Copperfox
Well-known member
Now that Vlad Putin's Russia is throwing its weight around more, it's time for some U.S. residents to notice that Spanish is NOT the only European-rooted language that might be of importance. As I am trained in Russian, I can offer some illustrations of the Russian language's intriguing special features (really found in multiple Slavic tongues, but I haven't learned Ukrainian, Polish or Bulgarian).
In all foreign-language study, it is useful to _avoid_ mental shortcuts with definitions, shortcuts which actually _hinder_ understanding. For instance, when high-school Spanish teachers introduce the phrase "me gusta such-and-such," they almost always cheat and _say_ that this means "I like such-and-such." But what it strictly means is "Such-and-such IS PLEASING TO ME."
As for the complexities of Russian, let me begin by just hinting at something that would take many classroom sessions to explain sufficiently. The Russians do something called "declining nouns;" this is also done in Latin, which may explain why the Roman Empire finally fell. To decline a noun means to change its form according to the grammatical role it is playing in a sentence.
We have a _little_ bit of declension in English, just with pronouns. When we say, "I like him, but he doesn't like me," the pronouns are declined according to which is the subject in its clause and which is the object. But in Russian, they decline the nouns, and even the accompanying adjectives.
I will not yet write any actual Russian words, because I am now more concerned to clarify the _concept_ of declension. So we'll pretend that _English_ contains declensions like those in Russian. Let's leave a noun or name unchanged if it is the _subject_ of the sentence, but put the suffix "-HA" at the end of it if it is an object _receiving_ action, use the suffix "-UM" if the thing referred to is the MEANS OF doing something, or use the suffix "-KO" if something belongs to or comes out of something else. If we "decline" in this way, then see how sentences are affected:
"Bill broke the window with a hammer" becomes "Bill broke the window-HA hammer-UM." (Note that the word "with" drops out of the declined version, because the declensional suffix _carries_ the meaning that we would express by the "with." In the other examples, you will see the word "of" likewise becoming unnecessary.)
"A piece of glass hit Bill, and we had to pull it out of his face" becomes "A piece glass-KO hit Bill-HA, and we had to pull it-HA out his face-KO."
"When Bill came out of the hospital, we doused him with buckets of champagne" becomes "When Bill came out the hospital-KO, we doused him-HA buckets-UM champagne-KO."
In all foreign-language study, it is useful to _avoid_ mental shortcuts with definitions, shortcuts which actually _hinder_ understanding. For instance, when high-school Spanish teachers introduce the phrase "me gusta such-and-such," they almost always cheat and _say_ that this means "I like such-and-such." But what it strictly means is "Such-and-such IS PLEASING TO ME."
As for the complexities of Russian, let me begin by just hinting at something that would take many classroom sessions to explain sufficiently. The Russians do something called "declining nouns;" this is also done in Latin, which may explain why the Roman Empire finally fell. To decline a noun means to change its form according to the grammatical role it is playing in a sentence.
We have a _little_ bit of declension in English, just with pronouns. When we say, "I like him, but he doesn't like me," the pronouns are declined according to which is the subject in its clause and which is the object. But in Russian, they decline the nouns, and even the accompanying adjectives.
I will not yet write any actual Russian words, because I am now more concerned to clarify the _concept_ of declension. So we'll pretend that _English_ contains declensions like those in Russian. Let's leave a noun or name unchanged if it is the _subject_ of the sentence, but put the suffix "-HA" at the end of it if it is an object _receiving_ action, use the suffix "-UM" if the thing referred to is the MEANS OF doing something, or use the suffix "-KO" if something belongs to or comes out of something else. If we "decline" in this way, then see how sentences are affected:
"Bill broke the window with a hammer" becomes "Bill broke the window-HA hammer-UM." (Note that the word "with" drops out of the declined version, because the declensional suffix _carries_ the meaning that we would express by the "with." In the other examples, you will see the word "of" likewise becoming unnecessary.)
"A piece of glass hit Bill, and we had to pull it out of his face" becomes "A piece glass-KO hit Bill-HA, and we had to pull it-HA out his face-KO."
"When Bill came out of the hospital, we doused him with buckets of champagne" becomes "When Bill came out the hospital-KO, we doused him-HA buckets-UM champagne-KO."
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