Thread: Words for God

Hey I'm hopeing you guys can translate a couple words for me. Me being a strong Christian I'm anxious to start being able to pray in Russian but right now my vocabulary is very small (tiny in fact). So, can you guys tell me the words for:
God
Jesus
Christ
Lord
and pray/prayer

thanks guys

God Бог Bog
Jesus Иисус Eeeesoos
Christ Христос Khristos
Lord Господь Gospod'
Господи (vocative) Gospodi
pray молиться molit'sa
prayer молитва molitva

You could also learn the Lord's Prayer in Russian.

Отче наш, иже еси на небесех! Да святится имя Твое!
Да приидет Царствие Твое; да будет воля Твоя яко на небеси и на земли.
Хлеб наш насущный даждь нам днесь.
И остави нам долги наша, якоже и мы оставляем должником нашим.
И не введи нас во искушение, но избави нас от лукавого: яко Твое есть Царство и сила, и слава во веки. Аминь.

Of course, it is kind of meaningless to say the prayer without knowing what it means. But it would be nice to learn if youre a big religious type person. Just curious, how many ordinary Russian Christians know exactly what these words mean?

and what is the vocative used for?

the vocative: ''denoting a case of nouns, in some inflected languages [notably Latin], used when the referent of the noun is being addressed''

eg. 'quo vadis, domine?' and not 'quo vadis, dominus?'


It doesn't generally exist in modern Russian except in relic form, usually connected with worship: 'боже', 'господи' etc.

And, since 'the referent of the noun' in this case just ain't there, why not focus your efforts on learning something more useful? Far-eastern fiscal vernacular, perhaps...

Originally Posted by joysof

the vocative: [...] It doesn't generally exist in modern Russian except in relic form, usually connected with worship: 'боже', 'господи' etc.

That's not quite true. It is used in colloquial speech fairly often. You could say: "Маш, поцелуй меня; Сань, дай закурить" instead of "Маша, поцелуй меня; Саня, дай закурить", which is formally "more grammatical". As far as I can tell you can only use it with nouns ending with -а or -я; the other declensions are represented only by the exceptional "боже, господи, отче"; another exception is "владыко", which is apparently the vocative of "владыка" that has retained the ancient declension when it is used to address a high ranking clerical. It is an interesting question whether you could say "владык" when addressing somebody who is not superior (that means it will be jocular, though, so perhaps it will work just fine).

Originally Posted by joysof

And, since 'the referent of the noun' in this case just ain't there...

Well, whether you believe the bottom of the ocean exists or not doesn't change the fact that it does.

That's not quite true. It is used in colloquial speech fairly often. You could say: "Маш, поцелуй меня; Сань, дай закурить" instead of "Маша, поцелуй меня; Саня, дай закурить", which is formally "more grammatical".

Fair enough, but you wouldn't usually use it with anything other than a proper noun? Or would you?

Well, whether you believe the bottom of the ocean exists or not doesn't change the fact that it does.

I've heard some nonsense in my time, but really...are you serious? I know it's unfashionable to be faith-intolerant, but that sentence alone is an invitation to ridicule.

Originally Posted by joysof

That's not quite true. It is used in colloquial speech fairly often. You could say: "Маш, поцелуй меня; Сань, дай закурить" instead of "Маша, поцелуй меня; Саня, дай закурить", which is formally "more grammatical".

Fair enough, but you wouldn't usually use it with anything other than a proper noun? Or would you?

Difficult to say. Мама, папа, батя, бабушка, дедушка, баба, деда, тётя, дядя, and their dimunitives -- very likely yes. Strangely enough, "сестра" will hardly have such a vocative, I do not know why. On the other hand, "сестрица" might. So there are some irregularities. The whole feature being somewhat "optional" and "sub-standard", it's not surprising.

Originally Posted by vbouldr

I was just saying that it takes alot more faith to believe in nothing than it does to believe in God

I would say, exacly equal

But what I really wanted to say. Do you know the Russians (better to say, the Orthodox ones) pray not in Russian, but in kind of Old Slavic (or Church-Slavic, церковно-славянский) language? Refer to Pravit's quotation, it is quite far from modern Russian.

I went to a modern Russian church today. It was awesome! I was only able to pick out a couple words here and there since I am just begining. I did get to talk with the Pastor and some of the members afterwards though (they spoke some english). They were excited I was there and wanting to know their language. Very cool expierience!

Originally Posted by Pravit

Just curious, how many ordinary Russian Christians know exactly what these words mean?

Despite what I just said, for a Russian it's not very hard to make out what it is said there. What is really hard is to write and talk in this language correctly. Mespeaks sooth

Vbouldr - I visited a modern Russian church in Colorado on a regular basis for about a year. I was engaged to marry my Russian husband at the time and wanted to be exposed to as much language as possible.
It took several visits before I became accustomed to the rate of speech. (It's a lot different to learn a language from books, tapes, etc. than to hear it spoken in "real life"!) I did learn a lot of vocabulary for prayer and praise and worship. The Russian Bible they used was in the old Slavonic language, so I didn't catch much, but now my husband has a modern language Russian Bible and it is awesome! The best thing about visiting the church was the relationships I made with the young people and women. They all attended our wedding, and blessed us by making our cake, my wedding dress, singing in Russian during the ceremony, and our ring bearer was a little Russian boy (the flower girl was an American girl!) Awwwww! I can help you learn some modern praise songs in Russian too if you'd like!
Слава Богу!

Just compare http://hronos.km.ru/dokum/slovo1.html and http://hronos.km.ru/dokum/slovo2.html.

Не лепо ли ны бяшет, братие, начяти старыми словесы трудных повестий о полку Игореве, Игоря Святославлича!

and

Не начать ли нам, братья, по-стародавнему скорбную повесть о походе Игоревом, Игоря Святославича!

not exact literal translation from old Slavic to modern russian, but if the old Slavic text of "Слово о Полку Игореве" is understandable for you and you can describe it in modern russian, you can IMHO consider yourself an expert. But if you don't understand it at all it's still worth reading just to listen the way in sounds.

Originally Posted by Alware

Не лепо ли ны бяшет, братие, начяти старыми словесы трудных повестий о полку Игореве, Игоря Святославлича!
...
not exact literal translation from old Slavic to modern russian, but if the old Slavic text of "Слово о Полку Игореве" is understandable for you ...

Alware, would you mind me doing a little correction?
Technically speaking, the language of "Слово о полку Игореве" is not Old Slavic but Old Russian. The older edition of the Russian Bible was in the Church Slavonic language which is a variety of Old Slavonic. These were kindred but still different languages.

[Не начать ли нам, братья, по-стародавнему скорбную повесть о походе Игоревом, Игоря Святославича!

not exact literal translation from old Slavic to modern russian, but if the]

http://old-russian.chat.ru/05slovo.htm
Old Text

http://old-russian.chat.ru/06slovo.htm
Modern non-poetry, but the most near to old.

http://old-russian.chat.ru/07slovo.htm
The literal translation to modern Russian(XIX c) by Jukovsky

http://old-russian.chat.ru/08slovo.htm
The literal translation to modern Russian(XX c) by Zabolockii (BEST in my opinion)

And the topic was translating religious terms into English

Translating religious terms into Russian was the orig. request, but ok w/me if translate into Eng. too!

So here are some religious words for those who ARE interested:

Lord Jesus - Господь Иисус
I believe - Я верую
God's Son - сын Божий
came to earth - пришёл на землю
died - умер
оn a cross - на кресте
for my sins - за мои грехи
shed Your blood - пролил свою кровь
raised from the dead-воскрес из мёртвых
return for me - вернется за мной
King of Kings - Царь царей
I am a sinner - Я грешник
forgive my sins - прости грехи мои
come into my heart - приди в мое сердце
cleanse me - очисти меня
Saviour - Спаситель

Here are some more religious phrases that may be of use:

Аллах его ведает
Благословите Зевса
человеческая жертва
Джим Джонс умер. Да здравствует Джим Джонс
Я люблю Гарри Поттер. После того как я прочитал его, меня очень интересует черная магия.
совершить обряд обрезания

EDIT: Russkayalove's post above me mysteriously disappeared. Maybe this is the admin's or her own doing...

Friend, perhaps you should read our posts more carefully before you launch into how you're all persecuted and such(we have heard it many times before). I am sure we all believe everyone should have a right to believe in what they want to and many of us would fight for your right to do so. The point was that it is inappropriate to spread your beliefs on an internet forum for the study of the Russian language.

As for "Fanatics", noone mentioned them. In my post earlier on, I defined what I believe a "fanatic" should be. I don't know why you say we are fanatic atheists. Have any of us spouted such messages as "There IS no GOD! We have PEACE that we DO NOT believe in GOD! We have PEACE that we DO NOT believe in a GOD who allows such suffering according to HIS WILL!" No. We keep it to ourselves.

I find it strange you think we are getting angry, since it seems only the Christians here are getting angry. Karina just sorted through all of Mike's 1000 posts to find 2 off-topic ones and it seemed like she was getting quite angry. You wrote us a page-long tirade on Christians being persecuted and atheist fanatics. If anyone seems angry here, it is you Christians. As for Dogboy, well, he likes to babble incoherently a lot, but I don't think he's angry.