Russian borrowings in English

[sharolga]

I'm really very iterested if there are any Russian borrowing in English. Do English people know and use them?

It would be nice if you helped me in my school assignment. Maybe you tick the words from the list that a lot of people know their meanings.
1 Babushka
2 Balalaika
3 Banya
4 Bistro
5 Bolshevik
6 Duma
7 Glasnost
8 Gulag
9 Kasha
10 Kozachok
11 Kremlin
12 Kvass
13 Matryoshka
14 Perestroika
15 Ruble (Rouble)
16 Samovar
17 Shchi
18 Soyuz
19 Sputnik
20 Stalinism
21 Taiga
22 Tovarishch
If you know any other Russian words ordinary people know, please write down.
Thank you for you help.
P.S. I can find Russian borrowings in Wikipedia, but I'd like to find out the real situation.

[svartnik]

muska na ruska
liguska kvakuska
terem tirimok
Sto tu hoches?
Davaj.
zdniom rosdenie
tavarisi koniec
Vodka
Pravda
pravilno
balsoj
horoso
idi suda

Rossiya, svyashchennaya nasha derzhava,Rossiya, lyubimaya nasha strana, moguchaya volya, velikaya slava,tvoyo dostoyanye na vse vremena!

I like Russia.

[BobK]

I'm really very iterested if there are any Russian borrowing in English. Do English people know and use them?
Answers below.

It would be nice if you helped me in my school assignment. Maybe you tick the words from the list that a lot of people know their meanings.
1 Babushka
2 Balalaika And "domra", if that's Russian.
3 Banya
4 Bistro
5 Bolshevik
6 Duma
7 Glasnost
8 Gulag
9 Kasha
10 Kozachok
11 Kremlin
12 Kvass
13 Matryoshka
14 Perestroika
15 Ruble (Rouble)
16 Samovar
17 Shchi
18 Soyuz
19 Sputnik
20 Stalinism (And Leninism, Trotskyism, Marxism...)
21 Taiga
22 Tovarishch
If you know any other Russian words ordinary people know, please write down.
Thank you for you help.
P.S. I can find Russian borrowings in Wikipedia, but I'd like to find out the real situation.

"Commissar" (?); "Tsar/Czar" - which used to be used chiefly in history books, but has had a new lease of life in the sense of 'official government point of contact' - e.g. "Drugs Tsar"; "Intelligentsia" (many users give it a soft 'g'. as if it was borrowed from some other language, but I understand that the 'g' ["H", as in "Horowitz" - who went with the flow when Westerners mispronounced his name] is hard - like our /g/.)

b

[abaka]

To add to the above...

Taiga, tundra, sastrugi < zastrugi, and polynya/polynia are all used as special terms in geography. "Tundra", for the "Arctic desert", is the most common among them, and probably the only one that has become non-technical--at least in Canada, for the obvious reason. The taiga (which covers almost half the country, I imagine) is usually called the "boreal forest".

Troika is common. Vodka.

I've seen raw buckwheat sold as kasha in Edmonton, in the ordinary supermarkets. That surprised me, though! Likewise the spring cake at Easter (the Western one!), kulich. I can't explain these; the stores were Safeways, that's our largest national chain, and they are not at all "ethnic" in any way.

Cossack, not the diminutive "Kozachok".

The Finnish sauna, not "banya".

Katyusha, for the rocket tank-buster, is used sometimes.

Babushka means not grandmother (although in Western Canada, where so many Ukrainians settled, a lot of people would understand the Ukrainian baba in that sense), but the head-scarf.

Kvass is known, but only among gourmands who specialize in E. European cuisine. Schi is very, very rare. "Russian cabbage soup".

Moujik and narodnik were sometimes seen even in the British press 100-150 years ago. I've seen a few "moujiks" in modern historical literature, but the term is mostly forgotten now.

PS. Steppe for the Eurasian grasslands, although the American ones are called "prairies".

[BobK]

Afterthought: I take back the '?' I used after "Matrioshka". This morning I came across this part sentence: "...Pirahã lacks recursion* in the mathematrical, matrioshka-doll sense...'. The word "matrioshka" was not even italicized (often a sign that the editor regards a word as foreign).

And I've been thinking about "Stalinist" etc. I wouldn't really call those borrowings; they're just English adjectives formed from Russian names. Before I realized this, I was about to add "Stakhanovite" (I don't know what this means, but I've met it; I assume there was a man called Stakhanov.)


b

*It doesn't matter - for EFL students - what this means. The quotation just shows that "matrioshka" is used in current English (very current - the source was published in 2008).

[SUDHKAMP]

Rasputin

[BobK]

... Schi is very, very rare. "Russian cabbage soup".

...

Is this related to 'borshch'. That's known in English - at least in London (as there used to be a pseudo-Russian restaurant in Kensington called Borshch and Cheers.

b

[Jaskin]

hello,

recently is known : oligarch
(but it's come from Greek )

Cheers,

[abaka]

Is this related to 'borshch'. That's known in English - at least in London (as there used to be a pseudo-Russian restaurant in Kensington called Borshch and Cheers.

b

Borsch or beet soup is also universally common, but schi is (was?) the national soup, I believe. Schí da kásha píscha násha (strong trochaic rhythm)-- Cabbage soup and buckwheat groats, that's our food.

[BobK]

I was wondering if "-sch-" was some kind of soupy morpheme.

b