, 26.2, 210–231. Hughes, Geoffrey (2000) A History of English Words. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Ilson, Robert (1986) Lexicographic Archaeology: Comparing Dictionaries of the Same Family. In Hartmann, R. R. Landau, Sidney (2001) Dictionaries. The Art and Craft of Lexicography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Leeming, Henry (1968) Russian Words in Sixteenth-Century English Sources (Part 1). Slavonic and EastEuropean Review, 46.106, 1–10. Leeming, Henry (1969) Russian Words in Sixteenth-Century English Sources (Part 2). Slavonic and EastEuropean Review, 47.108, 11–36. Lehnert, Martin (1977) Slawisches Wortgut im Englischen. Dem Wirken Hans Holm Bielfeldts gewidmet. Slawistik in der DDR, 8, 17–61. Liberman, Anatoly (2005) Word Origins … and How We Know Them. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Malkiel, Yakov (1976) Etymological Dictionaries. A Tentative Typology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mencken, Henry L. (1982) The American Language. An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States Morton, Herbert C. (1994) The Story of Webster’s Third. Philip Gove’s Controversial Dictionary and its Critics. Piotrowski, Tadeusz (1994) Z zagadnień leksykografii [Issues of Lexicography]. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN. Podhajecka, Mirosława (2003) Remarks on the Etymologies of Borsht and Pirogi in English Dictionaries. In Kochergan, M Podhajecka, Mirosława and Tadeusz Piotrowski (2004) Russianisms in English (OED–BNC–LDOCE). In Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, Barbara ed Rot, Sandor (1991) Language Contact. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Schäfer, Jürgen (1980) Documentation in the OED: Shakespeare and Nashe as Test Cases. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Serjeantson, Mary (1961) A History of Foreign Words in English. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Stacy, Robert H. (1961) A Note on the Russian Words in an American Dictionary. Slavic and East European Journal, 5.2, 132–138. Wade, Terence (1997) Russian Words in English. Linguist, 36.4, 102–104. Willinsky, John (1994) Empire of Words. The Reign of the OED. Princeton: Princeton University Press.