Reasons to study Russian, or English for that matter!

[Olga Meerson]

I have had extensive dealings with Russian custom authorities. "An airport worker' was a euphemism for the bureaucratese of these and many other authorities, not even always Russian. (When my firstborn was little, he came from school and said, 'Let us vote for Bush [the elder, at bthat point]: he is all for family valuables!' The slip in a child's mouth was telling, but that still is not what even a Bush would say intentionally: on their part, they do believe they value family values, not valuable, at least not in such a way as to mention them overtly ). Yes, nationalistic dances exist; dance was one of the basic ways for early cults to express themselves. I doubt however, that is what the term AIMED to advertise about the Moiseev dance company--at least not as the company's overt intention. One of the biggest pitfalls of Original Sin is to believe that our own slips are accidental and those of our opponents / adversaries, intentional and unambiguous--as testified already in 
The Screwtape Letters. 
o.m.

----- Original Message -----
From: John Dunn <J.Dunn at SLAVONIC.ARTS.GLA.AC.UK>
Date: Monday, February 4, 2008 6:35 am
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Reasons to study Russian, or English for that matter!

> Two comments on recent discussIons.
> 
> 1. Nationalistic/national.  I suppose that the haka, the alleged 
> Maori war dance now performed by New Zealand rugby union players 
> before international matches, is an example of 'a nationalistic 
> dance'.  It is possible that other peformances answering to this 
> description may be found in some of the video-clips that accompany 
> the oeuvre of Oleg Gazmanov.   But am I the only person who thinks 
> that 'national' in the original context doesn't sound right either? 
> I would assume that this a is a reference to what are normally 
> known in English as 'folk dances'.
> 
> 2. Kul'turnye cennosti.  If this indeed an infelicity, blame lies 
> not with an airport worker, but much higher up the food chain.  
> This is the term used in official documents issued by the Russian 
> customs authorities:
> 
> ?? ?????????? ??????????? ????????? ???????????? ??????????????? ?? 
> ??????????? ???????? ? ???????? 100 ?????????? ? ???????, 
> ?????????? ? ?????????????? ????????????? ????????? [Na vyvozimye 
> kul'turnye cennosti ustanovlena pravitel'stvom RF eksportnaja 
> poshlina v razmere 100 procentov s ocenki, ukazannoj v 
> svidetel'stve Ministerstva kul'tury].
> I recently had occasion to translate this sentence.  For what it is 
> worth, my version was:
> An export duty on valuable cultural artefacts has been fixed by the 
> Russian government at 100% of the value indicated in the export 
> certificate issued by the Ministry of Culture.
> 
> John Dunn.
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Olga Meerson <meersono at GEORGETOWN.EDU>
> To: SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU
> Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 18:49:10 -0500
> Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Reasons to study Russian, or English for 
> that matter!
> 
> I don't know about being a foreigner in general, but for a Russian, 
> the difference between national and nationalist(ic) is pretty 
> clear: natsional'nye vs. natsionalistskie. As per cultural values, 
> this is in no way a literal translation: kul'turnye tsennosti are 
> not natsional'noe dostoianie / predmety natsional'nogo dostoianiia. 
> No, this is merely a symptom of people becoming ever less careful 
> about language per se, not even a calque--a projection of something 
> normal for their own language, upon something that becomes abnormal 
> in the target language of translation. Vvoz i vyvoz kulturnyx 
> tsennostej zapreshchen sounds as weird in Russian as its 
> counterpart in English: its understanding of cultural values is 
> rather limited. The fact that a Russian working for the airport was 
> careless linguistically in now way should tint the precision of the 
> great Russian language as a whole :) In Russian, properly speaking, 
> Kul'turnye tsennosti have never been the same as material'nye tsennost
> i--fortunately.
> o.m.
> 
> John Dunn
> Honorary Research Fellow, SMLC (Slavonic Studies)
> University of Glasgow, Scotland
> 
> Address:
> Via Carolina Coronedi Berti 6
> 40137 Bologna
> Italy
> Tel.: +39 051/1889 8661
> e-mail: J.Dunn at slavonic.arts.gla.ac.uk
> johnanthony.dunn at fastwebnet.it
> 
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