shlyukha, kurva, shalava

[Anna Geisherik]

I would agree with everything below, with the exception of "shluxa": I think
a closer meaning is "slut", not "whore".
Shluxa is not a profession (like "a whore"), it's a lifestyle of promiscuity
not necessarily for money  :)

Just my two cents.

-----Original Message-----
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list
[mailto:SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Misha Angelovskiy
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2007 10:29 PM
To: SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] shlyukha, kurva, shalava

Dear Margo and list, 

To my native ear (and after a brief consultation with the the owner of my
mother's tongue) here are my two
cents:

shluxa is a whore:  much like in English, it's a designation of profession
with heavy negative connotations;

kurva is a bitch:  more of a comment on personality of the woman (in most
dialects, though admittedly not all); to me it also seems slightly stronger
than the omnipresent suka.

Translating the statement as 

"I am a whore, not a bitch" 

may leave your reader slightly confused, since the finesse of distinction is
as high in English (it seems to my non-native ear) as in Russian.  The
meaning of the statement seems best rendered by 

"I may be a whore, but I am not a nasty bitch"

though, of course, it is up to you to exercise as much or as little
translator's license as seems appropriate.

Finally, shalava tends to refer to lowest class people.  It seems to connote
cheapness and dirt, seems non-gender specific though probably used most
often to refer to women, and nothing in its meaning actually refers to
exchanging sex for money.  I think if faced with translating the word into
contemporary American English, I would go with skank.

Hope this helps.

Misha Angelovskiy

P.S.: Spell-checking this message sent me googling for the correct spelling
of skank in English.  Check out how brilliantly informative our friends at
wikipedia
are:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skank




--- msr2003 at COLUMBIA.EDU wrote:

> Esteemed colleagues,
> 
> Please pardon the apparent crudity of the subject line.  Thing is, I'm 
> working on a literary translation in which these terms are juxtaposed 
> with one another.  Can anyone tell me (off-list, I guess, unless this 
> is a topic others are burning to know more
> about) what the English equivalent might be to "Ya shlyukha, no ne 
> kurva"?  And what English word or phrase would convey "shalava"?
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> Margo Rosen
> Columbia University
> 
>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>  Use your web browser to search the archives, control your 
> subscription
>   options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface 
> at:
>                    
> http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------