Prostorechie

[Ralph Cleminson]

Anyone wishing to follow up Solzhenitsyn's effort to reverse the
degradation of the Russian literary language (as he sees it) by the
incorporation of  non-literary elements should look at Russkiy
slovar' jazykovogo rasshirenija, sostavil A.I.Solzhenitsyn, Moskva,
Nauka, 1990, ISBN 5-02-011076-0.

My previous comments on this topic have so far drawn only the
following rebuke from Danko Sipka:
>
> This is not only wrong, but also offensive to such works of excellence
> as Zaliznjak's Grammaticheskij slovar' russkogo jazyka, Russkij jazyk,
> M., 1987(3), who uses 'prostorech.' as one of the labels.
> In the footnote 3 on the page 9, he explains it:
>
> "Iskljuchenie sostavljajut formy, pomechennye kak prostorechnye. Pometa
> <<prostorech.>> wystupaet v takix sluchajax v roli predupreditel'noj.
> Zaliznjak is anything but "jazykovedcheskoe prostorechie".
>
Now while the last thing that I would want would be to be rude to
Zaliznjak, who is a scholar for whom I have the greatest respect,
this does rather illustrate my point.  Zaliznjak is using the term to
issue a warning (!) in the context of normative grammar (!!), that
certain forms are non-literary.  However, prostorechie does not
embrace the entire spectrum of non-literary Russian.  This is the
point: we all know what it ISN'T, but we don't know what it IS.

More seriously, I'm sorry that no Ukrainian, Belarusian or Bulgarian
linguists have taken up my question about whether the term or its
equivalents correspond to any sort of reality in those languages, or
whether it is just carried over from Russian.  I think this is a
question worth addressing, because I suspect that prostorechie is
essentially Russian.  In the situation of Russian/Church Slavonic
diglossia, prostorechie, which, after all, means "ordinary speech",
would be the "low style".  (Incidentally, does anyone know the first
recorded use of the word?  It isn't in Vasmer, and I'm too busy to
chase it further.)  When by the end of the 18th century a Russian
literary language emerged on the basis of the common ground between
the two, prostorechie was left with "te prezrennye slova, kotorye ni
v kakom shtile ne godjatsja, razve v podlykh komedijakh" (forgive me,
I'm quoting from memory - idezhe krivo ispravl'she ch'tete).  And
that is more or less where we are today.  The history of the other
languages, though, is quite different, particularly Ukrainian, where
the prosta mova had emerged as a language of literature at a much
earlier stage.  Hence my doubts.  Can anyone shed any light?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
R.M.Cleminson, M.A., D.Phil.
Dept of Mediaeval Studies, Central European University
Post: H-1245 Budapest 5, P.O.B.1082
Phone: +361 327 3024   Fax: +361 327 3055
http://www.ceu.hu/medstud/ralph.htm