Foreign terms to have Russian equivalents

Russia-IC ^ | November 17, 2006 | Olga Pletneva

[eastern]

Russian businessmen and civil servants will soon be prohibited to say “dollar” and use other familiar vocabulary: all foreign financial terms must be replaced with Russian equivalents. Excess of foreign financial terms turned out to make Russian legislators outrage. All legislation in the RF must be held in Russian, but the vast majority of business and financial terms have no analogues in the native language. The terminology problem is getting more and more acute with every passing month, as Russian people are gradually getting familiar with public investments. In keeping with statistics, over half of the population of the country is ready to participate in various financial operations, but details remain complicated for understanding due to linguistic barrier.

The round-table meeting held November 7 and dedicated to linguistic rule-making issues took place in the State Duma. Legislators, financial experts, linguists and interpreters coincided in their opinion that each foreign word had to be accompanied with a Russian one. However, the work should not be confined to scientific efforts only, since civil servants and businessmen are unlikely to abandon habitual words, at the same time people may confuse notions.

[sageb1]

Not good. Not good at all.

[sageb1]

Welcome to FR.

[PGalt]

Interesting. Thanks for posting. Welcome aboard.

[Dallas59]

We're turning into Socialists...and they're turning into evil capitalists....

[Sockdologer]

Will they still be able to say "Duma?" It means "Stupid" in Swedish...

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

But dollar is a foreign word for them. Most Americans know about yen, pounds, and euros.... and ruples.

[FreedomCalls]

Our legal briefs are all filled with Latin words and phrases so nothing new here. Medicine too.

[Herakles]

Regardless of how hard they try, the Russian government keeps muffing it. Go ahead, create your own language, and while your are at it, why not go back to good old days where the only thing you had were lies to fill your stomachs.

This is the equivalent of the child's game "if every one doesn't kiss my butt I'll take my marbles and go home".

[Hoplite]

It's like deja vu, all over again.

[eastern]

If you live in Russia, then you speak Russian and in our language Duma is derived from the verb "dumat'", which means "to think". Besides, there are foreign phrases and words sounding awkwardly in Russian, but nobody's willing to replace, for instance, English "what can I do" with another variant, though in Russian it sounds like "going to find some vodka".

[seppel]

I disagree. Americanization has killed of many local cultures. I personally boycott Starbucks because traditional coffeehouses in Europe have far higher quality coffee and confection but are not used to marketing them. Globalization has killed off many local businesses and languages because of marketing. Slogans and hype with lower quality products behind them. Any move to counter this, such as France’s and now Russia's language laws is a good move.

[EMT]

Unfortunately, one of the reasons of popularity of English language is it simplicity. My native Russian and Japanese (which I am trying to learn) are much more complex but both have more "expressability".

[FDNYRHEROES]

What's the Russian equivalent to "Intelligent design"?

[Aussieteen]

Eerie. I just finished reading 1984. Newspeak, anyone?

[eastern]

there is an official variant of translation for "intelligent design", but I'm not able to give it in Russian, as the system doesn't support the alphabet.

[burzum]

nobody's willing to replace, for instance, English "what can I do" with another variant, though in Russian it sounds like "going to find some vodka".

It's good to find that some words translate correctly!

A friend asks "What can I do?" and then realizes the correct answer is "go find some vodka."

[Centurion2000]

but nobody's willing to replace, for instance, English "what can I do" with another variant, though in Russian it sounds like "going to find some vodka".

"chto ya magu dilet" sounds like going to find some vodka?

[eastern]

I meant the English phrase itself, for instance, in songs. my father doesn't know English and every time when he hears "what can I do" in an English song it sounds like "vodki naydu" meaning "going to find some vodka" in Russian.