Kapitanskaya dochka: "umyot"

[Robert Chandler]

Dear all,

Timothy Sergay writes:
> I confess I'm puzzled by the relation of
> umyot to the root "MET- MYOT- MECH-, MES" ("throwing, casting, flinging,"
> write Wolkonsky and Poltoratsky in their "Handbook of Russian Roots"), as in
> "metat'", and to the idea of griaz' and navoz as in "ptichii pomet": was an
> umyot a "clean place"? a "swept place"? Amidst the muddy seas of Russian
> bezdorozh'e?
Yes, I too had wondered about something along these lines.
 
> In any case I doubt that a terribly inviting and convincing English
> equivalent for "umyot" exists. I agree with Inna, who must be a neighbor of
> mine, that it looks like a foregrounded item of untranslatable
> ethnolinguistic fact, or "color." I would be inclined to cast it into the
> outer darkness of italicized foreign words, as unsatisfying as this may seem
> at first.
It does seem unsatisfying, but I certainly can’t think of anything better.
I think I would be happier about foregrounding an ‘item of untranslatable
ethnolinguistic fact’ if Pushkin used the word a few more times.

Thanks to everyone who has replied to my message.

R.



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