Russian word for "cognate"

[TONY HALL]

In reply to the following points made:

> Does anyone know the Russian word for "cognate"? Sorry to confess my
> ignorance but I can't get to the library. And please settle a dispute:
> is a cognate a word that has been borrowed and then Russified, as in
> "demagogia" or is that a borrowing? Please enlighten me--I am em-
> barrassed to put it on the screen, but...Emily Tall

I should like to say:

a) a succinct translation of the English NOUN 'cognate' is difficult:
in Russian the paraphrase "odnokorenevoe slovo" or "slovo obshchego
proiskhozhdenija" has to be used;

b) there is a GREAT difference between a "cognate" and a "borrowing":
as has been pointed out, a word is "cognate" in one or more languages
IF it is derived from the same root in a Proto (or earlier) language
and this (often) has little to do with the modern use of the words.
To illustrate: the English "mead" is COGNATE with the Russian "me"d",
i.e. they are both derived from the same Indo-European root. However,
the English "mead" (now an obsolescent noun one might argue) does not
have the SAME meaning as the Russian "m"ed" ('honey'), although the
connection is obvious.

c) a BORROWING, on the other hand, is a word or term that has been
brought in to a language and then adapted (whether phonologically or
morphologically, or both!) to that language. In English "orange"
(noun) has been BORROWED from Portuguese (ultimately from Iranian):
the original word in Portuguese is "narancia" (< Pers. 'naranj') BUT
has been adapted to English as "orange" on 2 counts: phonologicaly
English has adapted the SOUND of the Portuguese word to suit its own;
and morphologically we have the transfer of the initial "n" to the
indefinite pronoun to form a "new" noun inEnglish, i.e. "narancia" >
"narange" > " a narange" > "aN arange" > "an orange" (and then the
noun "orange" is established). Consequently, a "borrowing" is, at
least in its intitial stages, a "foreign-sounding" and "alien" word
within a language.

A final point: each language is constantly changing -- the part of a
language that is most subject to change is the VOCABULARY; of the
changes that affect VOCABULARY, 70% (and more) are due to BORROWINGS
from other languages. As the international language of finance,
commerce and relations, English has probably had the most significant
affect on other languages IN TERMS OF BORROWINGS FROM ENGLISH than
any other language in this century and will continue to do so.

Tony Hall.




















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***     Tony Hall
***     Department of Russian Language
***     University of Birmingham
***     Edgbaston                       Tel:    +44 (0)21 414 3227
***     Birmingham B15  2TT             Fax:    +44 (0)21 414 5966
***     United Kingdom                  Email:  A.R.Hall at bham.ac.uk
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