question about slang

[John Dunn]

I am intrigued by Josh Wilson's reference to 'prived'.  Leaving aside the spelling, which looks like a contamination between standard Russian 'privet' and standard olbanskij 'preved', the whole point of olbanskij forms is to create an alternative orthography for what in principle should be the same spoken language.  It is not entirely clear to me how even the coolest of Russians make it clear they are saying 'pri/eved' and not 'privet', and further enlightenment would be greatly appreciated. 

I don't think chuvak and chuvikha have additional meanings.  Both the Bol'shoj slovar' russkogo zhargona and the Juganovs' Slovar' russkogo slenga suggest the words are borrowed from Romany; this seems plausible enough, though, for what it's worth, I can't find either word in R.S. Demeter and P.S. Demeter's Cygansko-russkij i russko-cyganskij slovar'.

John Dunn.


-----Original Message-----
From: Josh Wilson <jwilson at SRAS.ORG>
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2008 07:55:57 +0300
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] question about slang

There is the Russian "chuvak" which is close in meaning with the English
"dude." However, "brat," and "dvoyorodnyi brat" have no shortened versions
that I'm aware of or can even imagine. 

"Cool" Russians sometimes use "prived," a corruption of "privet" - as in the
ever more popular "prived medved." 

[ . . .]
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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