Interesting facts about Russian dictionaries. A selection of the most interesting facts about the Russian language

Interesting facts about the Russian language are associated with its rich assortment of expressions and vocabulary. Russian words have been formed over centuries, millennia of Russian history, and its development has been influenced by close communication with foreign countries, and the work of Russian poets and writers.

  1. There are many more letters in the Russian alphabet than in any foreign. For example, here there is a consonant sound Y, a vowel sound Y. It is hard to imagine, but geographical names can begin with these sounds. So, starting with Y, 74 words are written, for example, Yoshkar-Ola. The letter Y “decorates” the beginnings of the names of mainly Bashkir and Tatar geographical names. It is hard to imagine, but among the rivers and cities there are the names of Ygyatta, Ynakhsyt and Ytyk-kuyol. Also, two letters of the Russian language "b" and "b" do not have sounds at all and, in principle, cannot lead the word.

  2. The letter F did not appear in the pre-revolutionary Russian dictionary. Expressions with Ф came to their native element from abroad. A.S. Pushkin was proud of the fact that in his famous "The Tale of Tsar Saltan" there was a single word with the letter F - fleet.

  3. Everyone knows the morphemes of the Russian language, but few people know what there is only one word without a root. This is the word form "take out". In the 19th century, a null-ending verb sounded like "take out" with the root "nya". Later, the word form changed and the suffix "nu" appeared in it.

  4. The Guinness Book mentions the two longest definitions originally from Russia. In 1993, the word expression X-ray electrocardiographic was registered, and 10 years later - highly contemplative.
  5. The longest interjection consisting of 14 letters was revealed in Russia. It is included in all dictionaries and sounds like "physical education hello". The longest particle "exclusively" consists of 13 letters. And the longest adverb sounds like "unsatisfactory" and is written from 19 letters.

  6. It is very difficult for English-speaking citizens to learn Russian. Special problems are caused by unusual pronunciation, lip and tongue positioning. So, to learn the simple phrase “I love you,” teachers suggest repeating “yellow blue bus.”

  7. The imported word "atmosphere" did not immediately find application in our language. The compiler of the explanatory dictionary, V. Dal, suggested pronouncing the kolozemitsa, myrokolitsa in the Russian manner.

  8. The word forms "bull" and "bee" have the same root. The expression bee was printed in ancient Russian sources as bechela. The actions “roar”, “buzz”, “buzz” are immediately recalled, which are related in etymology to a bee, insect and bull.

  9. Incomplete verbs are fixed in Russian speech. For reasons of dissonance, they cannot form 1 person singular. An example of such an action is to win. Philologists advise to express themselves "I will win."

  10. In the Russian language, a word has been identified that consists of only two letters - shchi. But this fact did not prevent him from making a record number of errors. This happened to the German princess Sophia, the future Catherine the Great: she mentioned this dish in her memoirs as "schtschi".

  11. Every language has animate and inanimate nouns. paradox, but the Russian word "dead" answers the question "who?". In turn, the "corpse" answers the question "what?".

  12. In Russian, not only the order of the word expressions matters, but also intonation. For example, the same sentence can be pronounced in the usual, interrogative or imperative form. "Are you at school" would be a statement, and "Are you at school?" - already an interrogative combination.

  13. Two word forms were found in the Russian language, in which three e are written and pronounced in a row. The first such word form sounds like "long-necked". The second expression is "serpent".
  14. Prefixes formed from the unions I and A were revealed in Russian speech. This is the prefix And in “total”, as well as the prefix A in the word “maybe”. Everyone knows the expression "maybe you'll be lucky": so in the old days it sounded like "and eight and you'll be lucky."

  15. In the old days, in tsarist Russia, obscene words already existed: balamoshka (fool), mordophile, mezheumok (average mind), whore (reveler), drag (walking lady). Ugly expressions, or mat, were literally called "absurd verb."

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Suddenly: words bull and bee- single root. Words starting with a letter Y, in our language as many as 74. And in the Guinness Book of Records, a word is recorded with a length of 35 letters.

website never ceases to be amazed at the complexity and richness of the Russian language and presents 20 interesting and unexpected facts that you probably did not know:

  • Most words with a letter F in Russian - borrowed. Pushkin was proud that in The Tale of Tsar Saltan there was only one word with this letter - fleet.
  • There are only 74 words in Russian that begin with the letter Y. But most of us only remember iodine, yoga and Yoshkar-Olu.
  • Russian has words for S. 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 is long-necked(and others on - neck: for example, crooked-, short-).
  • There is a word in Russian with a prefix unique to the language co- - nook and cranny.
  • 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 - them- (take out). Previously, until about the 17th century, this verb looked like take out, and it had a material root, the same as in take off, embrace, understand(cf. take, hug, understand), but subsequently the root - nya- was reinterpreted as a suffix - well- (how in poke, puff).
  • The only one-syllable adjective in Russian is evil.
  • There are words in Russian with prefixes unique to the language and- (total, total) and a- (maybe; obsolete "but no luck") formed from unions and and a.
  • The words bull and bee- single root. In the works of ancient Russian literature, the word bee spelled like bchela. Vowel alternation b / s explained by the origin of both sounds from one Indo-European sound u. If you remember the dialect verb thrash, meaning "roar", "buzz", "buzz" and etymologically related to the words bee, bug and bull, then it becomes clear what was the general meaning of these words.
  • Dahl suggested replacing a foreign word atmosphere into Russian colosemia or mycoholic.
  • 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 X-ray electrocardiographic, in the 2003 edition - highly contemplative.
  • In the Grammar Dictionary of the Russian Language by A. A. Zaliznyak, 2003 edition, the longest (in letters) common noun in the dictionary form is an adjective private enterprise. Consists of 25 letters.
  • The longest verbs - be re-examined, to be substantiveized and internationalize(all - 24 letters; word forms -permanent and -becoming- 25 letters each).
  • The longest nouns - misanthropy and excellency(24 letters each; word forms -ami- 26 letters, however, misanthropy practically not used in the plural. h.).
  • The longest animate nouns are eleventh grader and clerk(by 21 letters, word forms -ami- 23 letters each).
  • The longest adverb in the dictionary is unsatisfactory(19 letters). However, it should be noted that from the vast majority of quality adjectives on th / -th adverbs are formed -about / -e, which are not always fixed by 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).
  • Word respectively is the longest sentence. It consists of 14 letters. The longest particle exclusively- a 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 will win, you win i... win? I will run? victory? Philologists suggest using replacement constructions "I will win" or "I will be the winner". Since there is no 1st person singular form, the verb is "insufficient".
  • The English use the mnemonic "yellow-blue bus" to successfully master the difficult phrase "I love you".

Did you know how many interesting facts about the Russian language exist? Not! Then this article is a must-read for you.

Russian is one of the languages ​​of international communication, especially in the post-Soviet space.

He is poeticized by many writers and has many fans among foreigners who, only at the behest of their hearts, and not because it is necessary, want to study it.

Literate people, of course, know the basic rules of grammar, spelling, punctuation, but few are familiar with them.

But in vain, because it really is much more exciting and interesting than cramming the rules from a textbook.

“The Russian language is an interesting fact in itself”

This is exactly what my teacher of Russian language and literature claimed.

I have never met a teacher more in love with his subject in my entire academic life.

She not only taught us how to write and speak Russian, she literally reveled in its sound.

And her lessons were incredibly exciting and interesting, because she taught them in a non-trivial way, actively used visual aids and constantly told something so interesting that you can’t read in a textbook.

Russian is one of the East Slavic languages.

It is state in the Russian Federation, as well as official in some countries of the former USSR, for example, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, etc.

It is widely distributed in the world (ranks eighth in terms of the number of people who consider it their own).

It is spoken by over 250 million people worldwide.

There are powerful Russian-speaking communities not only in most of the republics of the former USSR, but also in countries that are geographically distant from the Russian Federation: the USA, Turkey, Israel and others.

It is also considered one of the 6 working languages ​​of the United Nations.

In general, there are plenty of reasons to be fluent in Russian (whether it is your native language or not is not so important).

But, alas, it is not easy for foreigners, especially those whose native language is not included in the Slavic group, to master Russian.

It has an interesting alphabet with unique letters, for example, "ъ", words that are spelled and sound completely different, changeable endings, distribution of words by gender, type and case, many rules and exceptions to these rules.

And what distinguishes the Russian language from others is that many interesting facts can be cited about it.

Interesting facts about the letters of the Russian language


Well, it would seem that there is nothing so interesting in the letters, especially in the letters of the Russian language, especially for the countries neighboring the Russian Federation, for whose inhabitants Russian, although not native, is familiar and understandable.

But as it turned out, there are many interesting facts about the letters of the Russian language:

    The letter “f”, familiar and understandable to us today, turns out to have its own peculiarity: most of the words with it are borrowed from others.

    A.S. knew this very well. Pushkin also tried in his "The Tale of Tsar Saltan" to use less such words.

    In addition to the word “fleet”, you will not find another in the “Fairy Tale”.

    How many words can you remember that begin with the letter "y"?

    Well, let the strength of 5-6.

    But it turns out that there are more than 70 such words in the Russian language.

    Do you know words that start with the letter "y"?

    Personally, I don't.

    It turns out that there are such words, although all of them are hard-to-pronounce geographical names, for example, Ynykhsyt or Ytyk-kuel.

    It seems incredible that there can be a word that contains three identical letters in a row.

    But the Russian language distinguished itself here too, because it can boast of the word “long-necked”.

    The letters "i" and "a" can serve as prefixes.

    Do you want examples?

    Please: “total”, “maybe”.

Interesting facts about the words of the Russian language


“If so many interesting facts are known about letters, then there must be an unmeasured amount of them about the words of this wonderful language,” I thought, and turned out to be absolutely right.

Here are some interesting things about the words of the Russian language:

    Monosyllabic words are not uncommon in Russian, but for some reason most adjectives contain two or more syllables.

    The only exception to this rule is "evil".

    You would never have guessed (at least I certainly would not have guessed) that two such different words as “bull” and “bee” have the same root.

    Do you know why?

    Because earlier they said “bchela” to a honey insect, and the sounds that both bulls and bees made were called “bellowing”.

  1. There are quite a lot of words in Russian that have 10 or more letters, and words that have more than 20 letters will not surprise us too much.
  2. Ah, that dreaded word "win" that cannot be used in the first person.

    How many people were forced to blush, mumbling indistinctly “I will win ...”, “I will run ...”, trying to find a way out of the bad situation into which they themselves have driven.

    By the way, this is not the only “insufficient verb” (one that cannot be used in the first person) in Russian.

    If someone wants to correct you, they say, the word "coffee" is masculine, you can safely say to him:

    "Your information is outdated."

    In 2009, the Ministry of Education itself recognized that coffee is of the middle kind.

    Pundits apologized for the mistake that crept in: “coffee” is a derivative of “coffee”, which is actually a masculine gender.


Are you not enough given interesting facts about the Russian language?

So grab a few more:

  1. The alphabet of the Russian language is the Cyrillic alphabet, which was subject to civil modification (I don’t know what this means, but Wikipedia says so☺).
  2. God alone knows why, but until the 14th century, linguists, writers and other literate Russians called all words with a not too decent meaning "ridiculous verbs", even if they were not verbs at all.
  3. We can be proud that in 2003 an interesting fact about the Russian language was included in the Guinness Book of Records.

    The people fixing the records were amazed that we have a word consisting of 35 letters: “highly contemplating”.

    In the Russian Federation, 99.4% of the inhabitants are fluent in Russian.

    True, I think that no one has interviewed labor migrants, of whom there are so many now, but, oh well, this figure is still impressive.

    The Russian language is gradually losing its position as the "official language" in many former Soviet republics due to the fact that it is being replaced by the state language of these countries.

In the video below you will find 12 more interesting facts about the Russian language:

What facts about the Russian language seem interesting to foreigners?

And here are some facts about the Russian language that seem most interesting to foreigners:

    Why are there two letters in the alphabet at all, which do not represent sounds: “b” and “b”.

    “Some kind of absurdity,” many foreigners think.

    Well, how can it be that such a good word as "be" could not exist in the present tense?

    But it feels great in the past and future.

    Well, is it really so difficult to come up with a word for address?

    "Comrade" and "citizen" went out of fashion, "master", "madam" did not take root.

    And "man" and "woman" sound rude.

    What remains? "Hey you"?

    On the one hand, the order of words in sentences is arbitrary, but on the other hand, you cannot rearrange them as you please.

    For example, rearrange the words in a short sentence "I'm going home" and each time you will have a new semantic load.

    To turn an affirmative sentence into an interrogative one, just a question mark at the end and the appropriate intonation is enough.

    No special words or constructions.

Of course, this is not all interesting facts about the Russian language.

There are so many of them that you won’t remember everything, and it’s quite difficult to tell about everything within one article.

What fact do you find most interesting?

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"Only a Russian person can look his beloved in the eyes, admire the eyes of a goddess, spit in the eyes of a neighbor and threaten to gouge out the eyes of an enemy."

The Russian language is one of the most complex and richest languages ​​in the world. It has a long history of its development. However, like Russia itself.

Language is not a random collection of letters and words. He is a system. We see the richness of the Russian language at all its levels, from sounds to complex sentences and entire texts. For example, in Russian, one of the few languages, there is a division of verbs into persons. This is not the case in English and many other languages ​​of the world.

The vocabulary of the Russian language is fraught with enormous wealth. There are many words in it to denote not only feelings or actions, but even their shades.

A SELECTION OF THE MOST INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE

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 this letter - fleet.

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

There are words in Russian in 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-).

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

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, total) and a- (maybe; obsolete. "But you're not lucky"), formed from the unions "i" and "a".

The words bull and bee are the same root. In the works of ancient Russian literature, the word bee was written as bechela. 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, which means “roar”, “buzz”, “buzz” and is etymologically related to the words bee, insect and bull, then it becomes clear what the general meaning of these words was.

Dahl proposed to replace the foreign word atmosphere with the Russian kolozemitsa or myrokolitsa.

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

In the 1993 Guinness Book of Records, X-ray electrocardiographic was named the longest word in the Russian language, in the 2003 edition - highly contemplative.

In the Grammar Dictionary of the Russian Language by 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 to re-examine, to substantiate and to internationalize (all - 24 letters; word forms - and - having been - 25 letters each).

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

The longest animate nouns are the eleventh-grader and the 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 vast majority of quality adjectives ending in -ы / -й form adverbs ending in -о / -е, which are not always recorded in the dictionary.

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

The word is accordingly the longest preposition. It consists of 14 letters. The longest particle is exceptional - 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 1st person singular form, the verb is "insufficient".

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

And yet, yes - in Russian there is a word with six consonants in a row, and even with just one vowel - vzbzdnul.

One of the most complex and multifaceted in the world. It is spoken by a huge number of people in almost all corners of our planet. It is the sixth in terms of the number of speakers and the eighth in terms of the number of native speakers. How much do we know about our mother tongue? I propose to get acquainted with 20 curious facts about him.

Fact 1

In Russian, almost all words where the first letter is "A" are borrowed. There are very few words on "A", which arose with us, in modern use - "AZBUKA", "AZ" and "AVOS".

Fact 2

"X" in the Old Russian alphabet was called "HER". That's where the derivative "FUCK" came from. It meant crossing something with a cross. But over time, it acquired a familiar meaning for us, such as "LOSE" or "SPIT".

Fact 3

In Russian, there are words where there are three "E"s in a row. There are only two of them - exotic "ZMEEED" and "LONG NECK".

Fact 4

In Russia, until the 19th century, all indecent words were called absurd verbs. "Babe" meant beauty and grace, and "absurd" - the opposite of babble, that is, its antonym.

Fact 5

The longest frequently used word in our language has 14 letters. By the way, it is both a union and at the same time. This is "ACCORDINGLY".

Fact 6

English learners of Russian have their own secret for remembering the sentence "I LOVE YOU". They use a similar phrase in their language "YELLOW BLUE BUS", literally translated as "yellow-blue bus".

Fact 7

Our alphabet is rather strange. In it, some letters are similar to Latin ones. But others, although spelled the same, sound completely different. There are also two letters that cannot be pronounced at all, they do not have their own sounds - these are hard and soft signs.

Fact 8

In our language, there are words that have the first letter "Y". Many remember only "YOD", "YOGA", "YOSHKAR-OLA". And there are already 74 of them.

Fact 9

There are words that start with the letter "Y". True, they are used only as the names of cities and rivers located in Russia: YLYMAKH, YNAKHSYT, YTYK-KEEL.

Fact 10

Surprisingly, we have one word where "O" is used as many as seven times. This is DEFENSE.

Fact 11

Russian is currently spoken by 260 million people. On the Internet, it is the second most popular, second only to English.

Fact 12

Since 2009, the Ministry of Education has legalized the admissibility of the use of the word "COFFEE" both in the masculine and in the neuter gender.

Fact 13

The word "BABA" has now become slang. But before it was considered an honor to be. Moreover, this title had to be earned. Baba is a woman who gave birth to a son (namely, a son, not a daughter).

Fact 14

The word "HOOLIGAN" is not of Russian origin at all. It arose on behalf of the English family Huligan, whose members were distinguished by their violent temper.

Fact 15

The letter "Yo" is the youngest in the alphabet. It appeared only in 1873.

Fact 16

It was in Russian that the first words in space were spoken. By whom? Of course, Yuri Gagarin.

Fact 17

In 1993, the Guinness Book of Records recorded the longest word in our native language - this is "X-RAY ELECTROCARDIOGRAPHIC". It has 33 letters.

Fact 18

The human hand is not only an important part of the body. They like to “use” her in many stable expressions in the Russian language: “Wear on hands”, “Hands itch”, “Hand in hand”.

Fact 19

In the Old Slavonic language, "I" was the very first letter of the alphabet.

Fact 20

In the 18th century, the exclamation point was called the point of surprise.

And on this we will put a bold point of surprise. Develop, study (including thanks to) and love your native language!

If you know any other interesting facts, do not be greedy, share them with others in the comments to this article.