Reasons to study Russian, or English for that matter!

[William Ryan]

As current president of the Folklore Society I am disappointed that Paul 
should find the word 'folk' in any way deprecatory. But he is not 
unfortunately alone. When the word 'folklore' was coined by W. J. Thoms 
in 1846 in an article in The Athenaeum, as a suitably good ‘Saxon’ term, 
as he called it, for what had previously been called popular 
antiquities, it had an unfortunate consequence. Although the early 
membership of the Folklore Society included very many eminent scholars 
of the time (a founding member in 1878 was the Russianist at the British 
Library W.R.S. Ralston), the fact that the new word did not end in 
-ology, and that its advocates also included would-be witches, people 
who saw fairies at the bottom of their garden, and people who would now 
be called neo-pagans, did eventually add a non-academic tinge to 'folk' 
when used as an adjective (or even worse 'folksy'). Nevertheless, among 
serious scholars of the subject 'folk' still has terminological status 
in its original sense, even if it would be a bit difficult to pin it 
down out of specific context. And in the non-anglophone world 'folklore' 
as a loanword (late 19th c. in Russian) has, I think (not checked 
thoroughly), none of the pejorative connotations that it has acquired in 
English.
With particular reference to 'folk dance' a quick look at Google 
suggests that 'folk' and national' can be synonymous but that 'national' 
is fairly rare in this context and can be ambiguous, e.g. the various 
National Dance Companies which tend to combine ballet, folk and pop. The 
two websites given by Paul do indeed show the difficulty of using words 
which have both technical meanings to specialists and looser general 
meanings for non-specialists. I don't think the Moiseev and similar 
companies (Riverdance?) can be described as performing 'folk dances' - I 
see them as kitschy commercial hybrids.
Will Ryan



Paul B. Gallagher wrote:
> John Dunn wrote:
>
>> 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'.
>
> Perhaps, but I think "folk dances" is probably too narrow.
>
> If the original was национальный, that reminds me of the famous 
> question on passports and similar documents: "национальность?" -- 
> which of course is not "nationality" (гражданство) but "ethnicity." 
> And an "ethnic dance" need not be a "folk dance" (танец народный) -- 
> to my ear, the latter implies a certain level of, oh, shall we say 
> "informality," "unofficialness," or something, verging toward 
> deprecation. Not that I myself have anything against folk dances, or 
> indeed any form of folk art. But they don't generally enjoy the status 
> that some other forms do.
>
> Here's a very Eurocentric treatment:
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_dance>
>
> You may also like the discussion here (scroll past the chaff at the top):
> <http://www.folkdancing.org/folk_vs_ethnic.html>
>
> Speaking of entrenched translations, in the arms-control context we 
> have the stock phrase "national technical means," which denotes 
> anything (hardware, software, etc.) a signatory can use /other than/ 
> human assets to perform a particular task of interest (e.g., detecting 
> an incoming bogie). Here, "national" does refer to the nation, and of 
> course these tasks are performed officially if surreptitiously by the 
> government.
>

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