Thread: Getting rid of the pseudo-Russian slang here

Originally Posted by Fester

It is interesting and a bit surprising for me that some russians don't want to stand for slang phrases or "mat", acting like it don't exist and are not used.

It is a bit surprising for me that some Swedes (note that I wrote Swedes with a capital letter) believe they can know for sure what some Russians can or can not think or do. You are dealing with a large nation comprised of individuals, some of which like slang, some do not, but the most important thing is that you support the idea that slang should not only be included in language apprehension, but be put on the same level with the normal language, if not higher.

Originally Posted by Fester

To conclude, I think that slang words, phrases and their meaning definately should be studied along with "normal" russian, since it's such a big part of the language.

The type of slang that I mentioned above is criminal or criminal-inspired slang, which originated historically in specific areas of Russia and other countries and is not representative of the Russian language. Those criminals came from God knows where (as they group together by trade rather than language or culture) and they contributed a lot to the disgusting lingo of the modern criminal world. If you want to know my opinion, I do not think this language has any connection to the Russian language. It is rather part of the world history of crime. It is a disease easily picked by some uneducated youngsters and, unfortunately, some older Swedes (just kidding). Anyway, this is just my opinion, and I will not go for a war for it. Wars usually start over even less important pretexts, and there are and have been enough wars already, even if we are speaking about Internet holy wars. But I will support any constructive discussion which requires some intellect and good humour.
Getting back to the 'slang' in general, you know Russian is a very conservative language in that respect. If it was not such, it would have lost its case system and other complex aspects long ago. Of course it always had regional dialects and professional lingos e.g. sea terms, etc. But it is very hard to create a slang out of nothing, you need an occupation which this slang will be centered around. And if this occupation is robbery, drug dealing, etc. then I am not interested in such slang be it Russian, Swedish, or Cardassian.

Originally Posted by MISSFOXYSWEETCHERRY

I don't really care you consider me foreigner or what, because i love Russia and Russian language

Good to you if you love Russia and Russian language. I hope you could love me as well, on a spiritual level, but I am happy with what I got. As for accusing me of complaining and being a 'noob' (or 'novice' if you prefer) I lost my login and password and had to re-register, because I had not been to this forum for quite some time. I used to answer some people's question, but back then there were not so many questions about substandard/criminal language, and what I saw today in the topic list gave me a stir. I am not the type of person who will just stick his tongue in his (three letter word) to make someone feel comfortable. This is not the way things are done. You will never get anywhere if you are shy to speak your mind. I did what I had to, I created this topic to drive attention to this situation, but the content of this thread belongs to the community, not me, you or moderator. Also, I am not in a position to enforce my opinion, but I am in a position to defend it.

Originally Posted by NextOfKeen

It is a bit surprising for me that some Swedes (note that I wrote Swedes with a capital letter) believe they can know for sure what some Russians can or can not think or do...

-It is surprising that you have issue with almost anyone! I bet you haven't met more than one Swedish person with such attitude, meanwhile you use "some".
But Fester has met some people with your attitude, so please stop sound childish.

Originally Posted by NextOfKeen

...As for accusing me of complaining and being a 'noob' (or 'novice' if you prefer) I lost my login and password and had to re-register, because I had not been to this forum for quite some time. I used to answer some people's question, but back then there were not so many questions about substandard/criminal language...

-Sorry, but i can't find 100% honesty in you. Your join date is: June 26th, 2009. So you are with the same old account. And you just have 10 posts in total. http://masterrussian.net/search.php?searchid=299274
How could you answer some people's question back then?????!

Originally Posted by NextOfKeen

Good to you if you love Russia and Russian language. I hope you could love me as well, on a spiritual level, but I am happy with what I got.

-Good for you. And you have mentioned a nice pipe dream.

Originally Posted by NextOfKeen

...I did what I had to, I created this topic to drive attention to this situation, but the content of this thread belongs to the community, not me, you or moderator. Also, I am not in a position to enforce my opinion, but I am in a position to defend it.

-It would be great if i knew what you mean by "community"!!! But FYI it definitely is under consideration of of our moderator.

Originally Posted by NextOfKeen

but why not place them in a dedicated section, like "Questions about Russian slang and criminal vocabulary"?

Сдаётся мне, что у многих может возникнуть соблазн много и смачно писать в такой секции... "Шансонные" словечки многих воодушевляют... А ещё всегда в любом месте найдётся кто-нибудь с радостью желающий учить иностранца русскому мату (а потом смеяться, как смешно он говорит)

NextOfKeen
Frst of all, welcome back to the forum, I'm the same kind of renegade who "just" came back after a long while of absense.
We are all glad to have you back again.

Now let's go through the list you gave:
- Засохни (Topic Starter Sperk)
- Борзые (TS Sperk)
- Найду на вас управу (TS Sperk)
- Поджарил владельца (TS Sperk)
- В чём это у тебя рыло (TS Sperk)
- Втыкала на парах (TS Guess who? -- wrong, it's Valda)

What are you trying to accuse these people of? Are they guilty of reading a wrong kind of literature or watching a wrong kind of movies? Or having their eyes open while reading what native speakers of Russian write in the chat? Or because they ask these questions, that you claim faulty or not decent enough? I don't think you are that short-minded. They just don't understand the meanings, is that clear? As simple as that. They ask their questions what this or that means, and if it turns out to be slangy expressions or words, it's not their fault.

Now some words about slang. What is slang? There are tons of relatively decent, as well as absolutely innocent expressions that are utterly slangy, like "дать стрекача". You may have read it in Gaidar's books in your childhood. Is that okay for a slang? Or "навести мосты" as in "establish contact with useful people or run a recon mission". Why not? They are as slangy as "отлить" or "стукач". Even if we come up with categorizing slang expressions, I don't see any point in obligatory qualification of such terms into obscene and regular words or phrases either, well, except maybe if Lampada or someone else would bear that burden instead of kicking spammers, wiping out their "masterpieces", keeping an eye on copyright infrigements, and a lot of other useful work they normally do.

So I'd choose just to let it go and let if flow as it does, except perhaps, individual warnings that the term in question is an obscene word or jail slang or whatever else which may not suit decent people. So my vote is No, we don't need this, the game isn't worth the candle. Sorry about that.

And there are gradations of slang

This is a very interesting topic for foreign learners. In Russian, as in any language, there are some slang words that exist only in certain subcultures, such as those of criminals; other slang words come out of the подполье ("underground") and become fashionable in "normal colloquial" speech for a while but then quickly go out of fashion; still other slang words become a permanent part of the "normal colloquial" lexicon to such a degree that they perhaps shouldn't be called slang any longer.

I am not talking about 'mat' here. It is a completely different topic. And it is a topic that very soon gets too boring to deserve a special section

LOL! Russian 'mat' is a topic of "вечнозелёный" fascination to us foreigners! True, it eventually becomes boring for learners at a more advanced stage, but every September there will be a fresh wave of university students in a first-year Russian course who urgently want to learn all the cuss words! (As well as those who want to show off their ability to say "Yabb tevye match" in perfect Russian.))))

Anyway, although slang doesn't necessarily need its own section, perhaps there could be a "sticky" thread for просторечье, сленг, жаргон, и ненормативные лексике, into which people could add significant examples that occur in other threads. And foreigners could ask, "I found this word on the Internet and I think it's slang -- is it worth my time learning this word?", so natives could offer opinions on whether the word is in widespread currency or not.

Originally Posted by Lampada

Для внесения ясности я могу добавлять слово "сленг" в заголовки соответствующих тем.

Угу, только сначала надо прийти к консенсусу относительно того, является ли упомянутое слово или выражение сленговым, разговорным, профессиональным, окказиональным, диалектным, архаичным или... классификацию можно продолжить. Обычно это нетривиальная задача. А потом отделить сленговое от прочего из этой же темы, чтобы не создавать путаницы.

Originally Posted by Inego

We have fed a troll

Good trolling is always welcome. It wakes up sleepers.

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

LOL! Russian 'mat' is a topic of "вечнозелёный" fascination to us foreigners! True, it eventually becomes boring for learners at a more advanced stage, but every September there will be a fresh wave of university students in a first-year Russian course who urgently want to learn all the cuss words! (As well as those who want to show off their ability to say "Yabb tevye match" in perfect Russian.)))).

У меня есть ОЧЕНЬ БОГАТЫЙ лексикон за всё что касается русский сленг, мат, и так далее. Это мой предмет обаяния. Я сама собираю слова где я их найду, и сделала так за два года. Если такая тема будет существует, пуст кто-нибудь сообщит мне.

1) Most examples here are words, widespread among Russians since kindergarten. "Найти управу" и "борзой" / "оборзел" are absolutely native words of Russian.
2) Native respondents sometimes forget to mention, that words/phrase in question couldn't be used in any situation. It's bad. Someone else should clarify this aspect.

Conclusion:
We don't need dedicated part of forum for "slang questions".

@Valda,
"У меня есть ОЧЕНЬ БОГАТЫЙ лексикон русского сленга, мата и так далее. Это предмет моего обожания. Я сама собираю слова везде, где их нахожу, и насобирала уже много за два года. Если такая тема будет создана, пусть кто-нибудь сообщит мне."

А на самом деле есть кто-то, кто не сможет распознать сленг, например, по его отсутствию в словаре, спросит тут, что он значит, запомнит и будет бездумно употреблять в разговоре?

Сам факт отсутствия слова или выражения в словаре уже заставляет задуматься о целесообразности его употребления.

When I read "pseudo-Russian" I thought this was about learners making fools of themselves using slang words they don't master...

Slang is always an addition to any language. It is not poorer. It's not as if speakers of slang are unable to understand the standard language, even if they don't comfortably use it. But actually they do use it if the need arises.

I think if a native speaker explains or uses slang terms, then he or she should simply clarify that they might be fit only for certain purposes. I am in practically daily correspondence with several native speakers of Russian, and most of them, if slang or colloquial terms arise, say "don't say that in front of your boss" or "you wouldn't say that in the presence of minors or women". And clearly the opinions about individual words differ. For example, one lady correspondent happily used "покеда" to say bye bye, while another said "that's a bad slang word from a criminal context, don't use it". Both, by the way, being language teachers.

I have picked up colloquial terms from Russian and even Ukrainian, and from (classical) literature as a learner you may easily pick up outdated terms, too. As a learner you may be unable to assess the value of an expression (little use in using дякую instead of спасибо if the correspondent isn't Ukrainian), but it is still necessary to acknowledge the fact that different levels of speech exist in any language and to come to terms with them.

Subcultures will always have their specific terms and expressions, and learners won't always come into contact only with mainstream culture. Heck, maybe they even want to come into contact with specific subcultures! And it even extends to pronunciation. I mean, which textbook prepares you for що instead of что? There really is no use in concentrating only on standard literary language. It is the common denominator on which to base one's studies, but sooner or later one has to progress to non-standard variants. It is up to native speakers helping us learners to mark specific variants as such, and that should be all. Separate sections do not help because the learner doesn't know what goes where in the first place.

Originally Posted by bitpicker

I mean, which textbook prepares you for що instead of что? There really is no use in concentrating only on standard literary language. It is the common denominator on which to base one's studies, but sooner or later one has to progress to non-standard variants. It is up to native speakers helping us learners to mark specific variants as such, and that should be all.

"Що" is specifically Ukrainian (literary!!!) variant, Russians would use "чё?" or "шо?" instead (and this would be humorous, informal variant). It is also usefyl to know "ща" (сейчас --> щас --> ща). I cannot imagine a textbook teaching foreign learners different layers of the language. Probably, you should consider it OK to use any generic informal expression in conversation, and avoid all of them in formal writing. I guess, having graduated from a faculty of physics, I have little difficulty writing a formal, scientific-looking text. Yet some people, and I mean native speakers, cannot do it reliably and sound hilarious when they try. Formal language is a sort of a slang itself: there are certain expressions and structures that you are expected to follow. Mess them up - and you sound bad.

Originally Posted by Shady_arc

"Що" is specifically Ukrainian (literary!!!) variant, Russians would use "чё?" or "шо?" instead (and this would be humorous, informal variant).

Yes, but don't expect me to hear any difference between "що" and "шо"... I am hard-pressed to actually discern that difference just about anywhere in real life. Sure, if a Russian expressly wanted to show me the difference and spoke extremely clearly, then yes, its ok, but in real life it's all the same to me...

The trouble with formal writing is that it is needed so very rarely. And yes, there actually are textbooks on slang and whatnot, but apparently only in English. On my native German market there is little in that regard. I have two English books on Russian grammar which deal exclusively with particles like же and with elision respectively.

Шо is the Southern variant, we say чё but only as a pronoun, not a conjunction.

Я не понимаю мысль голосования... ведь мы не можем знать заранее какие слова/фразы "сленг", и какие нет, за это мы спрашиваем....А еще, проблема в том, что пока большую часть времени мы же сами можем найти ответ в словаре, там сленг часто пропускают.

Кроме того, если новое место для сленга, придётся что у модератора сделает двойную работу, потому что ему нужно всегда переводить темы которые считаются "сленг".

Я не понимаю смысл голосования... ведь мы не можем знать заранее какие слова/фразы "сленг", а какие нет, поэтому мы и спрашиваем....А еще, проблема в том, что хотя по большей части мы и сами можем найти ответ в словаре, туда сленг всё-таки часто не включают.

Кроме того, если создавать новое место для сленга, модератору придётся делать двойную работу, потому что ему нужно будет всегда переносить темы которые считаются "сленгом"

I want to point you out that мысль is just a thought, and смысл - is a reason

ты жжёшь, iCake!