A Sign of the Times

A sign of the times, pronounced "Coffee House"

Russian is an easy language, some of the time.  The words that come from English may have a different look in Cyrillic, but phonetically they’re the same.  TYP is pronounced “tour.”  And if you know that, you might guess that UHTEPHET is “internet.“  It’s not too hard to figure out that OKEAH is “ocean.” 

 A new word, one that I don’t think existed two years ago, is XOYM.  If you know that XAYZ is a house, then you may be ready to guess that XOYM is home.  There’s a perfectly good word for “home” in Russian, but it does have multiple meanings, and “xoym” must be special.

I don’t remember seeing signs two years ago for СМАРТФОНЫ or “smart phones.”  They’re carried by every airline passenger who travels БИЗНЕС-КЛАСС.

The terms cited above have retained their original meaning, but sometimes that is not the case.  There is a well-known group of punk feminists who were sentenced recently to two years in a harsh labor camp.  The group has an English name, but according to a savvy Russian friend of mine, the Russian mass media have not dared to translate the name into Russian.  The group is disliked enough as it is.

Multi-lingual people can find Russian words with familiar roots, such as the French-derived ЭТАЖ, pronounced «etazh,” meaning the floor of a building.  Conversely, the French word “bistro” comes from the Russian word for fast, БЫСТРО, pronounced the same in French and Russian and English.  And some of the letters that are not Roman are Greek.  There are, however, some really unusual ones in Cyrillic. One of my favorites is Я, a backwards R, which happens to be a vowel called "ya."

If you’re ready for a big word that is made up of just two small ones, use your language skills to puzzle out ЖЕЛЕЗНОДОРОЖНЫЙ.  The first three syllables refer to “iron.”  The last three are for “road.”  An “iron road” is a railroad, right? Right!

Actually, I’m playing for some sympathy here.  Once again I’m plowing through my textbook, “Russian – Stage Two.”  I’ve been stalled at Stage Two for a long time.  As pathetic as that sounds, I have to admit that I’m even worse at tennis.  Every time I sign up for lessons, I’m in the beginner class.

A person could go through life without ever having to play tennis.  Most people can go through life without needing to speak Russian. But your life doesn’t always turn out the way you think it will!