shlyukha, kurva, shalava

[Alina Israeli]

1. For the lack of anything better: http://www.russki-mat.net/e/ 
Russian.htm


2. The dictionary "Russkij mat" gives the explanation of kurva as  
'bljad', prostitutka'. "Russkaja fenja" does not have it, nor does  
the dictionary of molodezhnogo slenga.

However, Bol'shoj slovar' russkogo zhargona (Norint 2001) marks it as  
ugol[ovnoe], bran[oe]. It has two meanings: 1. Zhenshchina legkogo  
povedenija, prostitutka. 2. Donoschik, donoschica.

I think the influence of the second meaning makes some believe that  
it has no sexual connotation. There is a fairly common verb  
skurvit'sja, more common, because in my opinion less vulgar than kurva.


3. As for the three bards mentioned by Elizabeth, Galich is virtually  
unknown by anyone younger than 35 years old, and the other two pale  
in comparison with the blossoming genre of chanson and the likes of  
Belomorkanal and Butyrka.


4. And finally a joke from Russkij mat dictionary (above) (I'll write  
it in Russian or I will not finish it in time):

Два друга выпивают.
— У меня жена — курва.
— Почему?
— Представляешь, еду с отпуска, телеграмму выслал. Приезжаю, а она с  
любовником... — И через минутку задумчиво добавил: — А может, не  
курва, может, телеграмму не получила.



On Oct 24, 2007, at 1:28 PM, Deborah Hoffman wrote:

> Does kurva really not have sexual connotations (to me bitch does  
> not)? I've heard it in Russian as "whore," though the speakers  
> could have been influenced by Yiddish in which it is definitely  
> "whore," as in zwei-groschen-.
>
>
>> 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.
>

> Maybe it's not of importance and maybe someone mentioned it off the  
> list, but it may matter for
> translation: while "shliukha" (slut) is of more or less general  
> use, "kurva" and "shalava" imply a
> speaker with criminal past or present or associations. Of course,  
> the fashion for the genre of
> prison/camp songs (Galich, Vysotskii, Rozembaum) and recent films  
> made such words more commonplace,
> but the tint is still there.
>
> Elizabeth Sheynzon



Alina Israeli
LFS, American University
4400 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington DC. 20016
(202) 885-2387 	
fax (202) 885-1076
aisrael at american.edu




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