Interesting facts about the Russian language. Interesting facts about the Russian language (15 photos)

As the classics said, "The great and mighty Russian language." And why is he so “powerful” and why is he “great”? You can give a bunch of arguments for the most extensive possibilities and the largest database of synonyms. How many analogues can you think of for the word "beautiful"? Without delving into the wilds and dictionaries, about 20, while in other dialects 5-7 will be typed from strength. You can give examples of subtlety and Slavic humor. They don't even know such a thing as "sarcasm" in other languages. It is also possible to condemn and reject the Russian mat, but it is very difficult to change its role in our life. The same word, pronounced with different intonation, can mean completely dissimilar concepts, placing stress in a sentence can radically change the meaning of the phrase. And many terms over the past couple of centuries have radically changed their meaning, thanks to the mixing of adverbs, jargons and the popularization of foreign terms.

In the Russian Federation and about a dozen other states, Russian is the official state language, and over 250 million people around the world speak it to varying degrees. This is from official data, but in fact, almost every second person on earth knows at least a couple of expressions in Russian, and every tenth person can even link words into simple sentences.

The origin of the Old Russian language and its history

When it comes to the origin of the Russian language, scientists disagree, someone says that Sanskrit was at the origin, someone calls the Proto-Slavic dialect of the Indo-European group. There are practically no reliable sources left, only guesses and assumptions. According to the structure and common lexical features, it belongs to the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic group from the common branch of the Indo-European languages.

The first mention of Slavic letters dates back to the year of the appearance of writing, which was introduced into our lives by the famous Cyril and Methodius, namely 863. Thus, the Old Church Slavonic language appeared specifically in order to translate church books and scriptures. It was originally bookish and had little in common with the modern one, but its appearance gave rise to the development of literature and culture of our country. Church books gradually spread among the population and literary works began to appear on their basis. The first books were: "The Tale of Boris and Gleb" of the early 11th century, "The Tale of Bygone Years", dated 1113, "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" 1185-1188 and many others.

And by the 16th century, the first rules for spelling and pronunciation appeared in Moscow, the so-called grammatical normalization of the language, and it was recognized as a national language in the territory of the Moscow kingdom. Over the next few centuries, it was modified, supplemented, absorbing words and concepts from other countries and dialects, taking on new forms and changing like a living organism in order to reach us in its “majesty” and “power”

Scientific facts about the Russian language

In addition to the proud statements of the Russian-speaking part of the globe about its power, there are indisputable facts confirmed by the Guinness Book of Records and other sources. Let's consider the main ones:

5th place in terms of prevalence among the world's population speaks of the wide geography of Russian communities in other countries and the popularity of the language among foreigners.

• Our language has generic forms of verbs that others do not. For example, "he went", "she went".
• At school, they study 6 basic cases of nouns, but in fact there are 10 of them.
• Almost any word in a speech can be replaced by a synonym without a strong loss of meaning.
• All the words beginning with the letter "F", used everywhere today, came to us from other countries.
• Foreigners cannot catch the difference between the pronunciation of words with "ъ" and without it. For them, the words "entrance" and "entrance" sound exactly the same. This is due to the peculiarities of the development of the auditory and speech apparatus during the period of socialization.
• “Swearing Russian” is not a turn of speech, but a special dialect in which you can explain a problem to a person and talk. No matter how paradoxical it sounds, but in no other language of the world there are so many abusive and meaningful words.

• Although the Japanese language is difficult to write, but in colloquial speech it comes in second place after Russian, it depends too much on intonation and wording in a sentence.
• Slavic and Russian literature is recognized as the most beautiful, verses sound melodious and harmonious. It is believed that the poets of our country would not be able to become famous in the world if their original works were in other languages.
• Due to the unpronounceability of some sounds, learning is a lot of difficulty for the Japanese, Chinese, Turks, and most blacks. In Japanese, for example, there is no “r” sound, so they are not physically able to pronounce it. Because of this, they do not hear the difference between the letters "r" and "l".

If you carefully study the history of the Russian language and its features, then such facts can be cited much more. Linguists and scientists are constantly finding interesting relationships between different words and concepts. Fun facts about the peculiarities of colloquial speech and mentality add up to stories and anecdotes told around the world.

Having undergone significant changes and infusions, the Russian language has come down to us in the modern world, and we can observe its metamorphoses every 5-10 years. This is due to the development of electronics and the computerization of the whole world, a change in worldview and beliefs, new trends in political or social reforms. Even 10 years ago, a copywriter was a writer, and bloggers and YouTubers were just taking their first steps in this area. At that time, gender reforms had not yet been carried out in many European countries and disagreements and new formations in speech and concepts did not appear. And social networks like Instagram did not exist. The speech of the modern generation directly depends on the change in the image, pace and rhythm of life in cities, the increase in the amount and volume of information received.

Phonetics and spelling

According to phonetic features, the Russian language belongs to the consonant type, which means the predominance of consonant phonemes over vowels by about 37 to 5. Depending on the combinations, consonant letters are pronounced differently. The graphic system is quite rational, there are 33 letters in the alphabet, and the unit of writing or reading is a syllable or a combination of letters. Spelling has signs of a phonemic type, that is, regardless of pronunciation, the spelling will be dictionary. As for grammar, the Russian language is classified as an inflectional, or synthetic, type. This means that the grammatical load goes mainly to the endings. All nouns are declined according to the main cases and differ greatly on the basis of "animate / inanimate".

The vocabulary of our everyday speech is full of synonyms, homonyms, antonyms, paronyms and other variants of the relationship of words in a sentence with each other. In addition, all concepts are conditionally divided into native and borrowed, which significantly increases the number of errors in their writing and use.

Many phrases eventually disappear from everyday speech (historicisms) or are replaced by concepts from another language or dialectical variants (archaisms). Thus, the overall picture and sound take on a completely different shape.

The sound of the Russian language allows us to call it very melodic. Features of songs and vocal art suggest a certain staging of words and sounds to create harmony. Russian, English and French are recognized as the most "convenient" for songwriting.

Funny Idioms and Spoonerisms

Any language is full of various jokes and idioms that are fully understood only by native speakers. Russian is no exception, where jokes and jokes are an integral part of folklore and everyday communication. No other country in the world has such a number of humorous programs and movements: KVN, Stand-Up, performances by comedians, humorous shows, comedies and much more. Many jokes and anecdotes are connected with the peculiarities of the mentality of Russian people and attempts to explain them to foreigners. A change in intonation, the addition of one letter, the rearrangement of words in places - and the text changes its original meaning dramatically. And adding obscene overtones is the basis for 90% of jokes in Russian.

Just as the composition of everyday words and phrases changes over the years and lifestyle, so humor is filled with new colors, absorbing the features of life, political and historical events, art and music.

Idioms, or untranslatable expressions, are inherent in any language of the world. Among the popular set expressions that cannot be explained to a foreigner, fully conveying its meaning:

• "Hands do not reach to see."
• "It is written with a pitchfork on the water."
• "Wedge with a wedge to knock out."
• "Pour from empty to empty."
• "Like hell from incense" and many others.

The same applies to Russian verbs, which have completely different meanings depending on the context. For example, the verb "sit", familiar to the Russian ear. And how to translate the phrases “a bird is sitting”, “a prisoner is sitting”, “a thought is sitting in the head” - the verb is the same, but the meaning is completely different in each phrase. You can also cite the example of the verb “goes”: when a person goes to work, everything is clear. When is it raining or is there a movie on? Or is it a second year? There are many such examples. That is why many visitors fall in love with the country and the language, absorb the oddities of the mentality and try to understand the Russian language, because learning it is not enough.

Spoonerisms are another direction in the humorous folklore of all languages ​​of the world, when words are partially changed by syllables and get a completely new meaning at the output:

• "Visitors are not awakened" from the original phrase "winners are not judged";
• "Armored scumbag";
• the famous "carriage respected dear"
• "The braid is tongued" and many others.

Most often they are born as a result of reservations, as it was at the dawn of the appearance of the term. The English teacher U.A. Spooner, who often got confused in words and gave out absolutely amazing phrases.

As a conclusion

Only a native speaker can fully understand the meaning of many expressions and explain them, even if a person has lived in the country for many years, he still cannot understand individual words. The words "anadys", "the other day", "hangover", "oblivion" and many others simply have no analogues among most languages. And attempts to explain them to a foreigner most likely will not lead to anything.

The richness of the Russian language lies not only in idioms and untranslatable turns of speech, but also in a variety of emotionally colored adjectives, interjections, and adverbs. In the difference in intonation when pronouncing the phrase (the famous “execution cannot be pardoned”), in the breadth of the Russian soul and the desire to characterize everything around in an ornate way. Synonyms for the word "man": "man", "man", "man" others often have nothing to do with the original version and are highly dependent on context and intonation.

The Russian language is truly rich both literary and emotionally. It provides an opportunity for self-expression through literature and art, writing books and poetry. And its development and filling with borrowed words allows you to expand your horizons and opportunities for creativity. And no matter how Russians talk about their country, politics and situation, everyone proudly speaks their own language and with pleasure emphasizes their belonging to the Russian speakers both at home and abroad.

The history of the Russian language has its roots in distant millennia. And it is not at all surprising that in the past many words that we have long been accustomed to were translated differently or even taken from some other languages. But today people are only surprised at what interesting facts about the Russian language exist.

Words starting with the letter “Y” exist!

Considering unusual facts about the Russian language, I would like to note that the only word (from a multibillion-dollar list) that does not have a root is the verb “take out”. And only three nouns beginning with the letter “a”. These are “az”, “maybe” and “alphabet”. But we are talking about native Russian words - the rest of the nouns are borrowed from foreign languages.

The richness of the Russian language - in synonyms

Common words and their origin

Longest words

Paronyms and homonyms: hell for a foreigner

Many world-famous figures of past years and centuries loved and respected the Russian language, treating it with all respect. Some have studied it specifically and continue to master it in order to write scientific papers, defend presentations and teach. For example, Geoffrey Hosking, a well-known British historian who is a specialist in Russian literature. Or Maurier Abhay (Russian specialist from India), Oliver Bullough (British journalist of our time) and many other figures. And it is impossible not to quote the great words about the Russian language, the author of which is Turgenev: “O great, mighty, truthful and free Russian language.” And, I must say, this love of Ivan Sergeevich can only be surprised. He was sure that the true love of a person for his Motherland is impossible without love for his own language. And the great writer was right.

An insult or an old term?

Obscene expression or church term?

Contrary to popular belief, in Russian there is not one word with three "e" in a row, but two. And there are as many as 74 words starting with the letter “y” in our language. And in the Guinness Book of Records, a word is 35 letters long.

Most words with the letter "F" in Russian are borrowed. Pushkin was proud that in The Tale of Tsar Saltan there was only one word with the letter "f" - the fleet.

There are only 74 words in Russian that begin with the letter Y. But most of us remember only “iodine, yogi” and the city of “Yoshkar-Ola”.

In Russian, there are words for "Y". These are the names of Russian cities and rivers: Ygyatta, Ylymakh, Ynakhsyt, Ynykchansky, Ytyk-kyul.

The only words in Russian with three letters "e" in a row are long-necked (and others on the -neck, for example, crooked, short-) and "zmeeeed".

In Russian, there is a word with a unique prefix for the language, ko- - zakuulok.

The only word in the Russian language that does not have a root is take out. It is believed that in this word the so-called zero root, which is in alternation with the root -im- (take out-im-at). Previously, until about the 17th century, this verb looked like to take out, and it had a material root, the same as in remove, hug, understand (cf. shoot, hug, understand), but subsequently the root -nya- was rethought as a suffix - well- (as in poke, puff).

The only one-syllable adjective in Russian is “evil”.

In Russian, there are words with prefixes unique for the language i-, - total and total and a- - maybe (outdated and eight "and eight will not be lucky"), formed from the unions "and" and "a".

The words "bull" and "bee" have the same root. In the works of ancient Russian literature, the word "bee" was written as "b'chela". The alternation of vowels ъ / ы is explained by the origin of both sounds from the same Indo-European sound U. If we recall the dialect verb to roar, buzz, buzz and is etymologically related to the words bee, insect and bull, it becomes clear what was the common meaning of these words.

Dahl suggested replacing the foreign word "atmosphere" with the Russian "kolozemitsa" or "mirokolitsa".

Until the 14th century in Russia, all indecent words were called "absurd verbs."

In the 1993 Guinness Book of Records, the longest word in the Russian language is called "roentgenoelectrocardiographic", in the 2003 edition "very highly contemplating".

In the Grammar Dictionary of the Russian Language A.A. Zaliznyak of the 2003 edition, the longest (in letters) common noun in the dictionary form is the adjective “private entrepreneurial”. Consists of 25 letters.

The longest verbs are "re-examine", "substantialize" and "internationalize" (all - 24 letters; word forms -within and -with 25 letters each).

The longest nouns are “misanthropy” and “high excellency” (24 letters each; word forms -ami - 26 letters each, however, “misanthropy” is practically not used in plural).

The longest animate nouns are “eleven-grader” and “clerk” (21 letters each, word forms -ami - 23 letters each).

The longest adverb recorded in the dictionary is “unsatisfactory” (19 letters). However, it should be taken into account that the overwhelming majority of quality adjectives ending in -о / -й form adverbs ending in -о / -е, which are by no means always recorded in the dictionary.

The longest interjection included in the Grammar Dictionary is "physical education hello" (15 or 14 letters depending on the status of the hyphen).

The word "respectively" is the longest preposition and the longest conjunction at the same time. It consists of 14 letters. The longest particle "exclusively" is one letter shorter.

There are so-called insufficient verbs in Russian. Sometimes the verb does not have any form, and this is due to the laws of euphony. For example: "win". He wins, you win, I... win? will I run? win? Philologists suggest using replacement constructions “I will win” or “I will become a winner”. Since there is no first person singular form, the verb is deficient.

The English use the mnemonic "Yellow-blue bus" to successfully master the difficult phrase "I love you"

The history of the Russian language has its roots in distant millennia. And it is not at all surprising that in the past many words that we have long been accustomed to were translated differently or even taken from some other languages. But today people are only surprised at what interesting facts about the Russian language exist.

Words starting with the letter “Y” exist!

A small but interesting fact that definitely deserves the attention of a Russian person. The fact that there are no words starting with the letter “Y” is a stereotype. They exist, albeit in small numbers. These are geographical names, such as Ynykchan (village), Ygyatta (river), Yllymakh (village), Ynakhsyt (village) and Ytyk-kuyol (this is the name of the administrative center of the Tattinsky ulus of Yakutia). It is interesting that all these geographical objects are located in Yakutia.

Considering unusual facts about the Russian language, I would like to note that the only word (from a multibillion-dollar list) that does not have a root is the verb “take out”. And only three nouns beginning with the letter “a”. These are “az”, “maybe” and “alphabet”. But we are talking about native Russian words - the rest of the nouns are borrowed from foreign languages.

Common words and their origin

Speaking about interesting facts about the Russian language, it should be noted that the well-known word “negligence” for all of us did not originate at all from “robe”. In fact, it comes from such a word as "halad". That is cold. Thus, if a person talks about something, he means that his opponent is very cool to any business. And the word "doctor" comes from the verb "to lie." However, this did not mean in those days a lie. This verb was translated as “know, speak” in the modern sense. But “friend” is a word that comes from the definition of “other, alien”. Today, on the contrary, people call so only the personalities closest to them, who have become literally relatives. By the way, in almost all Slavic languages, “friend” sounds almost the same. In Czech and Slovak it is druh, in Polish it is drug, even in Lithuanian it is draũgas.

Longest words

Perhaps, if we talk about the most that only exist, then the German language will come to mind first. Indeed, a person who does not know its specifics, looking at some text, may be horrified by the length of some nouns or verbs. However, interesting facts about the Russian language say that we also have very voluminous words. The names of chemical elements can be simply endless. One of the longest such words is “methylpropenylenedihydroxycinnamenacrylic” (used in combination with the noun “acid”). Well, from a theoretical point of view, the length of a Russian word can be unlimited. Take, for example, "great-grandmother." After all, if you consider your family tree, then there can be a lot of prefixes “great-”. Considering such a topic, I would like to pay attention to the word that was registered by the Guinness Book of Records. And this is the definition of "highly contemplative", consisting of 35 letters.

Paronyms and homonyms: hell for a foreigner

In the use of paronymic words, most people whose native language is Russian are confused, which is to say about foreigners, for whom they become a real hell. Addressee and addressee, for example. Almost identical in sound and spelling, but they are absolute antonyms. The addressee is the one who receives the parcel or message, but the addressee is the organization or person who sends the notification or parcel. Similar cases include the words "ignorant" and "ignorant". The last term defines, but the first - the ignorant, uneducated.

What about homonyms? The most popular example is a lock: for keys or as an architectural creation. The word "glass" can mean a leaking liquid or something that is inserted into the window frame. But what if the homonyms are whole sentences? Here everyone will get confused, because sometimes they can be determined by writing (if the meaning could not be caught): “We are on you!” - "We are married"; “Awkward things” - “I carry different things”, etc. The examples listed are also called homophones. Simply put, phonetic ambiguity.

Great quotes

Many world-famous figures of past years and centuries loved and respected the Russian language, treating it with all respect. Some have studied it specifically and continue to master it in order to write scientific papers, defend presentations and teach. For example, Geoffrey Hosking, a well-known British historian who is a specialist in Russian literature. Or Maurier Abhay (Russian specialist from India), Oliver Bullough (British journalist of our time) and many other figures. And it is impossible not to quote the great words about the Russian language, the author of which is Turgenev: “O great, mighty, truthful and free Russian language.” And, I must say, this love of Ivan Sergeevich can only be surprised. He was sure that the true love of a person for his Motherland is impossible without love for his own language. And the great writer was right.

An insult or an old term?

Interesting facts about the Russian language tell us how the word “nonsense” came into use. It has a very interesting history, which goes back to the end of the last century. In France, such a famous doctor as Gali Mathieu worked. He treated his patients with jokes! The doctor became so popular that he served people even by mail, sending them healing puns. So the word “nonsense” appeared, on behalf of the great doctor. Then it was interpreted as a healing joke. But now this word is translated completely differently. Nonsense, nonsense, stupidity, nonsense - these are the synonyms that people pick up as soon as they hear “nonsense”.

The richness of the Russian language - in synonyms

What facts about the Russian language are known to every person? Perhaps one of these is the statement that we have the most synonymous language. And indeed it is. If you ask any Russian person to pick up synonyms for any word, then he, without hesitation, will immediately name at least five. Beautiful - attractive, stunning, luxurious, charming, bewitching ... Lists of synonyms for the words of the Russian language can be selected endlessly.

What else is interesting about the Russian language you should know? Perhaps synonymous phrases. Take, for example, not the most pleasant word - "die". It is one of the richest synonyms! They just don’t replace it with: “give your soul to God”, “leave our mortal world”, “go to the next world”, “play box”, “give oak”, “stretch your legs”, “pass away”. Expressions that are completely different in emotional coloring and sound, but they mean the same thing. And if in the case of common synonyms in foreign languages ​​it is possible to pick up a translation, then it is unlikely that the same Englishmen can say “he stretched out his legs” in relation to the deceased.

Obscene expression or church term?

Unusual facts about the Russian language can tell a lot of interesting things. Many will be surprised, but there is nothing wrong with a word like "dick". That is how one of the letters in the Slavic church alphabet was called, which was designated as “x” in the letter. Strikethrough in the form of a cross was also called this word. And if they crossed out any place in the text, then this process was called the term “fuck”. The word has passed through the centuries, and today it means something completely different. By the way, another interesting point is that the expression “to suffer from bullshit” in Russian is translated as “to suffer from a hernia”. This is because “hernia” is “hernia” (from Latin). Doctors made this diagnosis for those young men who were the children of wealthy philistines and did not want to go into the army. So at the end of the century before last, every fifth Russian conscript "suffered from bullshit." These are very curious facts about the Russian language, having learned which, you can change your attitude to some words and teach others to be literate.

Modern Russian

Interesting facts about the Russian language is an entertaining topic, but a few words must be said about a very global problem of our time. For the sake of justice, it should be noted that today, unfortunately, not all native speakers of the Russian language can competently use certain words in their speech. They insert terms into sentences whose true meaning they do not know, place stresses incorrectly, “swallow” letters or pronounce them indistinctly. And some should think about it, since the excessive (and, most importantly, massive) abuse of such illiteracy can lead to the degradation of the Russian language itself. And this will be a truly global problem.

The Russian language at school can, perhaps, be attributed to one of the most important subjects, ignorance of which can leave a serious imprint on a person's future life. But how to raise the interest of children in him? How to facilitate the perception of such difficult and confusing at first glance rules? This will help the regular issue dedicated to the Russian language. Interesting facts, funny stories of the origin of words, "mistakes" from essays - all this will come to the rescue and make the Russian language truly native for students.

What can a wall newspaper tell about

A school wall newspaper dedicated to the Russian language should become not just a statement of facts, but also a means of communication. Let the students ask questions, leaving them in a special pocket, bring their notes (you can introduce some kind of encouragement for such activity) and participate in competitions.

• Did you know that in Russian there are animate neuter nouns: "child", "animal" and "monster"?
• The only full adjective in Russian that has one syllable is the word "evil".
• The verb "take out" is the only word in our language that does not have a root. It is believed that it is zero here and alternates with -him (take out - take out).

“Any foreigner who claims to be fluent in Russian can be tested. Invite him to translate the following sentence (it’s interesting, but you yourself will understand what it is about?): “I mowed with a scythe with a scythe.” And if a foreigner as a result gives out something like: "A man with a crooked tool cut the grass," then he can really be ranked among the experts on the "great and mighty."

But at the end of these notes, do not forget to ask: “Do you know such interesting facts?” This will stimulate children's interest in reading and create the beginning of communication.

Information about which the wall newspaper can tell

The school wall newspaper can be a collection of amazing facts. Like these for example:

• all obscene words before the 14th century. in Russia they were called "absurd verbs";
• in Russian there is a word consisting of 46 letters - “one thousand nine hundred and eighty-nine millimeters”, and the longest preposition and at the same time the longest union is the word “respectively” consisting of 14 letters;
• and the word "darkness" used to be a numeral, denoting the largest known number - 10 thousand.

No less interesting will be the information for the section "Entertaining Russian language" about nouns with "falling out" vowels. If we incline such words as louse, day, lion, forehead, lie, stump, moat, rye, dream, seam, etc., then not a single vowel will remain in their roots. And since not all words are listed, you can invite readers to supplement this list.

Amazing letter "b"

The history of the 28th letter of the Russian alphabet "ъ" is complex and confusing and can also become the topic of one of the newspaper issues.

In the old days, it meant some very short one, which linguists still argue about. Later, from about the middle of the 12th century, it was used to break words into syllables, and a line into separate words, until the widespread transition to the use of spaces (to God's chosen king) took place.

But even after spaces appeared between the words, the rule remained in Church Slavonic writing: “ъ” is the letter denoting the end of the word. That is, every word in Russian could previously end only in a vowel, y, ь or ъ (pawnshop, address, gastronomy). Imagine, writing this absolutely unnecessary sign took up to 4% of the text!

Now, as a result of the Russian spelling reform carried out in 1917-1918, a new rule has appeared: the unpronounceable "ъ" is a letter that is used only as a separating sign between a consonant and a vowel. It can be found at the junction of a prefix and a root (congress, embrace, corrosive, etc.) or to indicate the iotized pronunciation of vowels in (injection, adjutant, etc.).

But, of course, this is not all that can be said about a solid sign.

Let's talk about suppletives

Interesting facts about the Russian language for a wall newspaper do not have to be collected “from the world by thread”. After all, even a completely scientific phenomenon from the field of linguistics can be surprising and entertaining for the average reader. For example, suppletives.

Each of the native speakers can easily form from any:

• write - wrote
• read - read
• do - did
• sing - sang
• go - ... walked.

It is this “strange” discrepancy between the root of the initial and the derived form that is called the suppletive. The same phenomena occur in the formation of the comparative degree of some adjectives:

• funny - funnier
• smart - smarter
• warm - warmer
• good - ... better or bad - ... worse.

The same can be found in nouns, for example, in the word "man" (its plural is "people", formed from a different root), in the pronoun "I" (its indirect cases are "me", "me", etc. also have a different root).

How a bully appeared in Russia

A school wall newspaper on the topic: “The Russian language and its history” can successfully post interesting facts about the origin of some words. Here is an example of a small note about how the word "hooligan" appeared in Russian.

It's no secret that a bully is a person who allows himself excesses and does not respect the law, but the fact that this word was previously an English surname is probably not known to many.

Yes, yes, at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. in England, in the city of Southwork, there lived a most unpleasant family engaged in banditry and robberies. All of them bore the same surname - Khaligan. And soon became notorious throughout England. And about the head of this robber clan, Patrick Halligan, a mocking song was even composed, which eventually became popular throughout Europe. Caricatures were drawn on Khaliganov, parodies were written, and their surname gradually became a household name, not only in England, but also in Russia, where, however, it has changed somewhat.

Contradictions in the same word

Interesting facts about the Russian language for a wall newspaper can be selected in large quantities. Schoolchildren will certainly be curious to learn about such an amazing phenomenon in the development of our language as enantiosemy - the polarization of the meaning of one word. That is, in one lexical unit, the meanings can contradict, be opposed to each other. Judge for yourself - the well-known word "priceless" contains two concepts at once:

1) something that has no value;

2) something that has a very high price.

And what does a person mean when he says, "I have listened to the lecture"? That he listened attentively to her, or, conversely, that he never heard anything? The verb "listen", as you can see, is an antonym to itself.

How did enantiosemy originate?

Interesting facts about the Russian language for a wall newspaper may also include the history of this phenomenon.

Linguists explain it by the use of the word in various areas, for example, in and in the book language. Something similar happened with the word "dashing". If in ancient Russian manuscripts it had only one meaning: “bad, nasty” (a dashing person), then in common parlance “dashing” also became “bold, daring” (dashing warrior).

The thing is that in ancient times, as dashing people, they most often talked about robbers, capable, as everyone knows, of bold, risky and reckless deeds. This is where the new, opposite meaning of the ancient word originated.

The Russian language is rich in examples of word enantiosemy. You can recall the following of them: borrow (borrow - lend) or probably (for sure, for sure - maybe not exactly).

Facts about how the great Russian language developed can be presented by a wall newspaper both in the form of short notes and as popular science articles.

The newspaper mentioned in the article should be both an exciting read and thought provoking for children of all ages. Interesting facts about the Russian language for a wall newspaper can be found in large numbers in the media, especially now that interest in the native language has risen to a higher level.

But once again I would like to remind you that such a newspaper is not just an informative publication, but also a place for communication. Only in this way will the purely contemplative interest become something more real, leading to a passion for the subject, and perhaps to the disclosure of the talent of a writer, poet or artist. Good luck!