Russian

The entire language is based on a set of rules. Unlike English, where there are silent letters, multiples of a word sounds nothing like the original word, and numerous oddities like that; Russian is very accurate to the people that know the rules.

Words are spelled as they are pronounced, and pronounced as they are spelled. Even very complicated words, arising from the communist regime, that signify various events and organizations. USSR, for example: Union of Soviet Socialist Republics(SSSR: Soyuz Sovetskih Socialeticheskih Respublic) . Try to pronounce that in Russian! Hard, you think? Easy. Take it slow.

Many words in the Russian Language can reach up to 15 letters or more! In order to be precise, each word in the Russian language can be broken down into parts, and each part can be analyzed and checked.

Each word consists of a root word. This word is not changed to reflect time, or action or anything like that(each word in the Russian language can do that; there are tenses, actions, and many other things that can change a word). There are also additions to each word, like a prefix, suffix, spryazheniya(which means changed by the acting word, like: for whom, with whom, etc...), tense, and a bunch of others. Most of these fall into the prefix/suffix categories.

When I say that each part of a word can be checked I mean that it can be attached to a different word, or the root word can be changed to reflect a different tense or spryazheniye (read: declension or conjugation). Depending on the spelling of the word, it can be apparent if this is correct or not when you try to pronounce the new version of the word. If the spelling is incorrect, it will make no sense.

A lot of the time, there is a very subtle difference between the pronunciation of the 'o' sound and the 'a' sound. Using the technique described above, this can be checked and corrected.

In short, I believe that English does surpass Russian in its ease of use, but it fails pitifully to precision, beauty, conciseness, and the descriptive capacity of the Russian language.

The reason for the language not being the same when it is spoken as it it being written is because the basic nature of all people if lazyness. People tend to swallow vowels, and so on. This effect if very uncommon in the educated community. There are slight variations to the pronuciation, but that is usually due to differences in local dialects, and various accents.






Thank you, izubachi.

In today's daydream we are in your Grandmother's St Petersburg.
You speak Russian to me, and I understand.
Words, rich and heady as spiced vodka
fill mouths stained purple with borscht;
we swill them around
and breathe them out in gusts,
ghosts dancing in the cold
air between us.

I have built the extravagant domes Pasternak-perfect
just as you described them when you retold Baba's
stories, wrapped around me on our first sofa.
Glittering bubbles of red and gold, they float
into white sky to give it colour.

And beneath, on ground as white as the sky,
there we are, brown and bulky,
with fur heavy on our backs, in feathered rims
about our faces, and lining the suede boots
that we stamp into the silencing snow.

You turn to me, the word
my alternate recognises as love
curling steamily from your mouth with
always twining into it, next breath.
Then your face shifts, twists,
as it did in yesterday in Miami,
last week, beside Lake Como.
Greyed with regret, your lips begin
to say something like but.

I erase the snow, the ice domes
the pines. My ears close out
the last strains of a balalaika.
I remind myself that I do not
speak Russian, and that it is,
after all, an ugly language.
I refuse to understand it.

New dreams tomorrow.

Rus"sian

A native or inhabitant of Russia; the language of Russia.

Russian bath. See under Bath.

Russian roulette -- an act of bravado played by loading one bullet into one chamber of a revolver in which the cylinder has five or six positions, spinning the cylinder (thus moving the bullet randomly to one of the six positions of the cylinder), pointing the gun to one's head, and pulling the trigger. If the bullet is in firing position, the "player" is usually killed. Such a "game" may be played on a dare, or, in some places, as part of a gamble.

2. (Fig.) Any dangerous act resembling Russian roulette in the acceptance of a high risk of serious negative consequences, usually unnecessarily.

© Webster 1913.